Trade Unions and the Betrayal of the Unemployed

Trade Unions and the Betrayal of the Unemployed
Author: Immanuel Ness
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2021-12-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317733002

This book examines the problematic relationship between unions and the unemployed in New York City during the 1990's. Historically, trade unions in the U.S. have had an interest in the political mobilization of the jobless to expand unemployment insurance and lessen the threat of lower wages, reduced union density, and weaker bargaining positions for unions. Despite these advantages, trade unions have rarely organized the unemployed, because they represent a potential threat to the organizational control, leadership, and legitimacy of the trade unions themselves. Moreover, the interests of the unemployed conflict directly with those of the securely employed trade unionist. The study identifies union responses to unemployment at local and regional levels and the responses of independent activist organizations. The research suggests that hiring hall unions produce exclusive organizing strategies that have deeper accountability to their members, but with organizing objectives that serve only the narrow interests of core members. By contrast, workplace-based unions typically engender class-oriented unions with narrow accountability to members, but with organizing objectives that extend beyond their immediate members.

Organizing Matters

Organizing Matters
Author: Guy Mundlak
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2020-05-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1839104031

Organizing Matters demonstrates the interplay between two distinct logics of labour’s collective action: on the one hand, workers coming together, usually at their place of work, entrusting the union to represent their interests and, on the other hand, social bargaining in which the trade union constructs labour’s interests from the top down. The book investigates the tensions and potential complementarities between the two logics through the combination of a strong theoretical framework and an extensive qualitative case study of trade union organizing and recruitment in four countries – Austria, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands. These countries still utilize social-wide bargaining but find it necessary to draw and develop strategies transposed from Anglo-American countries in response to continuously declining membership.

Organizing the Unemployed

Organizing the Unemployed
Author: James J. Lorence
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 432
Release: 1996-07-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1438411251

Focusing on Michigan during the Great Depression, this book highlights the efforts of community organizers and activists in the United Automobile Workers (UAW) to mobilize the jobless for mass action. In doing so, it demonstrates the relationship between unemployed activism and the rise of industrial unionism. Moreover, by discussing Communist and Socialist initiatives on behalf of displaced workers, the book illuminates the impact of radicalism on social change and shows how political claims influenced the cultural discourse of the 1930s. The book not only helps fill a void in our knowledge of community activism, worker culture, and labor history in the 1930s but also sheds light on the New Deal's domestication of American labor and the channeling of mass protest toward politically and socially acceptable goals. The UAW acceptance of responsibility for the underclass of the 1930s raises pertinent questions for labor in the 1990s.

Trade Unions in China

Trade Unions in China
Author: Tim Pringle
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2011-03-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136826572

This book focuses on how the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) is reforming under current conditions, and demonstrates that labour unrest is the principal driving force behind trade union reform in China.

Immigrants Unions & The New Us Labor Mkt

Immigrants Unions & The New Us Labor Mkt
Author: Immanuel Ness
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2005-06-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1592130410

In recent years, New Yorkers have been surprised to see workers they had taken for granted—Mexicans in greengroceries, West African supermarket deliverymen and South Asian limousine drivers—striking, picketing, and seeking support for better working conditions. Suddenly, businesses in New York and the nation had changed and were now dependent upon low-paid immigrants to fill the entry-level jobs that few native-born Americans would take. Immigrants, Unions, and the New U.S. Labor Market tells the story of these workers' struggle for living wages, humane working conditions, and the respect due to all people. It describes how they found the courage to organize labor actions at a time when most laborers have become quiescent and while most labor unions were ignoring them. Showing how unions can learn from the example of these laborers, and demonstrating the importance of solidarity beyond the workplace, Immanuel Ness offers a telling look into the lives of some of America's newest immigrants.