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From wages to elections, labor unions once exerted tremendous clout in American life. Today, the only thing big about Big Labor is the scope of its problems. While many studies have explained the causes of this decline, What Unions No Longer Do shows the repercussions of labor's collapse, particularly in the battle against inequality.
List of contents
Contents Introduction 1. The Collapse of Organized Labor in the United States 2. Government Is Not the Answer: Why Public-Sector Unionism Won't Rescue the Labor Movement 3. Wages and Inequality 4. Strikes 5. The Timing Was Terrible: Deunionization and Racial Inequality 6. Justice for Janitors: Deunionization and Hispanic Economic Assimilation 7. The Ballot Box Deunionization and Political Participation 8. The Past as Prologue: The Labor Movement Pre-New Deal, Today, and Tomorrow Appendix: Data and Methods Notes References Acknowledgments Index
About the author
Jake Rosenfeld is Professor of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, where he specializes in the political and economic causes of inequality in advanced democracies. He is author of What Unions No Longer Do and writes for the New York Times, Politico, and the Los Angeles Times, among other outlets.
Summary
From wages to elections, labor unions once exerted tremendous clout in American life. Today, the only thing big about Big Labor is the scope of its problems. While many studies have explained the causes of this decline, What Unions No Longer Do shows the repercussions of labor’s collapse, particularly in the battle against inequality.
Report
Jake Rosenfeld demonstrates brilliantly and authoritatively that the decline of American unions is a chief cause of the staggering rise in economic inequality. This is an important book that anyone who wants to know how our middle class dwindled and how we can rebuild it should read.
-- Harold Meyerson, Washington Post columnist and Editor-at-Large for The American Prospect
We know that the decline of unionism has deformed American politics, but until now that understanding has often been impressionistic. Jake Rosenfeld deploys the tools of a sophisticated historical sociologist to demonstrate precisely how, why, and where. He gives precision, chronology, and causality to some of our most pressing social concerns, from the voting propensities of public sector employees to the impact of unionism on civic engagement among working-class Hispanics. Historians of labor must read this terrific book.
-- Nelson Lichtenstein, University of California, Santa Barbara
Jake Rosenfeld offers an engaging account of the decline of organized labor in the United States and an important call to action. Complete with extensive data, charts, and an unsparing, investigative style, What Unions No Longer Do captures the 'whys' and 'hows' of de-unionization and why we should all be concerned. This is a sobering story for anyone who cares about social and economic justice and who aspires to provide a better life for the generation that follows.
-- Senator Sherrod Brown
What Unions No Longer Do sets a new standard for research on the economic, social, and political consequences of the dramatic decline of American unions. Deeply researched, analytically sophisticated, and engagingly written, this is the book to read if you want to understand what unions used to do to lessen inequality and empower workers-and what our nation has lost as their strength has waned.
-- Jacob S. Hacker, coauthor of Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer-and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
