American Labor Unions as Organizations

Introduction: Hope for Labor in a Neoliberal World

“…In 1947, after the war was finished, the National Association of Manufacturers proposed legislation to strengthen the hand of management (Fones-Wolf 1995; Peale 2000). The Taft-Hartley Act was a set of amendments to the Wagner Act that a Republican Congress passed over Democratic president Harry S. Truman's veto (Durrenberger and Erem 2013). These changes of law had the effect of moving labor unions from a social movement aimed at replacing capitalism to a form of worker insurance, a shift from the "organizing" to the "servicing" model.…”

“…These changes of law had the effect of moving labor unions from a social movement aimed at replacing capitalism to a form of worker insurance, a shift from the "organizing" to the "servicing" model. Thus the emphasis of collective action shifted from worker control of workplaces to negotiating and enforcing contacts that specified the terms of employment for workers (Durrenberger and Erem 2013). Thus workers were rendered incapable of other forms of collective action (Fletcher and Gapasin 2008;Fletcher and Hurd 1998).…”

Is It Worth Enduring? Labor in Philippine Mango Fruit Farming

“…The concept of “industry” posits the idea of transformation by high technology and use of machinery in displacing laborers from their work. While critical labor scholars may have widely explored labor exploitation and abuse (Brunner, 2021; Durrenberger & Reichart, 2012; Otsuka et al, 2016), an analysis of fruit farming might unravel significant lessons on exploitative labor conditions. Fruit farming, in which human labor is a critical component of production, provides an excellent analytical ground for understanding land relations and labor exploitation in a post-colonial context (Tegegne et al, 2014).…”