Segmented Labor, Fractured Politics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

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2. Change and Decline

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Explaining Labor’s Political Fortunes

      Pages 3-25

   3. Can a Class Theory of Labor Politics Be Saved?

      Pages 27-38

   4. Labor as a Changing Social Class

      Pages 39-52

   5. Labor’s Changing and Turbulent Environment

      Pages 53-68

   6. All Politics Is Local

      Pages 69-85

3. Labor Politics in Three Cities

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 87-87

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   2. Economy, Politics, and Labor in Three Cities

      Pages 89-117

   3. Cleveland

      Pages 119-149

   4. Cincinnati

      Pages 151-181

   5. Columbus

      Pages 183-217

   6. Labor-Party Relations in Three Cities

      Pages 219-234

   7. Labor, Community, and State Politics

      Pages 235-255

4. Labor in National Politics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 257-257

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   2. Bargaining in the Democratic Party

      Pages 259-291

   3. Labor Politics in Washington

      Pages 293-320

   4. Organizational Reform or Movement Revival?

      Pages 321-336

5. Back Matter

   Pages 337-377

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My curiosity and concern about the working class in America stems from childhood memories of my father, a cabinetmaker, and of my oldest brother, an autoworker, who were passionately involved in the labor movement. Perhaps because they so wanted the working class to achieve greater social and economic justice and because they insisted it was not happening, I became curious to know the reasons why. Without even being aware of it, I began to explore a possible explanation—the internal diver­ sity of the working class. In my studies of autoworkers (the prototype proletarians) in the United States, Italy, Argentina, and India, I discovered that they seemed to be more divided economically, socially, and politically in the more eco­ nomically advanced countries—an idea that ran contrary to the evolution­ ary predictions of my Marxist friends. When I reported this in Blue-Collar Stratification (1976), I was surprised that some of them who were commit­ ted to an ideology of working-class solidarity attacked the hypothesis because it ran against their convictions.

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`Offers the most wide-ranging and comprehensive sociological account of contemporary labor politics to appear in the last two decades... will be read and appreciated by students of labor and politics and... men and women who now preside over the American labor movement.'
Contemporary Sociology

`Well-researched and well-written volume... This insightful analysis of unions and politics is highly recommended for students and scholars in sociology, political science, labor history, and industrial relations.'
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• The Ohio State University, Columbus

  William Form

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