Reorganizing the Rust Belt: An Inside Study of the American Labor Movement - Hardcover

Lopez, Steve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520232801 ISBN 13: 9780520232808

Verlag: University of California Press, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

This gripping insider's look at the contemporary American trade union movement shows that reports of organized labor's death are premature. In this eloquent and erudite narrative, Steven Henry Lopez demonstrates how, despite a hostile legal environment and the punitive anti-unionism of U.S. employers, a few unions have organized hundreds of thousands of low-wage service workers in the past few years. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been at the forefront of this effort, in the process pioneering innovative strategies of grassroots mobilization and protest. In a powerful ethnography that captures the voices of those involved in SEIU nursing-home organizing in western Pennsylvania, Lopez illustrates how post-industrial, low-wage workers are providing the backbone for a reinvigorated labor movement across the country.

Reorganizing the Rust Belt argues that the key to the success of social movement unionism lies in its ability to confront a series of dilemmas rooted in the history of American labor relations. Lopez shows how the union's ability to devise creative solutions—rather than the adoption of specific tactics—makes the difference between success and failure.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Steven Henry Lopez is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Ohio State University.

Aus dem Klappentext

"Based on his immersion in heated campaigns, Lopez analyzes just how difficult organizing for today's trade unions can be. Still the Sisyphean effort goes on, led by unions, such as SEIU, which notch up victories despite the uphill struggle. Lopez's participant observation is a model of clarity, theoretical imagination and methodological innovation. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand why unions are so weak in the US, and how they could become stronger."—Michael Burawoy, President of the American Sociological Association

"Lopez's beautifully written, lucid analysis of the new labor movement bristles with insights. This rare insider's account of contemporary organizing consistently avoids the easy answers and relentlessly confronts the limitations of union achievements, even as he appreciates their transformative potential."—Ruth Milkman, Director, UC Institute for Labor and Employment and author of Farewell to the Factory

"Reorganizing the Rust Belt is the best ethnography around of what it's like, day-to-day, to be inside an organizing campaign and contract mobilization. Lopez brings to life the limits and problems, the changes over time, the victories and ambiguities, experienced by workers and organizers in a progressive union."—Dan Clawson, author of The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of California Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0520232801
• ISBN 13: 9780520232808
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 314
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar