The Future of the American Labor Movement

Coming at a time of profound change in the global conditions under which American organized labor exists, The Future of the American Labor Movement describes and analyzes labor’s strategic alternatives. The analysis is broadly cast, taking into account ideas that range from the current European Social Dialogue to the methods of the nineteenth-century American Knights of Labor. There are a number of intriguing strategies that have potential for reviving the labor movement in the United States, of which worker ownership and labor capital strategies are examples. This book demonstrates the necessity for a number of diverse strategies to be pursued simultaneously. For this to work, one has to think in terms of a broad movement of labor, consisting of diverse parts, held together by a clear idea of its purpose and a new structure.

• Major statement on US labor’s future, with introduction and interview by heads of the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers • Offers a blueprint for the future, surveying useful and unuseful lessons from US and European union experiences • Author is well-known in policy circles as an academic, labor lawyer, and arbitrator

Foreword; Introduction Lynn S. 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: regional economic development; 9. A labor movement for the 21st century; Appendix; Interview with John J. Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO.

‘Hoyt Wheeler has a long history of involvement in the American labour movement at both an academic and a practical level … an informative overview of the changing nature of American labour as it has evolved and responded to attacks from antagonistic employers and largely unsympathetic governments Admirably …Wheeler also tries to convert his theory of (re)unionisation into practice by suggesting a vision for a renewed union movement … a wealth of information for anyone interested in the future of the American labour movement.’ Jane Holgate, Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London