Tag Archives: highlights

Home, New Labor Forum

New Labor Forum Highlights: Dec. 12th, 2016 

The New Labor Forum has launched a bi-weekly newsletter on current topics in labor, curated by the some of the most insightful scholars and activists in the labor world today. Check out some highlights from the latest edition below.

As all our newsfeeds continue to be filled with an increasingly nightmarish list of Trump cabinet appointments, we wanted to bring something different to your attention. New Labor Forum prides itself on covering international affairs as well as domestic politics, economics and social movements.  And it seems apt to close the year with a focus on two countries – Russia and China – that have received so much attention from our Tweeter-in-Chief.

Paul Christensen offers Labor Under Putin, an overview of the severe challenges facing Russian workers. Russia’s authoritarian political climate makes it hard to talk about a real labor movement, but that hasn’t prevented the emergence of a rising number of labor struggles. One recent struggle involved truck drivers protesting a tax that would seriously impact their livelihoods. Philippe Alcoy of Left Voice interviews a local observer for an in-depth look at the Russian trucker’s strike.

Kevin Lin gives depth and breadth to what we think we know about inequality in China. It forms the backdrop to countless stories; one of them is the ongoing engagement between Walmart, the world’s largest private employer, and the ACFTU, which represents Walmart employees in China and is the largest trade union in the world. Qian Jinghua of Sixth Tone reports from the field.

Please note that the next issue of Highlights will come out on January 9th, and will announce the publication of our Winter 2017 issue. Happy holidays from all of us at New Labor Forum!

Table of Contents:

  1. Labor Under Putin: The State of the Russian Working Class by Paul T. Christensen/New Labor Forum
  2. Russian Truck Drivers on Strike by Philippe Alcoy
  3. Rising Inequality and its Discontents in China by Kevin Lin/New Labor Forum
  4. Mega-Retailer Walmart May Face World’s Biggest Union by Qian Jinghua

Photo by Farhad Sadykov via flickr (CC-BY)

Home, Labor Studies, New Labor Forum

New Labor Forum Highlights: Nov. 28th, 2016

The New Labor Forum has launched a bi-weekly newsletter on current topics in labor, curated by the some of the most insightful scholars and activists in the labor world today. Check out some highlights from the latest edition below.

Many of us continue to scratch our heads about a Trump electoral victory that only weeks ago seemed pretty improbable. While we anxiously gaze ahead at the likely domestic and international ramifications of a Trump presidency, we also look back in an effort to understand how it came to this. The Democratic Party primaries, of course, hold some clues. The labor movement was divided during the primary season over whether to support Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. In the forthcoming January issue of New Labor Forum, we invited contributions from both sides to debate those differences. Larry Cohen, past president of the Communications Workers of America argued on behalf of the Sanders option, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, together with Leo Casey, president of the Albert Shanker Institute, argued on behalf of the Clinton nomination. The authors assumed, as many readers also did, a Clinton victory.  When the election results came in, Randi Weingarten and Leo Casey asked to rewrite their essay. Larry Cohen elected to leave his essay as originally written, opting instead to add a brief addendum that also takes account of the election results. We feature that exchange here, as well as 2 articles and a video which all seek to wrestle with what happened and why — particularly as relates to organized labor.

Table of Contents:

  1. We Believe that We Can Win! by Larry Cohen
  2. Why Hillary Clinton Deserved Labor’s Support by Randi Weingarten and Leo Casey
  3. Election Debrief: Reporters’ Roundtable (Video)
  4. The Union Revolt by Bob Hennelly
  5. What Unions Got Wrong by Steven Greenhouse

Photo by Bill B via flickr (CC-BY)

Home, Labor Studies, New Labor Forum

New Labor Forum Highlights: Oct. 31st, 2016

The New Labor Forum has launched a bi-weekly newsletter on current topics in labor, curated by the some of the most insightful scholars and activists in the labor world today. Check out some highlights from the latest edition below.

In this week’s newsletter, we look policy issues — work and family — that normally fail to receive the political attention they deserve. Ironically, during the first electoral season to feature a woman as major party candidate, these issues remained overshadowed by other far less policy oriented concerns.

We kick off our effort to highlight these issues with an assessment by Linda Gordon of Second Wave Feminism, which included a strong strand of Socialist Feminism that emphasized the intersection of gender, race, and class oppression. As such, this movement that peaked from the mid 1960s until the 1980s gave rise  to many of the work-family policy initiatives of today, including paid family and sick leave; affordable, high quality childcare; and equal pay for equal work.

We look at current progress toward those policy objectives here. In a Washington Post column, New Labor Forum Contributing Editor Ruth Milkman discusses Paid Family Leave as a key means of reducing wealth inequality.  Sharon Lerner, writing for In These Times, describes the financial, emotional, and health repercussions suffered by working-class American women, who unlike their counterparts throughout the world, deliver and raise children without the most fundamental supports. And we provide, from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a handy, brief analysis of gender pay gaps.

To close out this discussion, we look at the disparate promises regarding women’s and family issues being made by each of the two major party nominees for President. If the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the first bill signed into law by President Obama, it’s reasonable ask what legislation is likely to garner the early support either a President Trump or a President Clinton.

Table of Contents:

  1. Socialist Feminism: The Legacy of the “Second Wave” by Linda Gordon
  2. How a Lack of Paid Leave is Making Wealth Inequality Worse by Ruth Milkman
  3. The Real War on Families: Why the U.S. Needs Paid Leave Now by Sharon Lerner
  4. “The Economic Impact of Equal Pay by State” Status of Women in the States Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Feb 2016 
  5. Donald Trump Unveils Plan for Families in Bid for Women’s Votes by Nick Corasaniti and Maggie Haberman
  6. Clinton’s Platform: Women’s Rights and Opportunity

Photo by Steve Rainwater via flickr (CC-BY-SA)

Home, New Labor Forum

New Labor Forum Highlights: Oct. 3rd, 2016

The New Labor Forum has launched a bi-weekly newsletter on current topics in labor, curated by the some of the most insightful scholars and activists in the labor world today. Check out some highlights from the latest edition below.

The AFL-CIO and the Laborers International Union (LiUNA) have come out in support of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), demonstrating the extent to which the construction trades continue to control the federation’s climate change policy. Simultaneously an array of other unions have stood up to publicly oppose it. In this way, the climate crisis calls into question the validity of an old notion of internal labor solidarity that protects unions’ turf in directing policy decisions regarding the industries they represent. The fact that the planet is everyone’s “turf” has begun to force a rethinking of this narrower notion of solidarity.

To provoke discussion on this issue, we’re leading off with an article by New Labor Forumcolumnist Sean Sweeney that will appear in our January 2017 issue in which he asks: Is Labor Putting Its Head in the Gas Oven?

The DAPL has been a long time coming – years in development, with construction already in progress. Yet the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, with the backing of supporters from across the country, have been able to stop the project – so far – through a combination of protests, legal action, and effective use of social media.

Table of Contents:

  1. Standing Rock Solid with the Frackers: Is Labor Putting Its Head in the Gas Oven?  by Sean Sweeney
  2. Dakota Access Pipeline and the Future of American Labor by Jeremy Brecher
  3. Unions Weigh in on the Dakota Access Pipeline: Statements by AFL-CIO, LIUNA, SEIU, NNU, and CWA

Photo by John Duffy via flickr (CC-BY)

Home, Labor Studies, New Labor Forum

New Labor Forum Highlights: Sep. 20th, 2016

The New Labor Forum has launched a bi-weekly newsletter on current topics in labor, curated by the some of the most insightful scholars and activists in the labor world today. Check out some highlights from the latest edition below.

Many of our readers and much of the country continue to scratch their heads about the rise of Trump and the sustenance his campaign counts on from white working-class voters. In this newsletter, we lead with a fascinating article by Jedediah Purdy, recently published in The New Republic, discussing two recent books that each take an intimate look at contemporary working-class conservative communities. We then offer an article by Steve Fraser and Joshua B. Freeman that we published back in 2010, during the heyday of the Tea Party, that very usefully examines the history of populism in the U.S. – wavering as it has between a desire to create a new order and a yearning to return to an idealized old order — with a pronounced tendency during the last half-century toward old order conservatism. We end with a New Labor Forum film review by Jeremy Varon of three documentaries, including You’ve Been Trumped (directed by Anthony Baxter), a verité style account of Donald Trump’s effort, only recently realized, to build a luxury golf course and grand hotel on Scotland’s Aberdeenshire coast. As Trump enlists the Scottish national government and police to do battle against local residents, the review reminds us what a bizarre champion of the working-class Trump indeed is.

Contents:

  1. Red State Blues by Jedediah Purdy, The New Republic
  2. History’s Mad Hatters: The Strange Career of Tea Party Populism by Steve Fraser and Joshua B. Freeman, New Labor Forum
  3. It’s Good to Be King: The Crisis Documentary and the American Dreamscapeby Jeremy Varon, New Labor Forum
Home, New Labor Forum

New Labor Forum Highlights: August 8th, 2016

The New Labor Forum has launched a bi-weekly newsletter on current topics in labor, curated by the some of the most insightful scholars and activists in the labor world today. Check out some highlights from the latest edition below.

After Philadelphia and DNC 2016

After last week’s frenzy of activity in Philadelphia, we thought we’d bring you three thoughtful, post-convention reflections. New Labor Forum author Tom Gallagher and David Moberg, a senior editor for In These Times, draw lessons from Bernie Sanders’ improbable path to 13 million votes in the Primary season. And Mark Winston Griffith, a community organizer based in Central Brooklyn, tells us about his experience as a Bernie delegate at the Convention. In case you missed any of them, we’ve compiled speeches delivered by labor activists and labor leaders at the Democratic National Convention. Check out what Richard Trumka, Mary Kay Henry, Henrietta Ivey and others had to say at the podium.

We will now be taking a short break until Labor Day, when we’ll announce the September issue of New Labor Forum. Enjoy the rest of summer.

Contents:

  1. In for the Long Run by Tom Gallagher
  2. This Is What Progressives—Especially Labor—Can Learn From Bernie Sanders’ Campaign by David Moberg
  3. The DNC: Inside Looking Out by Mark Winston Griffith
  4. Watch Labor Leaders Speak at DNC

Photo by Lorie Shaull via flickr (CC-BY-SA)