Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement By Rick Fantasia and Kim Voss Essay

Hard throw Remaking the American Labor endeavor, by Rick Fantasia and Kim Voss, was published by the University of California Press in 2004. It runs to 259 pages. This book deals with the blows of the American Labor Movement to keep pace with the needs of American establishers. It explains how the movement failed when it attended like it was on the road to success and why it is in the lethargic state in which it finds itself today. It chronicles the attempts being do today to salvage what is left of the movement and its attempts to drop dead a force fighting for hearty justice in America. ace and only(a) recurring theme of this book is that the people who consider themselves to be both(prenominal) progressive and lib eonl are constantly amazed that so itsy-bitsy they have d maven and/or advocated has come to fruition or make each difference. They seem stunned to learn that their theories do not work in actual practice. The book documents the actions being initiated in to days society in an attempt to get withdraw high-center and get on the road to success demand to keep the American Dream alive.What is today known as the New Economy as proposed by the Neo-liberals has contributed to the quieten erosion of workers decentlys and benefits. Fantasia and Voss examine the dot com industry with backsheesh scrutiny, blaming it for the loss of enormous numbers of business concerns. The book examines such companies as Amazon, demonstrating how a vast corporation, doing millions in business can be operated with the use of relatively few unskilled and low paid employees, giving them obscene shekels and very little overhead.The authors believe that such companies are the wave of the incoming and if allowed to truly globalize they impart be extremely deleterious to workers or so the world. They call the New Economy a direct attack on hollow. This book reveals that a key element in numerous industrialized nations, which is lacking here, is that be at back defecates are not on a subject level, meaning that unions and workers mustiness fight for each c oncession on a company-by-company basis.In much of the rest of the world a gain by workers is held to be a gain for every worker in that country. The authors trace the history of the union movements for over one hundred years in America. They show that any sort of radicalism displayed by unions or workers was consistently eradicated. They show that what was left in place in each incident was a tepid version of what could have been and the result was, intrinsically, a labor union which was in bed with the big corporations, allowing them to strip workers of their rights and fair benefits.This, the authors say, gave labor leading the idea they were in some sort of perverse confederacy with management to the ruin of the workers. Out of this rose the duality of leadership seen in this country. there came to be leadership that ruled by one of devil ways, one, a strongman leade r, whose ruled a personal fiefdom by decree and the different the bureaucrat in what the authors called the era of tame unionism, which was benign in an era when it should have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in solidarity with its members.During the Reagan era employers realized they were in the drivers sit down and stripped rights and benefits to the bone while the government stood by or actively abetted them, as did the union leadership. The major premise of this book is that labor must re-invent itself in order to be relevant again. Corporate America is connected to the New Economy, which testament never do anything for the worker but march on erode any gains made in the past century.American unions and American workers must, the premise goes, regain their initiative and hang solidly together or they go forth, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, all hang separately, so to speak. There are numerous ways of going about re structure labor into a potent force for the good of the worke rs and some of these methods are being seen. There is a tactic known in labor jargon as bargaining to organize and it has become one important tactic of social movement unionists, (Fantasia, Voss 2004 p 154).During the 1990s labor struck some of Las Vegas casinos with entangled results, but what was telling in that situation was that the citys grim population sided with labor and did much in solidarity with the workers. The strike won at one of the casinos but a second strike dragged on for over six years, making it the longest strike in American history, affix World War II. The strike had its moments of high drama and on one occasion a mass demonstration of over twenty special K people. The unions in Las Vegas actively write in codeed new members even during the height of the strike.It drew oecumenical attention and favor up to(p) press for the unions. This, the authors say, is going to continue to be necessary in the future and unions are going to have to actively recruit a nd actively promote their message. With a strong recruiting drive and overt actions to regenerate what has become a moribund movement in the last few years. Unions must secure leadership from within their own ranks and see that these leaders are not in bed with Corporate America. Fantasia and Voss paint a rather bleak picture of American Labor, as it now exists.They seem to be somewhat optimistic for the future, however, by assuming that a social conscience ordain develop in this country and the unions will baffle to make inroads into the New Economy, forcing corporations to deal with the rights of the working man. They detail some limited innovations designed to fight the domination by the large corporations, addressing such matters as working hours and conditions as well as the incredible disparity between workers salaries and executive compensation.There must come a new causa of union for workers to be protected in the New Economy and the globalization of corporations. The a uthors refer to this new union, expected to rise like a capital of Arizona from the ashes the old unions, as more a social order than what is largely thought of as a true labor union. Not to hook on parallels, but it was the Polish Union, Solidarity, which brought down the communist government and freed Poland of its mind boggling bureaucratic red tape and the morass of regulations which kept the Polish workers in realistic servitude to the state.The future is not all sunshine and lollipops, however. labor retreats from movement building and the percentage of unionized labor force continues to fall, (162). Not only will this be a disaster for workers, for it will soon reach the visor where only a privileged few will have any union strength, such as government employees and professional athletes, with the rest of the workers vanishing off the radar screen. American labor, once the beacon of hope to workers around the world, will become like that of a third world nation and the workers will fight for the peanuts tossed about by their corporate masters.Not only will the worker lose all that he once had in the workplace, the unions once powerful voice in American politics, notably in the antiauthoritarian Party will cease to exist and the party will no longer pay any attention to the demands of the working man and woman for parity and job security. There will no incentive for them to defer to any demands for the union will no longer be able to deliver on either the threat of the carrot or the stick.The authors point out that not only will labor lose its scoke on such social issues as minimum wage and job safety, but will eventually lose any ability to weight-lift in on such matters as free trade agreements and new(prenominal) policies directly affecting the American worker. This country has changed drastically since September 11, and has interpreted on a siege mentality. It is virtually being ruled by decree of a man who has assumed war-time powers and seems to believe that if something he does is unconstitutional then obviously the constitution needs to be changed.During his first (and disputed) border in office he was abetted by a rubber attender congress of Republicans and dragged the nation into a disastrous foreign war for unsure reasons which have since been found to be lies and intentional obfuscations. Primarily, however, the union has much more concentratedies in such a political climate for it is always difficult to organize and foment change in times of social hullabaloo and economic downturn (163). The national debt is in the trillions of dollar.The context of severe national emergency has been the pretext for invoking the mantle of national security against unions in an swither to accomplish the long term Republican Party goal of denying the right of federal employees to join unions, (163). The current administration is actively engaged in what Fantasia and Voss refer to as a low intensity war on American labor and workers are seeing the result of this ongoing battle. The outlet of this attempt to revitalize labor is by no means certain. wiz ray of sunshine is that college students today are beginning to see what is fortuity and they are developing a social conscience such as they have demonstrated in the past for other causes. They have made a difference before. The Labor Union is not dead although it is ill bloodied. Fantasia and Voss seem to think there are two possible futures and which one will occur is largely up to the success or failure of the labor movement.