Hard Work : Remaking the American Labor Movement

This concise overview of the labor movement in the United States focuses on why American workers have failed to develop the powerful unions that exist in other industrialized countries. Packed with valuable analysis and information, Hard Work explores historical perspectives, examines social and political policies, and brings us inside today's unions, providing an excellent introduction to labor in America. Hard Work begins with a comparison of the very different conditions that prevail for labor in the United States and in Europe. What emerges is a picture of an American labor movement forced to operate on terrain shaped by powerful corporations, a weak state, and an inhospitable judicial system. What also emerges is a picture of an American worker that has virtually disappeared from the American social imagination. Recently, however, the authors find that a new kind of unionism-one that more closely resembles a social movement-has begun to develop from the shell of the old labor movement. Looking at the cities of Los Angeles and Las Vegas they point to new practices that are being developed by innovative unions to fight corporate domination, practices that may well signal a revival of unionism and the emergence of a new social imagination in the United States. Illustrations: 5 tables Why Labor Matters: The Underside Of The American Model -- An Exceptionally Hostile Terrain -- Bureaucrats, Strongmen, Militants, And Intellectuals -- Practices And Possibilities Of Social Movement Unionism -- Two Futures. Rick Fantasia, Kim Voss. Revised And Enlarged Edition Of Des Syndicats Domestiqués, Which Was Originally Written In English, Then Translated Into French And Published In Paris By Raisons D'agir, 2003. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 177-228) And Index. ILLUSTRATIONS......Page 10 PREFACE......Page 12 1 Why Labor Matters: The Underside of the “American Model”......Page 18 2 An Exceptionally Hostile Terrain......Page 51 3 Bureaucrats, “Strongmen,” Militants, and Intellectuals......Page 95 4 Practices and Possibilities of a Social Movement Unionism......Page 137 5 Two Futures......Page 177 NOTES......Page 194 WORKS CITED......Page 228 INDEX......Page 246 This concise overview of the labour movement in the US focuses on why American workers have failed to develop powerful unions that exist in other industrialised countries. In the American popular imagination and in the mainstream press, the United States is presented as being superior to Western Europe in almost every way.