A new paradigm for the labor movement: New Federalism's unintended consequences

International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 261-278

  Takahashi, Beverly ^a  

^a NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH   (United States)

Author keywords

American Labor Movement; New Economy; New Federalism; New Unionism

Indexed keywords

EID: 4143103683     PISSN: 08914486     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/B:IJPS.0000002997.54646.18     Document Type: Review

References (73)

1. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston, 1944), 209-219. According to Polanyi, disruptive strains are the inevitable result of "the blind action of soulless institutions the only purpose of which was the automatic increase of material welfare."
2. For a discussion of the rise and fall of the Democratic political order, see David Plotke's Democratic Political Order (Cambridge, 1996).
3. Bruce Western, Between Market and Class: Postwar Unionization in the Capitalist Democracies (Princeton, N.J., 1999), 3.
4. Ibid., 125.
5. Susan E. Clarke, "Governance Tasks and Nonprofit Organizations" in Richard C. Hula and Cynthia Jackson-Elmore, eds., Nonprofits in Urban America (Westport, CT, 2000), 206.
6. Bernard H. Ross and Myron A. Levine, Urban Politics: Power in Metropolitan Regions, 6th ed. (Itasca, IL, 2001), 195.
7. At the beginning of his tenure as AFL-CIO president, Sweeney promised to adopt more militant tactics and to spend millions of dollars on bringing new members into the fold; he also launched "Union Summer," a program meant to recall the civil rights movement's "Freedom Summer" of 1964. For more information on organized labor's renewed commitment to increasing its membership, see the AFL-CIO website http://www.aflcio.org/
8. In 1995, United States v. Lopez invalidated a federal statute that criminalized the possession of handguns near schools. In 1996, Seminole Tribe v. Florida expanded the sovereign immunity of states from federal impositions. Printz v. United States invalidated key provisions of the Brady Act, and City of Boerne v. Flores struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal statute that required state and local governments to exempt religious practices from the coverage of many general laws and regulations.
9. In 1995, United States v. Lopez invalidated a federal statute that criminalized the possession of handguns near schools. In 1996, Seminole Tribe v. Florida expanded the sovereign immunity of states from federal impositions. Printz v. United States invalidated key provisions of the Brady Act, and City of Boerne v. Flores struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal statute that required state and local governments to exempt religious practices from the coverage of many general laws and regulations.
10. In 1995, United States v. Lopez invalidated a federal statute that criminalized the possession of handguns near schools. In 1996, Seminole Tribe v. Florida expanded the sovereign immunity of states from federal impositions. Printz v. United States invalidated key provisions of the Brady Act, and City of Boerne v. Flores struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal statute that required state and local governments to exempt religious practices from the coverage of many general laws and regulations.
11. In 1995, United States v. Lopez invalidated a federal statute that criminalized the possession of handguns near schools. In 1996, Seminole Tribe v. Florida expanded the sovereign immunity of states from federal impositions. Printz v. United States invalidated key provisions of the Brady Act, and City of Boerne v. Flores struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal statute that required state and local governments to exempt religious practices from the coverage of many general laws and regulations.
12. David B. Walker, The Rebirth of Federalism: Slouching Toward Washington, 2nd ed. (New York, 2000).
13. Timothy Conlan, From New Federalism to Devolution: Twenty-five Years of Intergovernmental Reform (Washington, D. C., 1998), 8-9.
14. Ibid., 110-12.
15. Ibid., 304.
16. Laurence J. O' Toole, American Intergovernmental Relations, 2nd ed. (Washington D. C., 1993), 23-24.
17. Conlan, From New Federalism to Devolution, 143.
18. th Cong., 2nd. sess., H.R. 3734, Sec. 401, Aug. 1996.
19. Paul Peterson "Who Should Do What? Divided Responsibility in the Federal System," in Dennis R. Judd and Paul Kantor, eds., The Politics of Urban America: A Reader (New York, 2002), 358-9.
20. Walker, The Rebirth of Federalism, 12.
21. Lester M. Salamon, Partners in Public Service: the Scope and Theory of Government-Nonprofit Relations, in W. W. Powell, ed., The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook (New Haven, CT, 1987), 99-117.
22. Laurie Goodstein, "States Steer Religious Charities Toward Aid," New York Times, July 21, 2001.
23. I b i d.
24. William H. Riker, "Federalism," in Fred Greenstien and Nelson Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science, Vol. 5: Governmental Institutions and Processes (Reading, MA, 1975), 151.
25. Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916 (New York, 1963), 3-6.
26. Conlan, From New Federalism to Devolution, 9.
27. G. Edward White, The Constitution and the New Deal (Cambridge, MA, 2000) 3.
28. Demetra Smith Nightingale, John Trutko and Burt S. Barnow, "Status of the Welfare-to-Work (WtW) Grants Program After One Year," Sept. 1999. http://www.urban.org/welfare/wtw_labor.html
29. For a discussion of the vital role of immigrants to the future of the labor movement, see Ruth Milkman, ed., Organizing Immigrants: The Challenge for Unions in Contemporary California (Ithaca, NY, 2000).
30. Michael E. Fix and Karen Tumlin, Welfare Reform and the Devolution of Immigrant Policy, Number A-15 in Series, New Federalism: Issues and Options for States, Urban Institute (Washington, DC, Aug., 2002). Http://newfederalism. urban.org/html/anf_15.htm
31. Paul Krugman, The Age of Diminished Expectations (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 11.
32. Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, Growing Prosperity: The Battle for Growth with Equity in the Twenty-first Century, A Century Foundation Book (Boston, 2000), 10-13.
33. Michael Piore and Charles Sabel, The Second Industrial Divide (New York, 1990), 2.
34. Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Great U-turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of American (New York, 1988), 37.
35. In "There is No New Economy," The Red Herring Magazine (Sept. 1997) James Pontin states that there is no new economy since most U.S. companies sell services, and few services are internationally traded. Even the price of goods is less subject to international competition than new economists believe: most goods are still manufactured and consumed within the Republic. http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue46/rap.html
36. Terry Nichols, Clark, "Introduction: Taking Entertainment Seriously," Prepared as a chapter for The City as an Entertainment Machine, Vol. 9 of Research in Urban Policy. New York, in progress.
37. I b i d.
38. I b i d.
39. David Howell, "Skills and the Wage Collapse," The American Prospect, vol. 11, no. 15, June 19-July 3, 2000. http://www.prospect.org/print/ V11/15/howell-d.html
40. For a discussion of the skill-wage technological premium see: Alan B. Kreuger, "How Computers Have Changed the Wage Structure: Evidence from Microdata, 1984-1989," Quarterly Journal of Economics (Feb., 1993), 31-60; David H. Autor, Lawrence F. Katz, and Alan B. Kreuger, "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?" Quarterly Journal of Economics (Nov. 1998), 1169-1211; Timothy Bresnahan et al., "Information Technology, Workplace Organization and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-level Evidence" NBER Working Paper 7136 (Cambridge, MA, 1999); Chinhui Juhn, "Wage Inequality and Demand for Skill: Evidence from Five Decades," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 52, no. 3 (April, 1993), 424-443.
41. For a discussion of the skill-wage technological premium see: Alan B. Kreuger, "How Computers Have Changed the Wage Structure: Evidence from Microdata, 1984-1989," Quarterly Journal of Economics (Feb., 1993), 31-60; David H. Autor, Lawrence F. Katz, and Alan B. Kreuger, "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?" Quarterly Journal of Economics (Nov. 1998), 1169-1211; Timothy Bresnahan et al., "Information Technology, Workplace Organization and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-level Evidence" NBER Working Paper 7136 (Cambridge, MA, 1999); Chinhui Juhn, "Wage Inequality and Demand for Skill: Evidence from Five Decades," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 52, no. 3 (April, 1993), 424-443.
42. For a discussion of the skill-wage technological premium see: Alan B. Kreuger, "How Computers Have Changed the Wage Structure: Evidence from Microdata, 1984-1989," Quarterly Journal of Economics (Feb., 1993), 31-60; David H. Autor, Lawrence F. Katz, and Alan B. Kreuger, "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?" Quarterly Journal of Economics (Nov. 1998), 1169-1211; Timothy Bresnahan et al., "Information Technology, Workplace Organization and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-level Evidence" NBER Working Paper 7136 (Cambridge, MA, 1999); Chinhui Juhn, "Wage Inequality and Demand for Skill: Evidence from Five Decades," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 52, no. 3 (April, 1993), 424-443.
43. For a discussion of the skill-wage technological premium see: Alan B. Kreuger, "How Computers Have Changed the Wage Structure: Evidence from Microdata, 1984-1989," Quarterly Journal of Economics (Feb., 1993), 31-60; David H. Autor, Lawrence F. Katz, and Alan B. Kreuger, "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?" Quarterly Journal of Economics (Nov. 1998), 1169-1211; Timothy Bresnahan et al., "Information Technology, Workplace Organization and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-level Evidence" NBER Working Paper 7136 (Cambridge, MA, 1999); Chinhui Juhn, "Wage Inequality and Demand for Skill: Evidence from Five Decades," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 52, no. 3 (April, 1993), 424-443.
44. Schmitt, John, "Economic 'Boom' of the 1990s is a Bust for the Middle Class," Chicago Tribune, Sept. 6, 1999.
45. For an extensive discussion of the growing similarities in the industrial reorganization of the manufacturing, service, and public sectors, see: Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt, The New American Workplace: Transforming Work Systems in the United States (Ithaca, NY, 1994).
46. Clare Nolan, "Nation's Poor Families Gain, But Troubles Remain, Study Finds," Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2000. Stateline.org. http://www.stateline. org/story.cfm?storyid=99166.
47. "AFL-CIO Working for America Institute, High Road Partnership Report," unpublished interim copy. I thank Brian Turner, research director of the AFL-CIO Working for America, for sharing this material with me and for permission to make this citation.
48. I b i d.
49. Chris Benner, Bob Brownstein, and Amy B. Dean, "Walking the Lifelong Tightrope: Negotiating Work in the New Economy," A Joint Publication of Working Partnership USA and Economic Policy Institute, (San Jose, 1999).
50. David Jason Fischer, Labor Gains, Center for an Urban Future, (New York, 2003), 1.
51. Freeman, The New Inequality: Creating Solutions for Poor America (Boston, 1997), 4.
52. Herbert Asher et al., American Labor Unions in the Electoral Arena (Lanhan, MD, 2001), 10.
53. Derek Bok, "Reflections on the Distinctive Character of American Labor Law" Harvard Law Review, vol. 84, 1971, 1394-99.
54. I b i d.
55. Asher, American Labor Unions in the Electoral Arena, 12.
56. BLS, unpublished table no. 40, 1995.
57. Asher, American Labor Unions in the Electoral Arena, 13-15.
58. Lee Bailliet, "Labor-Management Partnerships in State and Local Governments" in Bruce Nissen, ed., Unions and Workplace Transformation (Detroit, 1997), 161. Of the roughly 19.6 million public sector employees in 1995, 59 percent or 11.6 (mostly teachers), were in local government, and 25 percent, or 4.9 million, were in state government.
59. William Form, Segmented Labor and Fractured Politics (New York, 1990), 210-12. According to Form, segmentation theory deals especially well with problems of labor politics. It holds that (1) national and international economic changes have greatly diversified labor's occupational composition, political interests, and behavior: (2) changes in community and political organizations, and (3) these changes have made labor less able than its competitors of revising its political mobilization techniques to overcome its divisions.
60. Morris Fiorina, "The Decline of Collective Responsibility in American Politics," Daedalus 109(1980), 4.: Joel Sibley views the increase in fragmentation as extremely dangerous, "Without the parties and what they once did for the political nation, we have returned to where we began two centuries ago. We have again empowered chaos, and given new meaning to such terms as fragmentation, factional warfare and gridlock." Joel H. Silbey, "Foundation Stones of Present Discontents: The American Political Nation, 1776-1946, in Byron Shafer, ed., Present Discontents (Chatham, NJ, 1997), 25. Ira Katznelson claims metropolitan areas are so fragmented by "deep trenches" among local governments, social classes, and religious, ethnic and other groups that they cannot cooperate to solve their problems. Ira Katznelson, City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States (Chicago, 1981).
61. Morris Fiorina, "The Decline of Collective Responsibility in American Politics," Daedalus 109(1980), 4.: Joel Sibley views the increase in fragmentation as extremely dangerous, "Without the parties and what they once did for the political nation, we have returned to where we began two centuries ago. We have again empowered chaos, and given new meaning to such terms as fragmentation, factional warfare and gridlock." Joel H. Silbey, "Foundation Stones of Present Discontents: The American Political Nation, 1776-1946, in Byron Shafer, ed., Present Discontents (Chatham, NJ, 1997), 25. Ira Katznelson claims metropolitan areas are so fragmented by "deep trenches" among local governments, social classes, and religious, ethnic and other groups that they cannot cooperate to solve their problems. Ira Katznelson, City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States (Chicago, 1981).
62. Morris Fiorina, "The Decline of Collective Responsibility in American Politics," Daedalus 109(1980), 4.: Joel Sibley views the increase in fragmentation as extremely dangerous, "Without the parties and what they once did for the political nation, we have returned to where we began two centuries ago. We have again empowered chaos, and given new meaning to such terms as fragmentation, factional warfare and gridlock." Joel H. Silbey, "Foundation Stones of Present Discontents: The American Political Nation, 1776-1946, in Byron Shafer, ed., Present Discontents (Chatham, NJ, 1997), 25. Ira Katznelson claims metropolitan areas are so fragmented by "deep trenches" among local governments, social classes, and religious, ethnic and other groups that they cannot cooperate to solve their problems. Ira Katznelson, City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States (Chicago, 1981).
63. Jeremy Brecher, "Introduction," in Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, eds., Building Bridges: The Emerging Grassroots Coalition of Labor and Community, (New York, 1990).
64. Carol Zabin and Isaac Martin, "Living Wage Campaigns in the Economic Policy Arena: Four Case Studies from California," Report for the Center for Labor Research and Education, Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California Berkeley, June 1999.
65. In some instances unions have bypassed conventional organizing altogether and formed community-based organizations (CBOs) like the ones established by UNITE in New York City for unorganized immigrant garment workers.
66. Beverly Takahashi, "Living Wage Campaigns and Local Governance" Community Development Research Center Report, prepared for the Ford Foundation (New York, 2003), 1. (Presented at the Midwest Political Science Conference, Chicago, April, 2003)
67. Beverly Takahashi, "Living Wage Campaigns and Local Governance" Community Development Research Center Report, prepared for the Ford Foundation (New York, 2003), 1. (Presented at the Midwest Political Science Conference, Chicago, April, 2003)
68. Beverly Takahashi and Edwin Melendez, "Union-sponsored Workforce Development Initiatives," Community Development Research Center Report, prepared for the Ford Foundation (New York, 2002).
69. Skills for a New Century: A Blueprint for Lifelong Learning, A report by the Twenty-first Century Skills Leadership Group led by Vice President Gore, Nov. 1999. http://wdr.doleta.gov/research/pdf/blueprint.pdf
70. Freeman, The New Inequality, 27.
71. The Dunlop Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations: Final Report, Dec. 1994, 19-20. The Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations was announced by Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown on March 24, 1993. http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/ e_archive/gov_reports/dunlop/DunlopFinalReport.pdf
72. The Dunlop Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations: Final Report, Dec. 1994, 19-20. The Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations was announced by Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown on March 24, 1993. http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/ e_archive/gov_reports/dunlop/DunlopFinalReport.pdf
73. Plotke, Democratic Political Order, 143.