soc446title

SOCIOLOGY 446/546
LABOR AS A SOCIAL MOVEMENT
Professor Michael Dreiling
MEETS: Tues., Thurs., 4-5:20, 301 CON
WINTER 2002, University of Oregon
OFFICE HOURS: Mon. 1-2, Tues and thurs, 2-3pm, 740 PLC
Phone: 346-5025; Email: dreiling@darkwing.uoregon.edu

Course Description -- Required Readings -- Grade Requirements -- WEB Reading Schedule -- Course Outline, Coursepack and Book Reading Schedule (from syllabus) -- LabourStart: Where trade unionists start their day on the net; Personal Labor Links -- Requests from class

Course Description and Objectives:

As the title indicates, we will examine labor as a social movement; in particular, the political, cultural, and economic sources of collective solidarity and mobilization among workers in the U.S. Most of the course will be devoted to class politics in the US from 1880 to the present. Toward this end, we will NOT be examining class politics as abstract processes, or as outcomes in the electoral system, but in the dynamics of social movement mobilization, demobilization, and the mobilization of countermovements (especially corporate/employer movements against worker initiatives). By this, I intend to establish links between the mid-range dynamics of labor unions as movement organizations and the macro-historical dialectics of class formation in capitalist society. Of course, no examination of class politics is sufficient (or even close to adequate) without considering the intersections of class with race, nation, and gender. Additionally, we will consider the impacts of labor movements on social inequality, political power, and on a range of cross-cutting issues around gender, immigration and race. We will conclude the course with a look at working class movements around the world, their responses to global corporations, and their actual/potential links with labor movements across national boundaries. Graduate students will incorporate class theory into labor movement dynamics.

Required Readings

Readings (all available at the UO Bookstore and the Library Reserves)

1. A course Reader and Web-based readings (http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~dreiling/soc446title.htm). In addition to the 446/ 546 course-pack, graduate students must obtain a second group of readings. ALL course-pack readings will be available in the Reserve section of the library or for purchase at the bookstore.
2. Brecher, Jeremy. 1997/1972. Strike! Boston: South End Press.
3. Delgado, Hector. 1993. New Immigrants, Old Unions: Organizing Undocumented Workers in Los Angeles. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
4. Juravich & Bronfenbrenner. 1999. Ravenswood: Steelworkers Victory and the Revival of American Labor.
5. Barbara Kingsolver. 1989. Holding the Line : women in the great Arizona mine strike of 1983. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.

OPTIONAL:

Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy

For Graduate Students:

1.Kimeldorf, Howard. 1999. Battling for American Labor: Wobblies, Craft Workers and the Making of the Union Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press. 0520218337
RECOMMENDED: Fantasia, Rick. 1988. Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action and Contemporary American Workers. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Grades

COURSE BOUNDARIES

My intention is to create an environment where all seminar participants take an active part in the evolution of our consciousness as a class. Maintaining a common ground in the course readings will help us toward that end. I encourage you to complete the readings as they are listed in the reading outline below and please do your best to complete the assigned section before the respective lecture times. My lectures will stay close to the reading, making it much easier for you to identify key concepts and problems. In addition, most of the course time will consist of a mixture of lecture and discussion. For this reason, I would like everyone to attend classes regularly.

Below you will find my proposal for evaluating how each of you engage the course material. My intention with this proposal is to provide a framework from which I can assess how much and to what depth each of you pursue the course material. My intention IS NOT to compare, penalize or reward you.

PROPOSAL:

ATTENDANCE: 1% for each day, totaling 20% of your total course grade
READING SUMMARIES: three summaries of selected weekly readings (including web-based readings), each at 15%, totaling 45% of your total course grade. They are due on Tuesday during class (for the prior weeks’ reading). Best to plan ahead, know your limits, and don’t leave all 3 for the last three weeks! For each review of the readings you may receive up to 15%, depending on the content, ability to bring synthesis to the various readings, and the quality of presentation.
FINAL COMPREHENSIVE PROJECT: Choose a strategy to convey to me your understanding of labor as a social movement as it was derived from studying the material presented in this class. I encourage you to discover a strategy that you would enjoy using as a means to present this material. I will ask for your input during class. This will account for up to 35% of your total grade.

ALTERNATIVES:
If you find that the above proposal does not meet your needs for this class and want your grade to reflect some other course-related work, please plan to present your strategy to me by the end of the second week of class. The following guidelines are suggested: 1) develop a proposal that outlines what you will do to convey to me that you engaged the course material/readings, and second, provide a brief explanation of what needs of yours are met by doing the work as you propose (e.g., I will enjoy learning sociology more by applying my artistic talents or web-design talents to course projects); 2) be prepared to explain how each of your proposed projects will show me that you engaged each major segment of the course material (be aware that I want to see that your projects are directly related to the course content). Your proposal may substitute any element of my proposal with your own or you may want to do things that convey your understanding of the course material in ways that totally diverge from my proposal above. These options may be discussed in detail during office hours or in class.

Course Reading Schedule:

	WEEKLY WEB LINKS & JOURNEYS
WEEK 1 The Question of Class and the Revolutionary Significance of Class Conflict	1) Marx & Engels (1848) The Communist Manifesto, Part I and STRIKES AND COMBINATIONS OF WORKERS, from Chapter 5, The Poverty of Philosophy (1847)
WEEK 2 -- Strategy I Tensions Between Socialism and Anarchism: Socialism from Above, or Below, or Somewhere Between?	2) Class Crosscuts Race and Gender: Lucy Parsons Biography; May Day 1886 Haymarket Massacre Internet Memorial 3) End of the Knights of Labor, rank and file insurgency, and the rise of the AFL; Ascendance of Samuel Gompers' business unionism, Pure and Simple.
WEEK 3 -- Strategy II On Anarchism, Revolutionary Syndicalism, and Socialism: The Theoretical and Political Role of Industrial Unionism	4) "Mother" Mary Harris Jones: Now, Emma Goldman -- What is Anarchism? 5) Elisabeth Gurley Flynn The Story of the Industrial Workers of the World 6) Daniel DeLeon -- 1913: Industrial Unionism
WEEK 4 -- Institutionalizing Industrial Unionism and the Contradictions of Bureaucratic Power	7) The Great Flint Sitdown

	WEEKLY WEB READINGS & JOURNEYS
Week 5 -- The Changing Context and Composition of Labor	Working Women Page; Pride at Work, AFL-CIO; CLUW Homepage; Oregon Tradeswomen Network
Week 6 -- The Changing Politics and Strategies to meet the needs of workers	Labor Party Home Page; California Nurses Association; Labor Project for Working Families
Week 7 -- At the margins of U.S. labor	EXPLORE Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN); UFW History and Exhibit of La Causa Home page for the United Farm Workers (UFW); Justice for Janitors
Week 8 -- Social Movement Unionism: From the Bottom-UP	Explore Teamsters for a Democratic Union Explore 3 cutting-edge unions: UNITE!, United Electrical, Dan LaBotz (author of Rank and File Rebellion) on the UPS Strike.

	WEEKLY WEB READINGS & JOURNEYS
Week 9 -- National Struggles and Convergences in International Strategy	Explore: The General Strike Page; the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) or Solidarity with
Week 10 -- Between Union Mobilization and a Class for Itself	Wrap-up -- Savvy Troublemaking, Amy Carroll CorporateWatch's Global Labor Page (Explore) SWEATSHOP WATCH

Course and Reading Outline

Coursepack readings are numbered. Those followed by a * are from the main packet and those with G are from the graduate supplement. Readings from the Web are highlighted in boldtype and indicated on the course Web-page (http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~dreiling/soc446title.htm). Author and title indicate scheduled readings from the books.

I) The Sociology of Labor and Class
A) WEEK 1:

1) * Weber, Max. (1921/1958). “Class, Status, Party.”

G1) Przeworski, Adam. 1977. “Proletariat into a Class: The Process of Class Formation from Karl Kautsky’s The Class Struggle to Recent Controversies.” Politics and Society 7(4):343-401.

WEB READINGS: Marx, Karl and F. Engels. 1848. The Manifesto of the Communist Party. And Marx on worker combinations.

BOOK:
Everyone: Intro. and Chapter 1. Brecher, Strike!

II) Class Formation and Class Struggle – Labor as a Movement

A) WEEK 2:
i) Labor forms as a movement – from craft association to class mobilization
ii) Political Defeat of the Knights, and the succession of business unionism, AFofL – Gompers’ “pure and simple” unionism
iii) Racism, Market closure and exclusion

WEB READINGS:

1) Lucy Parsons’ Biography
2) Daniel DeLeon -- 1904: The burning question of trade unionism & 1913: Industrial Unionism
3) Emma Goldman on Anarchism and Syndicalism.
4) THE IWW

BOOK:
Everyone: Chapter 2-3 of Brecher, Strike!

2) * Billings, Dwight. 1990. “Religion as Opposition: A Gramscian Analysis.” American Journal of Sociology 96(1): 1-31

GRADUATES: Begin Kimeldorf, Battling for American Labor.
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B) WEEK 3: From Exclusion, Racism and Craft Unionism to Universalism and Industrial Unionism

BOOK:
Everyone: Chapter 4-5 of Brecher, Strike!
GRADUATES: Continue Kimeldorf, Battling for American Labor

3) * Bonacich, Edna. 1972. “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market.” American Sociological Review 37:547-59.
4) * Brown, Cliff and John Brueggeman. 1997. “Mobilizing Interracial Solidarity: Comparison of the 1919 and 1937 Steel Organizing Drives.” Mobilization 2(1):47-70.

WEB READINGS: Continue from last week.

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C) WEEK 4:
i) Institutionalizing Industrial Unionism – Political Strategy and the Contradictions of Bureaucratic Unionism.
ii) Gender, Race and Class

BOOK:
Everyone: Chapter 6 of Brecher, Strike!

GRADUATES: Finish Kimeldorf, Battling for American Labor
WEB READINGS: See Web page

5) * Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. 1986. “Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South.” Journal of American History 73:354-382.
6) * Kozura, Michael. 1996. “We Stood Our Own Ground: Anthracite Miners and the Expropriation of Corporate Property, 1930-1941.” (Ch. 6, p. 199-237) in S. Lynd, ed., We Are All Leaders
7) * Stepan-Norris, Judith. 1998. “Strangers to Their Own Class?” Sociological Inquiry 68(3)329-53.

G2) Goldfield, Michael. 1995. “Was There a Golden Age of the CIO? Race, Solidarity, and Union Growth During the 1930s and 1940s.” (p. 78-110) in G. Perusek and K. Worcester, eds., Trade Union Politics
G3) Stepan-Norris, Judith and Maurice Zeitlin. 1996. “Union Leadership, Radical Leadership, and the Hegemony of Capital.” American Sociological Review 60(6):829-850.
_______________________________________________________________________
D) WEEK 5:

WEB READINGS: See Web Page

BOOK:
Everyone: Chapter 7 and 8 of Brecher, Strike!
BEGIN READING KINGSOLVER, Holding the Line…

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E) WEEK 6:

WEB READINGS: See Web Page

BOOK:
Everyone: Complete Kingsolver, Holding the Line…

8) * Milkman, Ruth. 1985. “Women Workers, Feminism and the Labor Movement Since the 1960s.” (300-22) in R. Milkman, ed., Women, Work and Protest. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
9) * Brenner, Johanna. 1998. “On Gender and Class in U.S. Labor History.” Monthly Review Nov. 50(6):1.
10) * Marable, Manning. 1997. “Black Leadership and the Labor Movement.” Working USA 1(3):39-50.

G4) Wallace, Michael, Larry J. Griffin, and Beth A. Rubin. 1989. “The Positional Power of American Labor, 1963-1977.” American Sociological Review 54: 197-214.

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F) WEEK 7:

WEB READINGS: 1) and Pride at Work
2) FLOC, UFW, and PCUN
BOOK:
Everyone: Delgado, New Immigrants, Old Unions, entire book.

III) Toward a New Working Class Offensive -- Social Movement Unionism and International Solidarity

A) WEEK 8:

WEB READINGS: See Web Page

BOOK:
Everyone: Chapter 9, Brecher, Strike!    AND,
    Chapters 1-12 of Ravenswood
           ALSO RECOMMENDED: Intro, Chs. 1-2 of Moody, Workers in a Lean World.

Graduates: Work on your paper.
Recommended: Fantasia, Cultures of Solidarity.
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B) WEEK 9:

WEB READINGS: See Web Page
BOOK:
Everyone: Chapters 13-20 of Ravenswood

ALSO RECOMMENDED: Chapters 3 - 7, Moody, Workers in a Lean World

11) * Dreiling, Michael and Ian Robinson. 1998. “Union Responses to NAFTA in the USA and Canada: Explaining Intra- and International Variation.” Mobilization Vol. 3(2): 163-184.

Graduates: Work on your paper.
Recommended: Fantasia, Cultures of Solidarity.

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C) WEEK 10: International Labor Movements and the END

WEB READINGS: See Web Page

BOOK:
Everyone: Complete Ravenswood
ALSO RECOMMENDED: Chapters 8-Conclusion, Moody, Workers in a Lean World

Graduates: Work on your paper.
Recommended: Fantasia, Cultures of Solidarity.

12) * Roman, Richard and Edur Velasco Arregui. 1997. “Zapatismo and the Workers Movement in Mexico at the End of the Century.” Monthly Review 49(3): 98-116.

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Final Exam Time: 1:00 March 18