Details

Subject(s)

• Labor unions—United States [Browse]

Summary note

In this new edition the author shows why unions still matter. Unions mean better pay, benefits, and working conditions for their members; they force employers to treat employees with dignity and respect; and at their best, they provide a way for workers to make society both more democratic and egalitarian. The author uses both data, and examples to show why workers need unions, how unions are formed, how they operate, how collective bargaining works, the role of unions in politics, and what unions have done to bring workers together across the divides of race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. The new edition not only updates the first, but also examines the record of the New Voice slate that took control of the AFL-CIO in 1995, the continuing decline in union membership and density, the Change to Win split in 2005, the growing importance of immigrant workers, the rise of worker centers, the impacts of and labor responses to globalization, and the need for labor to have an independent political voice, and the Employee Free Choice Act.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• Why unions? Strength in numbers ; The first U.S. unions ; Do unions work? ; Unions and dignity.
• How Unions Form. A little history ; How unions form ; Successful union organizing ; With the California Nurses' Association in Texas.
• Union Structures and Democracy. Locals and internationals ; Union structure and the law ; An example of union democracy ; A local union meeting.
• Collective Bargaining. The IWW's case against collective bargaining ; Strategies of the contract campaign ; Bargaining in wartime ; At the table ; The agreement ; Politics and collective bargaining.
• Unions and Politics. Why U.S. labor politics are different ; Labor politics in the 1930s ; Labor politics today ; The Missouri victory against right-to-work ; Workers of the world suppressed ; The American Institute for Free Labor Development ; The time is ripe ; The Employee Free Choice Act.
• Race, Gender, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation. Unions and race ; The United Packinghouse Workers ; The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters ; Unions and women ; Women in struggle ; The intersection of race and gender ; Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual workers ; What collective bargaining has won ; Politics of liberation.
• Immigrant Workers. A nation of immigrants ; The United Farm Workers Union ; The Immokalee Farm Workers' take on the fast food companies.
• The Tasks Ahead. The difficulties labor faces ; Labor's decline: external forces ; Labor's decline: internal forces ; The "new voice" ; An international labor movement ; Still to come.

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ISBN

• 9781583671900 (pbk.)
• 1583671900 (pbk.)
• 9781583671917 (cloth)
• 1583671919 (cloth)

LCCN

^^2008054520

OCLC

276816793

RCP

H - O

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