The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements - Softcover

Clawson, Dan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801488702 ISBN 13: 9780801488702

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2003

Synopsis

The U.S. labor movement may be on the verge of massive growth, according to Dan Clawson. He argues that unions don't grow slowly and incrementally, but rather in bursts. Even if the AFL-CIO could organize twice as many members per year as it now does, it would take thirty years to return to the levels of union membership that existed when Ronald Reagan was elected president. In contrast, labor membership more than quadrupled in the years from 1934 to 1945. For there to be a new upsurge, Clawson asserts, labor must fuse with social movements concerned with race, gender, and global justice.

The new forms may create a labor movement that breaks down the boundaries between "union" and "community" or between work and family issues. Clawson finds that this is already happening in some parts of the labor movement: labor has endorsed global justice and opposed war in Iraq, student activists combat sweatshops, unions struggle for immigrant rights. Innovative campaigns of this sort, Clawson shows, create new strategies―determined by workers rather than union organizers―that redefine the very meaning of the labor movement. The Next Upsurge presents a range of examples from attempts to replace "macho" unions with more feminist models to campaigns linking labor and community issues and attempts to establish cross-border solidarity and a living wage.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

"Clawson’s vision of a new labor movement infused with the dynamic strategies and broad agendas of the new social movements is not only persuasive, it is necessary if we ever want to create a decent world for those who must work for a living. A powerful book by one of labor’s smartest and most enthusiastic champions."—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

"Dan Clawson doesn’t tell unions and other workers’ organizations what to do; he looks at what they are doing and what seems to be working best. The result is not only an exciting read, but a powerful argument for a more feminist and ethnically aware approach to organizing."—Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

"This thoughtful and bracing book examines a host of new initiatives that link labor organizing to communities, students, minorities, and women. Clawson argues that these experiments may show us the path to a new upsurge from below in which a revived labor movement would play a central role. We should all hope so, not only for the sake of a revived labor movement, but alsofor the sake of a revived American democracy."—Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York

"C. Wright Mills once hoped that the agenda-setting contributions of ‘a brace of labor intellectuals’ would help the unions move ‘upstream against the main drift.’ Dan Clawson is just that kind of activist-scholar, whose commitment, insight,and imaginative connectivity are all on wonderful display in The Next Upsurge. His remarkable understanding of labor history, management tactics, and social movement dynamics will advance the kind of informed debate essential to the reconstruction of the American trade unions and the fusion between those institutions and new forms of 21st-century social protest."—Nelson Lichtenstein, author of State of the Union: A Century of American Labor

"Relentlessly optimistic, yet judicious and rooted in careful research on recent developments in labor and other progressive movements, Clawson's highly readable book makes a compelling case for the potential resurgence of unionism. The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements is a must read for anyone who cares about the future of labor and social justice."—Ruth Milkman, UCLA, Director of the UC Institute for Labor and Employment

About the Author

Dan Clawson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts. His books include Money Talks: Corporate PACs and Political Influence (coauthored with Alan Neustadtl and Denise Scott) and Dollars and Votes: How Corporate Campaign Contributions Subvert Democracy (coauthored with Alan Neustadtl and Mark Weller).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0801488702
• ISBN 13: 9780801488702
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256