American Labour’s Cold War Abroad: From Deep Freeze to Détente, 1945-1970 by Anthony Carew: A Review Essay

With Anthony Carew’s new book, we are much closer to having a definitive empirical history of US Labor’s foreign policy operations across this 25-year period, including the AFL’s, the CIO’s, and the AFL-CIO’s foreign operations between 1945 and 1970. Based on extensive archival research and personal interviews by a careful and extremely meticulous scholar, we now have more details than all-but-a-few specialists may want to know. While not the first book to cover this subject, nor particular aspects of this subject, Carew’s intervention adds greatly to what we know and, in a number of ways, re-establishes the groundwork from which future works on this subject must build

Innovations in Labor Studies - Incorporating Global Perspectives: From Exhortation to Making It Real

Ever since the mid-1840s, there has been an exhortation for workers of the world to unite globally. With the exception of a three-year period between 1946 and 1949 - with the founding and development of the World Federation of Trade Unions immediately after the end of World War II - this has been generally a call limited to rhetoric only. The growing understanding of a globalizing world today, however - affecting the world of work, workers and their organizations - suggests it time for workers to try to make it real. This paper examines two issues pertinent to this new understanding. First, we’ve got to come to terms with “globalization” and its complexity. And second, we need to recognize that there has been an explosion of globally-aware writings on labor that have emerged since the late 1970s

The Only Commonality is Uncommonality: Progressive Protest from Below since the Mid-1980s

Noting the extensive number of progressive protests, mobilizations, and social disruption from below since the mid-1980s, not just in the US but around the world, this article suggests that what is going on is the expansion of the global economic and social justice movement, a bottom-up form of globalization. It suggests that this is, ultimately, a rejection of industrial civilization itself. And it points out, through an examination of the effects of climate change, that the continued existence of industrial civilization is imposing a burden on the peoples of the world that far outweighs its benefits, and suggests that protests will expand as more and more people understand the costs of industrial civilization

In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017) A Review Essay

A review of Alfred W. McCoy\u27s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power published by Haymarket Books, 2017

The AFL-CIO’s Foreign Policy Program: Where Historians Now Stand

The struggle to end the AFL-CIO’s foreign policy program, as part of the effort to build global labor solidarity, began in the late 1960s but has qualitatively escalated since 2010. This paper details these efforts, while showing the advances over the preceding ten years. Interestingly, while labor historians have provided some important contributions in the past, they have refused to engage with the work of Kim Scipes, a major writer in the field, ignoring his path-breaking work yet supporting some of his major claims. The question is asked whether historians in this sub-discipline are being taught to over-prioritize archival works from governmental and organizational collections while ignoring what is happening in the real world

Building Global Labor Solidarity Today: Learning from the KMU of the Philippines

New labor movements are currently emerging across the Global South. This is happening in countries as disparate as China, Egypt, and Iran. New developments are taking place within labor movements in places such as Colombia, Indonesia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan and Venezuela. Activists and leaders in these labor movements are seeking information from workers and unions around the world. However, many labor activists today know little or nothing about the last period of intense efforts to build international labor solidarity, the years 1978-2007. One of the key labor movements of this period, and which continues today, is the KMU Labor Center of the Philippines. It is this author’s contention that there is a lot unknown about the KMU that would help advance global labor solidarity today. This paper focuses specifically on the KMU’s development, and shares five things that have emerged from this author’s study of the KMU: a new type of trade unionism, new union organizations, an emphasis on rank and file education, building relations with sectoral organizations, and the need to build international labor solidarity

Introduction to Section on Labor and Social Justice by Section Editor Kim Scipes

An introduction to this Special Issue of Class, Race and Corporate Power on Labor and Social Justice by its editor, Kim Scipes. This is a two-part series, with the second edition to be released in the October, 2017 issue of CRCP

Introduction to Part II, “US Labor and Social Justice,” By Section Editor Kim Scipes

An introduction to this Special Issue of Class, Race and Corporate Power on Labor and Social Justice by its editor, Kim Scipes. This is the second part of a two-part series, with the first being available here

The Epic Failure of Labor Leadership in the United States, 1980-2017 and Continuing

The organizational failure of labor leadership in the US is more than individual failures, which could perhaps be overcome by the election of new leaders. The author argues that the model of trade unionism that has dominated US unionism—business unionism—offers no viable way forward and must be replaced by another model— social justice unionism

Building Global Labor Solidarity: Where We Are Today (Early 2024)

Labor activists have long-been encouraging workers to build international labor solidarity to empower each other and to improve all workers’ lives and well-being going back to before the First International. This tradition, while dismembered by the Cold War between the US and the UK on one hand and the Soviet Union on the other, has been resuscitated since the 1970s, with efforts by activists, scholars, and some workers to build cross-national border solidarity across the globe for workers, an effort that is growing. This paper details these efforts, dividing the work between 1978-2011 and 2011 to today, listing some of the most important efforts of each period, and supporting the claim of increased interest in building global labor solidarity. This is important because of labor’s potential leadership in the struggle against climate change and environmental destruction, which is a threat to the survival of all species