1998 Spring/Summer issue

Table of Contents

5

Labor and the Challenge of the "Dis-Integraged Corporation"
by Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello
The shift in industrial organization from a centralized, national model to a decentered, global one calls for new models of trade union organization.  Labor needs to thing about how to create multiple, overlapping structures designed to meet today's challenges
 

17

UNIONS AND CHILD CARE
Carol Joyner, guest editor

19

Bargaining for Families
Lea Grundy and Nesty Firestein
Child care is fast becoming a big organizing, bargaining, and legislative concern for labor.  The stories of two locals provide examples of innovative union responses to workers' family-related demands.

26

The Child Care Dilemma: A Conversation with May Chen, Carol Joyner, and Deborah King
Three child care advocates reflect on their experiences as working mothers and explore the challenges facing working parents, unions, and child care policy-makers.

35

A SYMPOSIUM ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Gregory Mantsios, guest editor

37

Class-Based Affirmative Action: A Natural for Labor.
Richard D. Kahlenberg
As courts and public opinion shift away from support for affirmative action, labor can, and should, take the initiative on achieving racial parity by calling for preference programs based on class instead of race

44

Affirmative Re-Action and the Quest for a Race-Specific Alternative
Raymond S. Franklin
Affirmative Action was a noble idea, but it was corrupted as other groups claimed preference in programs originally aimed at solving the problem of racist inequality experienced by African-Americans.  The solution: a return to a policy of affirmative action for African Americans only.

51

We Won't Go Back
Charles R. Lawrence III and Mari J. Matsuda
Progressives must mount a cogent response to each of the arguements made by affirmative action's critics, both from the left and the right.  Rather than retreat in the face of critics' claims, progressives must fight to strengthen and extend current affirmative action programs.

61

Grassroots Affirmative Action: Black Workers and Organized Labor in Postwar New York City
Martha Biondi
Affirmative Action solutions to problems of racist inequality have their roots in the late 1940's, as this study of post-war radical labor's anti-racist activity reveals.

67

Tell No Lies, Claim No Easy Victories: Affirmative Action and the U.S. Labor Movement
Cecile Counts Blakely
Labor's often shameful history with respect to the issue of racism places a special obligation on unions today to promote affirmative action in the workplace, in the political arena, and in the house of labor itself.

83

WORKPLACE CHANGE AND THE NEW LABOR MOVEMENT
James Rundle and Kate Bronfenbrenner, guest editors

84

Employee Involvement, Work Reorganization, and the New Labor Movement: Toward a Radical Integration
Tom Juravich
Employee Involvement (EI) is not going away.  Union participants in EI, and the activist sector that is the heart and soul of trade unionism's identity, must work more closely to evaluate those programs and articulate a clear set of union-oriented objectives and strategies.

92

Labor Must Shed its Win/Win Illusions: It's Time to Organize and Fight
Howard Botwinick
Labor-management cooperation is not working for the labor movement.  The most effective way to change corporate behavior is for labor to regain its ability to impose serious costs on capital.  Then, and only then, will employers come back to the table and treat our concerns with the respect they deserve.

104

Avoiding the Tricks and Traps of Involvement: Developing a New Model for Powerful Bargaining in a Changing Workplace
by Charley Richardson
Unions need a way to gain power over technological change and work reorganization.  Continous bargaining can be a powerful tool to help unions get that power.

BOOKS AND THE ARTS
Gerald Hudson, editor

114

Nike Come Home: a New Labor Forum Interview with Michael Moore
The filmmaker (Roger and Me) talks with Dan Georgakas and Barbara Saltz about Nike Corp., chocolate croissants, and his new film, The Big One.

119

Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy
by Kim Moody
Reviewed by Stanley Aronowitz
This detailed view of industrial restructuring has much to recommend it, even as it fails to take into account the political dimension of new technology.

124

Fasanella: The People's Artist
Moe Foner
A long-time trade unionist and advocate of working-class culture remembers this union organizer turned painter whose works are allegories fo labor's struggle.

128

What Have You Done for the Working Class Today?
Arthur Cheliotes
A look at the life of former City University Chancellor Joseph S. Murphy (1933-1998)
 

129

END NOTES
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