Lowell Turner, Harry Charles Katz, and Richard W. Hurd. Rekindling the Movement: Labor's Quest for Relevance in the Twenty-First Century. Ithaca: ILR Press, 2001.

Turner and Hurd “Building Social movement Unionism: The Transformation of the American Labor Movement” p. 9-26

1. Driving revitalization is two factors:
1. veterans of 1960s social movements in leadership
2. new generation of campus and workplace activists
2. Strategies for Revitalization
1. organizing the unorganized, grassroots political action, coalition building, labor-management partnership, union mergers, internal restructuring, international solidarity
2. most based on rank and file mobilization
3. find other groups to support campaigns
4. may require a broader society-wide movement upsurge, not just movement unionism
3. Organizational change
1. 1930s movement --> 1970s service --> ‘90s/2000s movement again?
2. lost political power (and labor law reforms) because could not mobilize
3. larger, BROADER societal movement can break down obstacles more easily than just movement unionism can
4. US unionism missed the revitalizing aspects of 1960s movements, why?
1. unions became increasingly narrow, member-oriented organizations, thus lost broader social justice outlook
2. anticommunism
3. missed movements (not always entirely missed):
1. Civil Rights
1. supported legislation
2. but many skilled jobs excluded minorities
3. leaders kept status quo, didn’t force in minorities so as to not lose support of current members
2. women’s movement
1. not interested in organizing clerical workers
2. authors say some, conservative leaders had desire to quell ‘women’s liberation’
3. anti-war
1. anti-communist stance meant pro-war
2. labor foreign policy funding came from State Dept, demanded anti-Red stance
3. construction workers beating up anti-war kids
4. my idea:  a few generational differences?
5. young activists came to see unions as obstacles, not allies
4. environmental movement
1. thought this = attacks on union jobs
4. as movements focused on government policy, unions able to cordon themselves off from movements, insulate
5. one counter-example is public sector, where there was great union growth
6. but now people who cut their teeth in social movements are back to help unions
1. BUT WHY? if they were so alienated by unions, as suggested by authors above
5. Democratic friends in Congress as a vestige of business unionism! interesting idea
6. unions shift resources into organizing
7. social movements once changed workplace institutions (1930s)
1. hope is the same thing can happen again, change institutions that are hurting workers...
2. which in turn will revitalize the labor movement
3. and will also combat inequality (social and economic)
8. lit they draw on
1. strategic choice lit:  1980s anti-unionism was possible because unions were so weak (Kochan, Katz, McKersie 1986)
2. new institutionalism: institutions shape behavior
1. unions lulled into false sense of security
2. meanwhile, employers trying to innovate, avoid unions
3. social movement:  soc mov chape institutions
9. prospects:
1. organizing more people
2. but density rate still falling
3. some success on political front (Clinton)
4. but many political “wins” are defensive, others indirect (e.g. minimum wage increase)
5. Battle in Seattle impressive!
6. MUCH ACTIVITY, MIXED RESULTS

Paul Johnston “Organizing for What?”

• two arguments
• labor movements vary across the kind of employment relations and historical circumstances they are within
• labor movements are an appeal to citizenship, i.e. a position and behavior in public institutions
• Diversity in employment styles (sevice, public, etc.)
• these patterns of employment diversity tend to coincide with and are reinforced by racial , ethnic, gender diversity
• labor movement should not just be interested in the outcome for a particular bargaining unit, but for the status and future of a community
• citizenship, then, offers a unifying social movement frame
• six types of citizenship:  civil, political, social, educational (affect all); economic citizenship is in perpetual tension with capitalism; cultural identity/citizenship cuts across all of these
• all of these combine to be “civic regime”
• movements can unite on citizenship, can use any of these types of citizenship to connect movement to larger ‘family’ of citizenship movements
• Citizenship becomes very complex as move to global level, BUT all action done at local, community level
• “what kind of community do we want to live in”

Dorothy Sue Cobble “Lost ways of Unionism”

1. Try to do occupational unionism as opposed to just industrial unionism
1. better model when worker identity is mostly horizontal (i.e. cross-firm) than vertical (i.e. with a single firm, ILM, etc)
2. Replaces “mgmt. disciplines and union grieves” with ‘peer management” (i.e. worker control of process)
3. Union/worker run hiring halls
4. Unions can have trained workers (think IT), and will be a welcome supply of well-trained contingent workers
2. Labor movement must define its own membership boundaries, don’t just look at NLRB-defined bargaining units
1. Early AFL represented nonemployees: contractors, self-employed, unemployed
3. UNIONS must be a vehicle to create humane and more flexible work patterns
4. Labor movement needs to move beyond contract unionism, broaden definition of what it means to be a union, include community groups in union membership
5. Service economy as emotional work…workers want to affect rules of employee-customer relationship, not just employee-boss relationship (have bosses let personality of individual employee through, etc.)
1. Playboy bunny, ‘barmaids’, flight attendants, smile rules examples
6. Focus on representing both individual and collective interests
1. Get rid of seniority, start going for across-the-board wage increases

Charles Heckscher “Living with Flexibility

• Propositions:
• institutions of worker representation cannot survive unless they are widely perceived as contributing to economic growth as well as social justice.
• unions can only succeed if they essentially contribute to good management
• But managers have to realize that anti-unionism is likely not in their best interest, is a too-personal view of “what is best for a company
• Flexibility is not a passing fad!
• But consumers more and more want personalized goods as well, so skill is demanded
• Companies don’t want to provide benefits anymore, what to do?
• Turn back the clock!  Not likely
• Need a model that will allow that employees will be more mobile, less tied to one company
• less fear and subordination
• greater employee participation in defining work
• personal improvement (skills)
• mentoring, help getting used to mobility for ‘ees

• unions need to start going for benefits, etc that work for mobile employees
• also, still be able to push back against employers (publicity, lawsuits, financial pressure=using investment of pension funds as bargaining chip…need to figure out how to do this with individual funds)

• need to make sure union doesn’t just become a service provider (again), and that there is some community aspect to it

Katz, Afterword, “Whither the American Labor Movement”

• claims of social movement unionism, BUT no evidence that either workers or unions have changed their political preferences
•