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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
In the spring of 1989, Chrysler and Mitsubishi Motors entered into a joint venture to build cars in Bloomington‐Normal, Illinois. A dozen years after “lean production” and “employee teams” were introduced, this paper revisits the initial expectations of workers. Through an employee survey it assesses how employee attitudes, shop‐floor behavior, and language have coalesced to […]
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 […]
In the spring of 1989, Chrysler and Mitsubishi Motors entered a joint venture to build automobiles in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Production and maintenance workers at the joint venture Diamond Star plant approached their jobs with great anticipation. Not only did these jobs offer significantly higher wages than most had made previously, they came with promises of […]
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 […]
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 […]