Spring Issue 2015

NEWSLETTER

The White Working Class Roundtable Newsletter is a bi-monthly publication that provides information and discussion about the white working class--a critical group in American politics and society.

The Newsletter is a project of the Democratic Strategist. Its goal is to assist Democrats to reach out and regain the support of this once Democratic constituency.

Each issue of the newsletter will highlight new and significant articles, polls and other sources of information regarding the white working class, focusing particularly on materials that discuss and evaluate strategies Democrats can employ to gain greater support from this still-critical electoral force.

In the coming months the Newsletter will also plan an ongoing series of original roundtable discussions among leading Democratic strategists and thinkers. These discussions will follow on the June 6th Roundtable on Progressives and the White Working Class that was organized in coordination with the Washington Monthly and the Democratic Strategist. That online roundtable gathered the largest group of top experts since the Reagan era to share ideas in this area.

We look forward to your interest and active participation in our work. You can subscribe to the Newsletter below.

Read the Book

The book very dramatically shows:

That white workers remain a critical swing group in American politics.

Previous Newsletter Archives

Oct/Nov 2014
Feb/Mar 2015

Welcome to the third issue of the white working class roundtable newsletter.

Special message to our readers: A second White working Class Roundtable is in preparation for the spring and will feature a wide range of leading progressive thinkers and strategists responding to a strategy paper by top pollster and analyst Stan Greenberg. The roundtable promises to make a serious contribution to progressive and Democratic political thinking about the white working class.

This issue's special focus: The trade union movement, the white working class and the rise of unconventional organizing.

During last fall and winter an unprecedented number of articles and commentaries appeared discussing the current state of the American labor movement and its prospects for the future. These analyses considered both what unions can do to reverse their current decline, the current attacks being launched against them and also the potential of alternative forms of protest and organization.

The following sections present a wide selection of the articles and commentaries that have appeared since last summer.

The American Prospect/Albert Shanker Institute/Sidney Hillman Foundation Conference: "American Labor Movement at a Crossroads: New Thinking, New Organizing, New Strategies video all sessions"

The Case for Union Organizing by Paul Booth

Toward a New Solidarity by Rich Yeselson

The Seeds of a New Labor Movement by Harold Meyerson

How We Know We Haven't Yet Found the Right Model for the Worker Organizations by Sejal Parikh

Can Broadened Civil Rights Law Offer Workers a True Right to Organize? - Labor at a Crossroads: Can Broadened Civil Rights Law Offer Workers a True Right to Organize? by Richard D. Kahlenberg and Moshe Z. Marvit
Read More...

Time to Experiment by Karen Nussbaum

How Unions Can Thrive in the 21st Century by Lance Compa

Other Recent Reviews and Analyses of the Current State of the Labor Movement

Saving Labor's Sinking Ship by David Moberg

The U.S. Labor Movement: At a 'Crossroads,' or the Gallows? by Jake Blumgart

Two Roads Forward for Labor: The AFL-CIO's New Agenda by Nelson Lichtenstein

The Battle Over Working Time: A Countermovement Against Neoliberalism by David Bensman

Five Ways Unions Are Trying To Get Their Mojo Back by Josh Israel

A Bill to Get the Labor Movement Back on Offense by George Zornick

Happy Labor Day. Are Unions Dead? An interview with Rich Yeselson, Labor Strategist and Expert by Jonathan Cohn

In Order to Grow, Does Labor Need to Shrink? by Moshe Z. Marvit

The most challenging issue facing liberalism today by Timothy Noah

No Jobs But Crappy Jobs: The Next Big Political Issue? by Robert Kuttner

Labor's New Groove: Taking the Struggle From Streets to Legislatures by Harold Meyerson

A 'Post-Political' Labor Movement: Stanley Aronowitz on how the labor movement falters and how it might recover. by David Moberg

Rebuilding the Middle Class Requires Reviving Strong Unions by Robert Borosage

Can the One-Day Strike Revive the Labor Movement? by Max Fraser

Right to Work Laws and Union Organizing

How Unions Can Grow Stronger in the Wake of Right To Work by David Moberg

The Next Phase of the Koch Brothers' War on Unions by Carl Deal and Tia Lessin

Are Cities the Next Front in the Right's War on Labor? by Moshe Z. Marvit

The Latest Attack on Labor, From The Group That Brought Us 'Harris v. Quinn'by Moshe Z. Marvit

Labor's Only Real Choice: Beating Harris v. Quinn and Right-to-Work Attacks From the Inside Out by Jane McAlevey

For Labor, an Open Shop Doesn't Have to Mean Closed Doors by Steve Early

Republicans Think They've Finally Figured Out How to Kill Unions by Peter Moskowitz

Nonconventional Organizing

How Walmart Organizers Turned the Internet Into a Shop Floor by Sarah Jaffe

The Workers Center-Union Partnership That's Transforming Big-Box Janitorial Work by Steve Payne

Fast Food Workers, Joined By Other Low Wage Workers, Strike in Record 190 Cities by David Moberg

San Francisco Breaks Ground With Retail Worker 'Bill Of Rights' by Law by Dave Johnson

Strong Voice in 'Fight for 15' Fast-Food Wage Campaign by Steven Greenhouse

NLRB's New Ruling Could Mean Great Things for Fast-Food Workers by David Moberg

Has AFSCME Found the Cure to Harris v. Quinn? by David Moberg

A Push to Give Steadier Shifts to Part-Timers by Steven Greenhouse

A De Facto Union by Josh Eidelson

Biggest Fast-Food Worker Strike Yet Covers Six Continents by Amien Essif

Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage Agreement: Collective Bargaining Reborn? by Harold Meyerson

Fast-Food Workers of the World, Unite! by Susan Berfield

Business Resistance

Business groups alarmed by rise of 'micro-unions' in workplace by Tim Devaney

U.S. Chamber of Commerce 'Exposes' Union Backing of Worker Centers by Matthew Blake

Look Who the Folks Who Took Down ACORN Are Targeting Now by Lee Fang

Advocates for Workers Raise the Ire of Business by Steven Greenhouse

Conferences

Fighting Inequality: Class, Race, and Power

May 28-31, 2015 Georgetown University, Washington, DC. Joint Conference of the Labor and Working-Class History Association and the Working-Class Studies Association.

Economic inequality, while long a challenge for working-class people, has grown and become increasingly central in public life. It has been a theme in struggles for justice for low-wage workers and has shaped policies related to education, housing, health care, and the right to organize.

Fighting Inequality will bring together scholars, activists, and artists to explore some core questions about economic inequality and strategies for resistance, both historically and in the current moment:

What forces--social, political, economic, and cultural--have contributed to inequality and influence people's responses to it?
How do working-class people gain power within democracy when access and rights are limited by policy and ideology?
How have the complex relationships among class, race, and power sometimes enabled and sometimes constrained working-class resistance?

Read More and Register

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