An Injury to All: The Decline of American UnionismOver the past decade American labor has faced a tidal wave of wage cuts, plant closures and broken strikes. In this first comprehensive history of the labor movement from Truman to Reagan, Kim Moody shows how the AFL-CIO’s conservative ideology of “business unionism” effectively disarmed unions in the face of a domestic right turn and an epochal shift to globalized production. Eschewing alliances with new social forces in favor of its old Cold War liaisons and illusory compacts with big business, the AFL-CIO under George Meany and Lane Kirkland has been forced to surrender many of its post-war gains. With extraordinary attention to the viewpoints of rank-and-file workers, Moody chronicles the major, but largely unreported, efforts of labor’s grassroots to find its way out of the crisis. In case studies of auto, steel, meatpacking and trucking, he traces the rise of “anti-concession” movements and in other case studies describes the formidable obstacles to the “organization of the unorganized” in the service sector. A detailed analysis of the Rainbow Coalition’s potential to unite labor with other progressive groups follows, together with a pathbreaking consideration of the possibilities of a new “labor internationalism.” |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
activists administration AFL-CIO AFSCME agreement AIFLD Alliance American Labor auto became began Black workers bureaucratic business unionism business unionist candidates capital capitalist Carter Chrysler CIO unions civil rights collective bargaining Committee competitive concessions contract convention corporate campaign craft unions decade decline demands Democratic Party Detroit economic election employers employment Federation fight firms forces ganization groups growth Hormel increased industrial unionism International labor movement Labor Notes Latino leaders leadership legislation major manufacturing meatpacking membership ment merger militant million negotiated nonunion officials organized labor pattern bargaining plants political President pressure production profit programs rank-and-file Reagan reform Reuther role sector shift shopfloor social unionism solidarity steel Steelworkers strategy strike strikers Teamsters tion trade union trend UAW's UFCW Union Democracy union members United vote wages and benefits Washington Watsonville women workforce working-class