Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction by Lynn R. Williams
- 1 A Future for the American Labor Movement?
- 2 Industrial Relations in a Time of Change
- 3 A Survey of American Union Strategies
- 4 The Old Reformist Unionism: The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor
- 5 The New Reformist Unionism: CAFE
- 6 A New Version of an Old Reformist Strategy: Employee Ownership
- 7 Social Democratic Unionism in Action: Strategies of European Trade Unions
- 8 A New Twist and TURN on Social Democratic Unionism: Unions and Regional Economic Development
- 9 A Labor Movement for the Twenty-First Century
- Appendix: Interview with John J. Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO
- References
- Index
9 - A Labor Movement for the Twenty-First Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction by Lynn R. Williams
- 1 A Future for the American Labor Movement?
- 2 Industrial Relations in a Time of Change
- 3 A Survey of American Union Strategies
- 4 The Old Reformist Unionism: The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor
- 5 The New Reformist Unionism: CAFE
- 6 A New Version of an Old Reformist Strategy: Employee Ownership
- 7 Social Democratic Unionism in Action: Strategies of European Trade Unions
- 8 A New Twist and TURN on Social Democratic Unionism: Unions and Regional Economic Development
- 9 A Labor Movement for the Twenty-First Century
- Appendix: Interview with John J. Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO
- References
- Index
Summary
And that giant wave Democracy
Breaks on the shores where Kings lay couched at ease.
Oscar Wilde, “Louis Napoleon”The future of the American labor movement will determine to a large degree the fate of democracy in American society. Clearly, industrial democracy is at stake. More importantly, the fate of American political democracy may also hang in the balance. A democratic political system depends on a balance of power. It is difficult to imagine it surviving without the enormous power of organized capital being offset to some degree by that of a strong, vital labor movement. The Progressive political movement in the United States includes many organizations. However, the key to this coalition in the twenty-first century, as it was in the twentieth century, is organized labor.
Does the American labor movement have a future? On balance, the answer would appear to be yes. The “giant wave” of democracy is irresistible in the American system. Organizations on the side of this wave are on the side of history. In addition, American trade unions are drawing upon the American tradition of pragmatism. They are trying out a bewildering array of strategies and tactics. The times are propitious for experimentation because, unlike earlier eras, trade unionists are not constrained by ideology to avoid solutions that smack of socialism.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Future of the American Labor Movement , pp. 187 - 216Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002