Work and Occupations

This symposium issue of Work and Occupations on “The New Labor Activism” develops a new generation of labor sociology research for comprehending and sustaining the contemporary labor mobilization in the U.S., the largest labor mobilization since the 1930s. The symposium responds to the question raised in the June, 2022 report of the Worker Empowerment Research Network about the sustainability of the new labor activism. The symposium essays focus on the themes of “history,” “intersectionality,” “worker agency,” and “hierarchy” and continue the post-World War II transition of the field from a union-centered toward a worker-centered labor sociology.

American workers are currently engaged in an upsurge in collective actions aimed at achieving a stronger voice and representation at work; this desire for increased voice at work is also evident in survey data. However, union organizing drives in the United States typically meet with strong employer resistance, and such resistance reduces the likelihood that the organizing effort will be successful. In addition to unions, a broad array of other efforts has been initiated to strengthen worker voice and representation. The authors discuss these efforts, including worker centers, and observe that there is no “one size fits all” approach to contemporary worker organizing.

Labor activism is on the rise in the U.S., and workers and organizers are taking new and intriguing steps to have more voice, involvement, and power in their workplaces. This begs the question of whether this new surge in labor activism will have long-term consequences or amount to a “flash in the pan.” In this paper, I argue that the success of current labor activism will hinge on two factors: whether organizers successfully confront longstanding racial disparities in workplaces and occupations, and the ability to preempt and survive the resulting state repression and organizational backlash.

I consider the current labor upsurge in context of prior pro-labor transformative turning points in U.S. labor history, all of which involved major changes in political culture. My assessment of key conditions in the current moment centers on three important conditions for changing political culture: (a) anti-racist civil rights-based social movement unionism; (b) changing discourse about the role of unions in political economy; (c) the weak position of labor law. Taken in combination, labor in the current conjuncture faces a steep, but not impossible, uphill climb.

Retail workers are strong in numbers, but union density is weak. Transformation of the retail sector is possible. Returning stability to these jobs would change the lives of millions of workers and their families. The retail labor process provides multiple points for resistance and mobilization to occur. Leveraging relationships between workers and with consumers are crucial tactics to help curb employers’ power.

Where will the current surge of labor activism lead? To address this question we examine two distinctive currents of labor struggle—one rooted in “new economy” firms and a second in the nation's logistics sector—where post-pandemic conditions have confronted workers with important opportunities and challenges. If the workers’ movement is to make enduring gains, it will need to foster organizational alliances that stretch across distinct sectors of the economy, build support among consumers and the broader public, and challenge culture war rhetoric through appeal to workers’ shared needs.

Selected lower-tier occupational sectors were defined as essential during the early phase of the Covid crisis. Accordingly, that period provided an opportunity to explore whether certain African American lower-tier workers might have acquired a greater sense of dignity and value for their work. By drawing from the author's earlier research on low-income African Americans and a recent study of such workers, this essay explores how considerations of value and dignity in the workplace during early Covid inform about the prospects for organizing such lower-tier workers for union participation.

Consistent with our calls for critical approaches to traditional Industrial Relations questions, we argue that it is important to consider whether the “major upsurge in union organizing” is more accurately framed as a continuation of long-running democracy fights against systemic inequity and injustice. Thus, we bring focus to “whole worker” organizing, as well as the structural limitations of our labor laws and institutions, to illuminate counter-narratives to the way we tell stories about contemporary worker organizing.

Unions are known to increase earnings and wage equality. Therefore, indications for recent union revitalization provoke the question of what unions would do today were they to restore their union density and hence power to the level of the early 1980s (about 20%). This article presents wage estimates for 1983 to 2020, assuming a 20% union density from 1983 onward, revealing higher earnings and lower wage inequality. However, since union membership today typifies low-wage workers with weaker bargaining power than formerly, the benefits from restoring union density and power will likely be lower today than in the past.

The gender gap in union membership rates has narrowed considerably in the last decades. How is this change related to women's attitudes toward unions? What is the profile of women who support union activism? Are there reasons to believe that women's support will continue to increase over time? Using data from the General Social Survey, I examine women's attitudes toward trade unions between 2002 and 2021. Data shows that support for unions is higher among non-white, less-educated, and younger women, as well as among women employed in female-dominated occupations. I conclude by discussing the implications of the findings for current and future labor activism.

The United States is currently witnessing a surge in labor activism that will likely embolden many workers to engage in occupational activism and thus enact their jobs in socially transformative ways. We illustrate this argument through a case study of K-12 educators who participated in a teachers’ walkout and subsequently became engaged in efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in their schools. We then outline an agenda for future research on occupational activism.

A recent upsurge in organizing by workers in the United States presents an opportunity to reconsider the state and fate of the US labor movement. We argue that the conceptual apparatus of strategic action fields offers a tool to contextualize this development. In particular, it shines light upon categorization struggles, delegation of labor within the field, relationships among labor organizations, and strategies to change the rules of the field-game. Interpreting the trends reported by the Worker Empowerment Research Network through the lens of field theory cannot predict the future but can make sense of present obstacles and opportunities.

In response to an era of transformation that deeply impacts workers and increased attention to worker collective action in the United States, this article documents some definitional and boundary challenges that constrain and facilitate unionization, collective action, and mutualism in arts and creative work. Arts workers are present across all strata of the labor market. Categories, such as art, commerce, craft, and entertainment, have often divided arts workers, blurring the boundaries around what work is and who counts as a worker. Despite these challenges, arts and culture workers present a compelling case for the promise and progress of collective action in an unwieldy occupational space.

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered how and when we work. Suddenly, organizations had to grant the possibility of working from home to all employees whose presence on-site was not necessary, independent of rank and job. In light of this experience, a return to permanent presence in the office for all has become unlikely. As remote work has both positive and negative implications for employees, their organizations, and workplace institutions, this contribution seeks to answer the following questions: First, what are the challenges for workplace equity and employee well-being that arise from the increased use of remote work? Second, what can be done to ensure that remote work actually benefits employees? Third, what are the implications of the increased use of remote work for the labor movement?

The WERN report documents the rise of worker-led collective action in the tech industry. We distinguish two types of activism emerging from tech professionals—demands for greater corporate social responsibility and demands for improved employment rights—and consider the opportunities each affords the larger labor movement. In the second section, we consider how the venture-capital funding model that structures the tech industry presents unique challenges to traditional union-organizing campaigns.