Toward a Theory of Super-Exploitation: The Subproletariat, Harold “Hal” Baron, and the Crisis of the Political Economy of Black Labor

This article argues that the African American working class can be conceptualized as a subproletariat: a subsection of the working class generally restricted to unstable, unskilled, low-wage, non-union, and “dirty” labor. The restructuring of capital during various periods in the U.S. history always strategically positioned the vast majority of Black people in subproletarian labor. Under … Read more

Public Health Impacts of Underemployment and Unemployment in the United States: Exploring Perceptions,Gaps and Opportunities

Background: Unemployment, underemployment, and the quality of work are nationaloccupational health risk factors that drive critical national problems; however, to date, there havebeen no systematic efforts to document the public health impact of this situation. Methods: Anenvironmental scan was conducted to explore the root causes and health impacts of underemployment and unemployment and highlight multilevel … Read more

Evidence of “Class Anxiety” in the Chicago Tribune Coverage of Organized Labor: A Quantitative Study from 1991 to 2001

Over the past three decades organized labor has grown decidedly more troubled about the quality of coverage it receives from daily commercial newspapers. From an earlier Twentieth Century period when seasoned and grizzled newspaper reporters dedicated their investigative and journalistic careers writing about unions, to the near contemporary disappearance of the newspaper “labor beat,” labor … Read more

From Union Identity to Union Voting: An Assessment of the 1996 Election

An important but remarkably under analyzed labor studies subject is the relationship between union identity and union member voting behavior. The dominant political theory in America holds that pluralism generates overlapping and crosscutting interests that militate against the formation of a dominant political orientation. However, it is the thesis of this work that once subjected … Read more

Voting the ‘New Union’ Label: Illinois Labor and The Return to Class Politics

Electoral behavior studies on post-WWII union voters have most often been framed within two contrasting theories. On one hand, many of the empirical works on employee attitudes and voting behavior give support to an organizational segmentation theory. The theory postulates that because union members’ political attitudes are influenced by divergent variables, organized labor’s social heterogeneity … Read more

Presidential Labor Regimes: Democrats from Roosevelt to Clinton

Much has been made of the AFL-CIO’s Labor ‘96 political campaign. Not since the CIO’s “People Campaign” in 1944 has the relationship between labor relations at the shop floor and executive political power been more central to the political education provided to millions of rank-and-file voters. The re-election of Bill Clinton then provides students of … Read more