Alternative Strategic Directions for the U.S. Labor Movement: Recent Scholarship

Nissen, Bruce

doi:10.1353/lab.2003.0027

Cited by 25 publications

(34 citation statements)

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“…Nissen (2003) contended that proposals offered by scholars to revitalize the labor movement form two schools of thought: Value-Added Unionism (VAU) and Social Movement Unionism (SMU). Proponents of the ValueAdded school argue that technological and competitive changes have rendered traditional adversarial labor relations obsolete.…”

Section: Efforts To Construct a Sociology Of Labor Revitalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They believe this post-WWII accord led to excessive union bureaucracy, top-down leadership, fixation on legalities of employer relations, and a lack of rank-and-file participation, all of which contributed to labor's decline. As Nissen (2003) put it, SMU advocates have contended that unions should "once again become champions of those oppressed by the U.S. economic system" by making ''common cause with other social movements" (p. 141). Cornfield and Fletcher (2001) drew on labor market segmentation theory in their framing of the sociology of labor revitalization.…”

Section: Efforts To Construct a Sociology Of Labor Revitalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Much of the discussion appears in edited volumes with such hopeful titles as A New Labor Movement for the New Century (Mantsios 1998a); The Transformation of U.S. Unions (Tillman and Cummings 1999); and Rekindling the Movement (Turner, Katz, and Hurd 2001), which underscore the optimism about the future of the U.S. labor movement (Milkman 2000b;Mort 1998;Nissen 1999;Wood, Meiksins, and Yates 1998).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Mapping the Dimensions of Labor Revitalization: Movement Innovators Survey the California Frontier

Sullivan

2004

Sociological Focus

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Section: Efforts To Construct a Sociology Of Labor Revitalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Efforts To Construct a Sociology Of Labor Revitalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping the Dimensions of Labor Revitalization: Movement Innovators Survey the California Frontier

Sullivan

2004

Sociological Focus

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“…The labor movement has received considerable attention as scholars have sought to analyze reasons for its post‐World War II decline, recommend prescriptions for its revitalization and investigate its current trends (Nissen 2003). While movement tendencies appeared in pockets of US labor organizing over the past century, especially during the late 1800s and the 1930s, labor’s business union model dominated the 1950–1990s.…”

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confidence: 99%

A ‘New’ Social Movement: US Labor and the Trends of Social Movement Unionism

Walsh¹

2012

Sociology Compass

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“Social movement unionism” (SMU) is frequently understood as the antithesis to business unionism. While business unionism, often characterized as bureaucratic and hierarchical, dominated most of the second half of the 20th century, “SMU” showed resurgence in the 1990s. Some scholars argue that SMU should reach beyond the workplace and incorporate the community. Others seem to be proposing a strategy and understand SMU as tactically innovative and mobilizing in alliance with traditional social movements, such as the women’s, environmental, or immigrant rights movement. Some offer propositions about the social processes of a labor union and that SMU must be internally democratic. Finally, some advocate an internationalist component such as a link to global‐justice campaigns. In this article, I propose that SMU consists of an array of trends and is inclusive of these varied descriptions, strategies or processes. These trends include (1) rank‐and‐file mobilization, (2) leadership, (3) community‐based organizing, (4) worker centers, (5) corporate campaigns, and (6) transnational components. I draw on social movement and labor literatures to seek a broader understanding of this labor organizing form.

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“…One approach to union renewal is social movement unionism. It argues that unions should renew the "movement" features of unionism, referring to strategies such as rank-and-file mobilization, coalition building, political action, new member organizing, and union education Kelly 1998;Nissen 2003;Behrens, Hamann, and Hurd 2004;Milkman and Voss 2004). Amid this approach, the role of coalitions is debated.…”

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confidence: 99%

A Little Help from Our Friends

Tattersall

2008

Labor Studies Journal

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Union renewal and coalition unionism are widely considered necessary; however, the reasons why a union might participate in a coalition is undertheorized. This article considers six factors that help explain when a union is likely to form a coalition with a community organization, which are explored in a case study comparison of two coalitions in Australia and Canada. Preexisting union identities, common interest, and decentralized union structures make coalition formation more likely and shape the degree of union member participation in coalitions. Unions are likely to engage in coalitions when there is a coincidence of crisis and perceived opportunity for coalition practice, while noting that the depth of union engagement is greatly affected by the type of union actors that initiate coalition participation (whether leaders, organizers, or stewards). Different passages for coalition unionism are possible, and they can originate inside unions or be provoked externally by community organizations.

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Alternative Strategic Directions for the U.S. Labor Movement: Recent Scholarship

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

Mapping the Dimensions of Labor Revitalization: Movement Innovators Survey the California Frontier

Mapping the Dimensions of Labor Revitalization: Movement Innovators Survey the California Frontier

A ‘New’ Social Movement: US Labor and the Trends of Social Movement Unionism

A Little Help from Our Friends

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