The Death and Life of American Labor: Toward a New Workers Movement with Stanley Aronowitz -
In the 1950s, Aronowitz was a factory metalworker. In the 50s and 60s, he directed organizing with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers. In 1963, he coordinated labor participation for the March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom. Ten years later, the publication of his book False Promises: The Shaping of American Working Class Consciousness was a landmark in the study of the U.S. working-class and workers movements.
Union membership in the United States has fallen below 11 percent, the lowest rate since before the New Deal. Labor activist and scholar of the American labor movement Stanley Aronowitz argues that the movement as we have known it for the last 100 years is effectively dead. And he explains how this death has been a long time coming "the organizing and political principles adopted by U.S. unions at mid-century have taken a terrible toll.
Aronowitz draws on his long personal experience and he reflects on his continuing involvement in labor organizing, with groups such as the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of NY. He brings a historians understanding of American workers struggles in taking the long view of the labor movement. Then, in a survey of current initiatives,strikes, organizations, and allies, he analyzes possibilities of labors rebirth, and sets out a program for a new, broad, radical workers movement.
produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
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