Labor in the Time of Trump

by Jasmine Kerrissey (Editor), Eve Weinbaum (Editor), Clare Hammonds (Editor), Tom Juravich (Editor), Dan Clawson (Editor)

Overview

Labor in the Time of Trump critically analyzes the right-wing attack on workers and unions and offers strategies to build a working–class movement.

While President Trump's election in 2016 may have been a wakeup call for labor and the Left, the underlying processes behind this shift to the right have been building for at least forty years. The contributors show that only by analyzing the vulnerabilities in the right-wing strategy can the labor movement develop an effective response.

Essays in the volume examine the conservative upsurge, explore key challenges the labor movement faces today, and draw lessons from recent activist successes.

Contributors: Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest; Bill Fletcher, Jr., author of Solidarity Divided; Shannon Gleeson, Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations; Sarah Jaffe, co-host of Dissent Magazine's Belabored podcast; Cedric Johnson, University of Illinois at Chicago; Jennifer Klein, Yale University; Gordon Lafer, University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center; Jose La Luz, labor activist and public intellectual; Nancy MacLean, Duke University; MaryBe McMillan, President of the North Carolina state AFL-CIO; Jon Shelton, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay; Lara Skinner, The Worker Institute at Cornell University; Kyla Walters, Sonoma State University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501746628
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	270
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

The editors of this book are faculty members of the Labor Center and Sociology Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Combined, they have dozens of books and articles that analyze the labor movement, work, and politics. They regularly work with unions and worker centers, and they teach graduate courses in labor studies, economics, history, organizing, and union campaigns.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Koch Network's Long Game and Its Implications for Progressive Organizing, by Nancy MacLean
2. Right-Wing Populism, the Corporate Attack on Working Americans, and the Labor Movement's Response, by Gordon Lafer
3. Trump, Right-Wing Populism, and the Future of Organized Labor, by Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Jose Alejandro La Luz
4. Walker's Wisconsin and the Future of the United States, by Jon Shelton
5. Whose Class Is It Anyway? The "White Working Class" and the Myth of Trump, by Sarah Jaffe
6. Privatization: Chipping Away at Government, by Donald Cohen
7. Building a Pro-Worker, Pro-Union Climate Movement, by Lara Skinner
8. From Co-optation to Radical Resistance: An Examination of Organized Labor's Response(s) to Immigrant Rights in the Era of Trump, by Shannon Gleeson
9. Trumpism, Policing, and the Problem of Surplus Population, by Cedric Johnson
10. Going South: How Southern Organizing Will Determine the Future of the Labor Movement, by MaryBe McMillan
11. Between Home and State: Care Workers and Labor Strategy for the New Open-Shop Era of Trumplandia, by Jennifer Klein
12. Fighting and Defeating the Charter School Agenda, by Kyla Walters

What People are Saying About This

Carolina Bank-Munoz

Labor in the Time of Trump is a fascinating collection of essays that make an important contribution to our understanding of the contemporary labor movement. Timely and exciting, it is well suited for the undergraduate classroom as well as training for workers.

Nik Theodore

This volume offers a timely, needed, and original set of interpretations of the political moment in which we live. The emphasis here is not on theoretical debates but rather on practical political analysis and the construction of alternatives.

Sara Nelson

Labor in the Time of Trump is a must-read. It makes clear that labor's role is crucial in a time when workers and our institutions are under attack. Analyzing the current anti-worker, anti-union environment and how the Right brought us to this point, the book pivots to the opportunities we have for making a new, more progressive world. A better world is possible.

Editorial Reviews

"This volume offers a timely, needed, and original set of interpretations of the political moment in which we live. The emphasis here is not on theoretical debates but rather on practical political analysis and the construction of alternatives."

--Nik Theodore, University of Illinois at Chicago

From the Publisher

"This volume offers a timely, needed, and original set of interpretations of the political moment in which we live. The emphasis here is not on theoretical debates but rather on practical political analysis and the construction of alternatives."

Nik Theodore