[Peace-discuss] seminar on labor unions

[Lisa Chason]

         Transnational Seminar Series, Spring 2004
  27 February, Friday, 3pm, in 336 Lincoln Hall

  "ORGANIZING FOR WHAT?  THE CHOICE BETWEEN BUSINESS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE UNIONISM IN THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE US LABOR MOVEMENT"


Dr. Kim Scipes, UIC, Sociology



                This study is one piece of a larger project to get US unions to join the global struggle for economic and social justice.  Adding to the growing number of efforts that suggest the necessary development of "social movement unionism" within the US labor movement, this paper provides a comparative-historical viewpoint based on a study of unions in steel and meatpacking in the Chicago area between 1933 and 1955.  Initially focusing on how business unionism and (renamed) social justice unionism approached the issue of racial oppression in the workplace, union and community, it is argued that the differences observed were not the result of factors external to the unions, but rather resulted from different conceptualizations of trade unionism from within the unions themselves.  Thus, workers can choose the form of trade unionism that they wish to take.  It is argued that the member-controlled, process-driven, inclusive social justice unionism was and is superior to business unionism, and that workers today can learn from these earlier experiences to guide development of contemporary unions.

Find the paper at www.uiuc.soc.edu and in 326 Lincoln Hall

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