How a Blog Held Off the Most Powerful Union in America

How a Blog Held Off the Most Powerful Union in America
Author: Paul F. Levy
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-04-16
Genre:
ISBN: 9781482730777

The decline in private sector unions in America is well documented, but some unions have bucked this trend, most notably the 2.1 million member Service Employees International Union. Its former president liked to say: "We use the power of persuasion first. If it doesn't work, we try the persuasion of power." The targets of SEIU's corporate campaigns find themselves on the defensive and, tied to traditional public responses, are often flummoxed by the intensity and thoroughness of the SEIU's efforts. There is, however, a new arrow in the quiver that can be used by firms that are being attacked in a corporate campaign. Social media offers an effective remedy, if used early, thoughtfully, and decisively. This book tells the story of one such counter-campaign, a story of how a blog held off the most powerful union in America. With a foreword by Professor David P. Boyd, D'Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University "What a fascinating story! This is a powerful lesson in winning a battle of perception with the modern tools of transparency and internet speed." Roni Zeiger MD, CEO Smart Patients "Corporate campaigns by unions seek to bypass secret ballot elections that are provided for workers under current law. It was the genius of Paul Levy to capitalize on that anti-democratic deficiency in the union's approach by shining the full light of exposure on this tactic. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said that "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants" and Paul's use of social media and his blog was just the disinfectant needed to show a curious public that SEIU's campaign against Beth Israel Deaconess was no public service, but a frequently outrageous effort at self-promotion and union organizing without having to do the actual hard work of persuading employees to vote that a union was truly in the workers' interest." Kenneth C. Robbins, JD, President, Illinois Hospital Association (1983-2009) "Paul Levy, an innovative, caring, thoughtful, and strategic hospital CEO, writes convincingly how he used a blog, a low cost vehicle, to help counter a well-financed union corporate campaign that sought a neutrality agreement and card check. This fascinating story deserves to be read, it offers lots of insights and useful lessons." Fred K. Foulkes, Professor of Organizational Behavior, Boston University "Just as we have seen Arab Spring erupt from chaos because of the use of new forms of social media, and Ai Weiwei thwart the Chinese government with his use of the internet to spread his freedom message, Paul Levy's effective use of the blogosphere to frame and advance his side of a union-management conflict illustrates how leaders can use social media effectively in a modern era of health care and business. "Levy artfully tells the story of getting his hospital's message out without having a war chest to spend on public relations. His persistent and effective use of social media evened the playing field and allowed him to keep diverse audiences informed and engaged." Harris A. Berman, M.D., Boston

Legendary Locals of Newton

Legendary Locals of Newton
Author: Gail Spector
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2015
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 146710146X

Newton has more than enough legendary locals to fill volumes of books. Endless are the stories about men, women, and young people who dedicated, or still dedicate, countless hours of their lives in order to make Newton and the world a better place. Newton has been a launching ground for award-winning authors, Nobel Prize winners, Olympic medalists, and Hollywood stars. Some of Boston's best athletes have chosen to make "the Garden City" their home. In the pages of this book, readers will learn about Newton's first mayor, James Hyde, who never lost an election in more than 50 times on the ballot; Rev. Edmond Kelley, the first pastor at Myrtle Baptist Church and a former slave; Leonard Zakim, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League who dedicated his life to fighting prejudice and civil rights violations; Louise Bruyn, who walked from Newton to Washington, DC, to protest the Vietnam War; Shirley Lewis, known as the "regal queen of the blues"; and Ted Williams, regarded as baseball's greatest hitter, who lived in Newton Upper Falls.

Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619-1981

Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619-1981
Author: Philip S. Foner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2018-01-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781608467877

In this classic account, historian Philip Foner traces the radical history of Black workers' contribution to the American labor movement.

Beyond the Fields

Beyond the Fields
Author: Randy Shaw
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0520268040

Much has been written about Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers' heyday in the 1960s and '70s, but the story of their profound, ongoing influence on 21st century social justice movements has until now been left untold. This book unearths this legacy.

The Way Out

The Way Out
Author: Peter T. Coleman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 453
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0231552157

The partisan divide in the United States has widened to a chasm. Legislators vote along party lines and rarely cross the aisle. Political polarization is personal, too—and it is making us miserable. Surveys show that Americans have become more fearful and hateful of supporters of the opposing political party and imagine that they hold much more extreme views than they actually do. We have cordoned ourselves off: we prefer to date and marry those with similar opinions and are less willing to spend time with people on the other side. How can we loosen the grip of this toxic polarization and start working on our most pressing problems? The Way Out offers an escape from this morass. The social psychologist Peter T. Coleman explores how conflict resolution and complexity science provide guidance for dealing with seemingly intractable political differences. Deploying the concept of attractors in dynamical systems, he explains why we are stuck in this rut as well as the unexpected ways that deeply rooted oppositions can and do change. Coleman meticulously details principles and practices for navigating and healing the difficult divides in our homes, workplaces, and communities, blending compelling personal accounts from his years of working on entrenched conflicts with lessons from leading-edge research. The Way Out is a vital and timely guide to breaking free from the cycle of mutual contempt in order to better our lives, relationships, and country.

Blog Theory

Blog Theory
Author: Jodi Dean
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 143
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745659551

Blog Theory offers a critical theory of contemporary media. Furthering her account of communicative capitalism, Jodi Dean explores the ways new media practices like blogging and texting capture their users in intensive networks of enjoyment, production, and surveillance. Her wide-ranging and theoretically rich analysis extends from her personal experiences as a blogger, through media histories, to newly emerging social network platforms and applications. Set against the background of the economic crisis wrought by neoliberalism, the book engages with recent work in contemporary media theory as well as with thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Jean Baudrillard, Guy Debord, Jacques Lacan, and Slavoj ?i?ek. Through these engagements, Dean defends the provocative thesis that reflexivity in complex networks is best understood via the psychoanalytic notion of the drives. She contends, moreover, that reading networks in terms of the drives enables us to grasp their real, human dimension, that is, the feelings and affects that embed us in the system. In remarkably clear and lucid prose, Dean links seemingly trivial and transitory updates from the new mass culture of the internet to more fundamental changes in subjectivity and politics. Everyday communicative exchangesÑfrom blog posts to text messagesÑhave widespread effects, effects that not only undermine capacities for democracy but also entrap us in circuits of domination.

Murder in the Garment District

Murder in the Garment District
Author: David Witwer
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1620974649

The thrilling and true account of racketeering and union corruption in mid-century New York, when unions and the mob were locked in a power struggle that reverberates to this day In 1949, in New York City's crowded Garment District, a union organizer named William Lurye was stabbed to death by a mob assassin. Through the lens of this murder case, prize-winning authors David Witwer and Catherine Rios explore American labor history at its critical turning point, drawing on FBI case files and the private papers of investigative journalists who first broke the story. A narrative that originates in the garment industry of mid-century New York, which produced over 80 percent of the nation's dresses at the time, Murder in the Garment District quickly moves to a national stage, where congressional anti-corruption hearings gripped the nation and forever tainted the reputation of American unions. Replete with elements of a true-crime thriller, Murder in the Garment District includes a riveting cast of characters, from wheeling and dealing union president David Dubinsky to the notorious gangster Abe Chait and the crusading Robert F. Kennedy, whose public duel with Jimmy Hoffa became front-page news. Deeply researched and grounded in the street-level events that put people's lives and livelihoods at stake, Murder in the Garment District is destined to become a classic work of history—one that also explains the current troubled state of unions in America.

The Union of Their Dreams

The Union of Their Dreams
Author: Miriam Pawel
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2010-10-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1608190994

Named one of the Best Books of 2009 by the San Francisco Chronicle A Los Angeles Times Notable Book

Work's Intimacy

Work's Intimacy
Author: Melissa Gregg
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2013-04-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745637469

This book provides a long-overdue account of online technology and its impact on the work and lifestyles of professional employees. It moves between the offices and homes of workers in the knew "knowledge" economy to provide intimate insight into the personal, family, and wider social tensions emerging in today’s rapidly changing work environment. Drawing on her extensive research, Gregg shows that new media technologies encourage and exacerbate an older tendency among salaried professionals to put work at the heart of daily concerns, often at the expense of other sources of intimacy and fulfillment. New media technologies from mobile phones to laptops and tablet computers, have been marketed as devices that give us the freedom to work where we want, when we want, but little attention has been paid to the consequences of this shift, which has seen work move out of the office and into cafés, trains, living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms. This professional "presence bleed" leads to work concerns impinging on the personal lives of employees in new and unforseen ways. This groundbreaking book explores how aspiring and established professionals each try to cope with the unprecedented intimacy of technologically-mediated work, and how its seductions seem poised to triumph over the few remaining relationships that may stand in its way.