US Labor in Trouble and Transition: The Failure of Reform from Above, the Promise of Revival from Below

305 Pages·2007·6.086 MB·English

by  Kim Moody

US LABOR IN TROUBLE
AND TRANSITION

US LABOR IN TROUBLE
A N D TRANSITION:
The Failure of Reform from Above,
the Promise of Revival from Below
4
KIM MOODY
oooooooooooooo
First published by Verso 2007
© Kim Moody 2007
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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VERSO
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Verso is the imprint of New Left Books
ISBN: 978-1-84467-154—0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-84467-155-7 (hbk)
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
List of Tables
List of Acronyms xi
A Message about the Future from the Present
The Great Transformation
The Changing Industrial Geography 37
The Changing Industrial Demography 58
Lost Decades 79
The End of Militancy, the Surrender of the Workplace, and the
Origins of Decline 98
\l Winning to Change: The Failure of Reform from Above |2|
The Politics of Defeat—One More Time I43
The Split: Reform from Above Again I69
Beneath the Split: Resistance and Change from Below I98
Paths to Power, Roads Not Taken 224
Notes 249
Index 279

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A special acknowledgment goes to my partner Sheila Cohen, with
whom I have worked out many of my ideas and from whom I have
borrowed more than a few. Her collaboration and support have been
invaluable. The past and present staff and the many close associates of
Labor Note: might all take more than a little credit for the facts, analysis,
ideas, and experiences that went into this book. My many years on the
Labor N om staff were an in-depth apprenticeship in the life and realities
of the labor movement in the United States and a few other countries
as well. This project continues to educate thousands of the activists
and grassroots leaders who make the labor movement possible. As any
look at my endnotes will reveal, Labor Notes was a key source of
information on trends in working-class organization and activity. The
hundreds of union and community activists I have known through my
work at Labor Note: have also contributed to this book through what
I have learned from them. Only a few of them actually appear in the
book, but they have all helped to shape my thinking. I add to this
list the staff and students at the Cornell labor studies program in New
York City.
The Centre for Research in Employment Studiesat the University
of Hertfordshire provided me with some of the much-needed time it
took to complete my research and pull this book together. Finally, I
wish to thank the editors and staff at Verso, for whom this is my third
book, for their suggestions and patience.

TABLES
2.1 Average Rate of Profit, 1950—73
2.2 Indicators of Global Economic Integration
2.3 US Foreign Direct Investment Outflow: Total and Manufacturing
as a Percentage of Total
2.4 Foreign Direct Investment in Manufacturing: Outflows and
Inflows, 1984—2004
2.5 US International Trade: Exports and Imports of Goods, 1984—
2004
2.6 Real Private Nonresidential Fixed Investment, 1991—2004
2.7 Manufacturing: Real Fixed Assets per Production Worker,
1990—2004
2.8 The 57—second Work Minute: Value Added in Manufacturing,
2002
3.1 Real GDP by Type of Product 1980—2005;S ervices as a Percentage
of GDP
3.2 Employees in Nonfarm Industries, 1990—2005
3.3 Real Value Added in Manufacturing: South and US
3.4 Foreign Direct Investment in the US and US South, 1990—2003
3.5 Construction Contracts by Value, US and the South, 1990—2003
3.6 Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures, 1985—2003
4.1 Industrialization Indices, 1870—1920
4.2 Women in the US Civilian Labor Force, 1950-70
4.3 Changes in Population in the Northeast and Midwest, 1950—70
4.4 Civilian Labor Force by Gender and Race, 197 5—2004
4.5 Immigrant Population, 1995—2004
4.6 Latin American Legal Immigration by Decade
4.7 Percentage of Employed Asians and Latinos in Major Occupational
Groups, 2003 5
5.1 Real Average Weekly Wages (1982 dollars) for Production and
Nonsupervisory Workers