Respecting both the history a labor theories and the variety of theoretical points of view concerning the labor movement, this collection of readings includes selections by Karl Marx, V. I. Lenin, William Haywood, Georges Sorel, Stanley Aronowitz, John R. Commons, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Thorstein Veblen, Henry Simons, and John Kenneth Galbraith, among others. Intending this as a text for classroom use, Larson and Nissen have arranged the readings according to the social role assigned to the labor movement by each theory. The text's major divisions consider the labor movement as an agent of revolution, as a business institution, as an agent of industrial reform, as a psychological reaction to industrialism, as a moral force, as a destructive monopoly, and as a subordinate mechanism in pluralist industrial society. Such groupings allow for ready comparison of divergent views of the origins, development, and future of the labor movement.

Strategic Negotiations examines the current changes in labor-management relations. The authors identify & explain three key negotiating strategies: forcing change, fostering cooperative attitudes & solutions, & escaping the relationship. They illustrate how these strategies succeed or fail in real organizations by drawing on in-depth examples from 13 companies in 3 industries: pulp & paper, railroads, & auto supply. The resulting theory has broad implications for strategic negotiations in many settings.

Study of the impact of trade unions on working conditions and labour relations in the USA - based on a comparison of unionized workers and nonunionized workers, examines wage determination, fringe benefits, wage differentials, employment security, labour productivity, etc.; discusses trade union power and incidence of corruption among trade union officers; notes declining rate of trade unionization in the private sector. Graphs and references.

The author is convinced that there is a ruling class in America today. He examines the American power structure as it has developed in the 1980s. He presents systematic, empirical evidence that a fixed group of privileged people dominates the American economy and government. The book demonstrates that an upper class comprising only one-half of one percent of the population occupies key positions within the corporate community. It shows how leaders within this "power elite" reach government and dominate it through processes of special-interest lobbying, policy planning and candidate selection. It is written not to promote any political ideology, but to analyze our society with accuracy.

Labor in the Time of Trump critically analyzes the right-wing attack on workers and unions and offers strategies to build a working–class movement. While President Trump's election in 2016 may have been a wakeup call for labor and the Left, the underlying processes behind this shift to the right have been building for at least forty years. The contributors show that only by analyzing the vulnerabilities in the right-wing strategy can the labor movement develop an effective response. Essays in the volume examine the conservative upsurge, explore key challenges the labor movement faces today, and draw lessons from recent activist successes. Contributors: Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest; Bill Fletcher, Jr., author of Solidarity Divided; Shannon Gleeson, Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations; Sarah Jaffe, co-host of Dissent Magazine's Belabored podcast; Cedric Johnson, University of Illinois at Chicago; Jennifer Klein, Yale University; Gordon Lafer, University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center; Jose La Luz, labor activist and public intellectual; Nancy MacLean, Duke University; MaryBe McMillan, President of the North Carolina state AFL-CIO; Jon Shelton, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay; Lara Skinner, The Worker Institute at Cornell University; Kyla Walters, Sonoma State University

"This riveting, nuanced book takes seriously the workplace radicalism of many early twentieth century American workers. The restriction of working class militancy to the workplace, it shows, was no mere economism. Organizational rather than psychological in orientation, Battling For American Labor accounts for both the early preference of dockworkers in Philadelphia and hotel and restaurant workers in New York for the IWW rather than the AFL and for the reversal of this choice in the 1920s. In so doing, it points the way to a fresh reading of American labor history."—Ira Katznelson, Columbia University "Howard Kimeldorf's book, based on sound and solid historical research in archives, newspapers, journals, memoirs and oral histories, argues that workers in the United States, regardless of their precise union affiliation, harbored syndicalist tendencies which manifested themselves in direct action on the job. Because Kimeldorf's book reinterprets much of the history of the labor movement in the United States, it will surely generate much controversy among scholars and capture the attention of readers."—Melvyn Dubofsky, Binghamton University, SUNY "Howard Kimeldorf's new book is a very exciting accomplishment. This book will surely leave a major imprint on labor history and the sociology of labor. Kimeldorf's focus on repertoires of collective action and practice instead of ideology is a particularly important contribution; one that will force students of labor to rethink many worn-out arguments. After reading Battling For American Labor, one will no longer be able to assume the IWW's defeat was inevitable, or take seriously psychological theories of worker consciousness."—David Wellman, author of The Union Makes Us Strong

In this new political history of the labor movement, Clayton Sinyai examines the relationship between labor activism and the American democratic tradition. Sinyai shows how America's working people and union leaders debated the first questions of democratic theory--and in the process educated themselves about the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship. In tracing the course of the American labor movement from the founding of the Knights of Labor in the 1870s to the 1968 presidential election and its aftermath, Sinyai explores the political dimensions of collective bargaining, the structures of unions and businesses, and labor's relationships with political parties and other social movements. Schools of Democracy analyzes how labor activists wrestled with fundamental aspects of political philosophy and the development of American democracy, including majority rule versus individual liberty, the rule of law, and the qualifications required of citizens of a democracy. Offering a balanced assessment of mainstream leaders of American labor, from Samuel Gompers to George Meany, and their radical critics, including the Socialists and the Industrial Workers of the World, Sinyai provides an unusual and refreshing perspective on American labor history.