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-- Robert J. S. Ross 508 793 7243 Professor and Chair of Sociology fax: 508 793 8816 Clark University Rross@vax.clarku.edu 950 Main Street Worcester, Massachusetts 01610--------------5DEE8E82F1D
Return-path: <dcroteau@saturn.vcu.edu> 17 Sep 1996 09:20:43 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 09:16:29 -0400 From: dcroteau@saturn.vcu.edu (david croteau) Subject: NEW LABOR LISTSERV To: projectsouth@igc.apc.org, rfantasi@smith.smith.edu, rkoppel@sas.upenn.edu, rlevine@center.colgate.edu, rnsl@cornell.edu, roby@cats.uscs.edu, romerom@asuvm.inre.asu.edu, rross@vax.clarku.edu, rspalter@aol.com, scamp@access.digex.net
9/17/96 Re: (1) LABOR-RAP (Labor Research & Action Project) (2) Minutes from ASA meeting on Academics and the Labor Movement
Greetings,
You're receiving this note because you've expressed an interest in working on issues related to the labor movement. There is now a discussion list (listserv) set up for academics and others interested in this area. The list comes out of the Sociology Labor Network and is called LABOR-RAP, for Labor Research & Action Project.
To join the list, follow the directions below: 1) Send an e-mail message to: listproc@csf.colorado.edu 2) leave the subject line of your e-mail BLANK 3) in the BODY of the message type: subscribe LABOR-RAP <FIRSTNAME> <LASTNAME> (For example: subscribe LABOR-RAP Jane Doe) 4) send the message
When you subscribe you will receive confirmation of your subscription along with more information about the list.
The list is just getting off the ground in the last half of September so please be patient! New subscribers will gradually be joining.
The listowner for LABOR-RAP is David Croteau at Virginia Commonwealth University. He can be reached at dcroteau@saturn.vcu.edu.
To get discussion started, we're attaching the minutes to the ASA's meeting on Academics and the Labor Movement. These were prepared by Dan Clawson.
We look forward to hearing from you via LABOR-RAP! |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| SUMMARY OF THE ASA MEETING ON "ACADEMICS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT"
MAIN RECEPTION The AFL-CIO Organizing Institute enthusiastically welcomed the creation of a Sociology Labor Nework. In response the OI sponsored a reception at the sociology convention in New York (Sunday evening August 18, 1996). We had told the AFL-CIO to expect 75 people; 200 attended. The attendance was only one part of the success; equally impressive was the enthusiasm of the audience and what the speeches indicated about the direction of the new labor movement. Frances Fox Piven noted that, like many of the participants in 1960s social movements, her views of the labor movement had changed over the years. Richard Bensinger, the AFL-CIO's Director of Organizing, talked about the ways the labor movement is changing. The labor laws need to be changed, and the AFL-CIO is preparing a campaign to change the laws, but labor can't wait for the law to be changed. Labor is adopting new and innovative tactics, even if that means organizing outside the protections of the NLRB. The labor movement, Bensinger said, must be more than just trade unions; people like us are a vital part of a rejuvenated labor movement. This is, he said, one of the two most exciting times in the history of U.S. labor. (The other, obviously was the 1930s.) What happens in the next few years will determine whether labor can be transformed. Both speakers emphasized that women, people of color, and low wage workers must be central to labor activities. That point was reiterated in comments by several sociology students who had participated in Union Summer. In addition to the reception, about 70 (?) sociologists had one-on-one meetings with Organizing Institute staff on Sunday and Monday of the convention. Both the sociologists who participated and the Organizing Institute staff were energized by these meetings.
FUTURE ACTIVITIES After the main reception, a group of about 35 stayed for an additional hour to talk about next steps, ideas of things we can do either on our own campuses or through the A.S.A. What follows is my attempt to summarize some of the high points of that discussion, but I (Dan Clawson) did not take full notes at the time and may easily have missed some key ideas, so I hope others (whether or not they were at the New York meeting) will write in to supplement and extend these proposals.
COMMUNICATION People felt we needed ways to communicate with each other. The first priority was creating an electronic list-serve. David Croteau volunteered to do so and (as of September 15) already has it up and running. Others suggested the creation of a Homepage (any volunteers?) and of a newsletter, or perhaps a series of regional newsletters, reporting about activities in various areas, and providing means to connect to other movements.
STUDENT LABOR ACTION Organizing Institute staff -- especially Chris Woods, national recruitment director -- reported that a priority for the coming year is to build on Union Summer by creating Student Labor Action Committees (or SLACs) on as many campuses as possible. The lead in organizing these will probably be taken by Union Summer graduates, especially on campuses where there is a critical mass. But SLACs often need faculty advisers, and faculty can help provide resources, advice, contacts. SLACs will work on both national and local labor activities. A major national focus will be the Strawberry Campaign. Actions can also be mounted around international campaigns, mobilizing against sweatshops, working to build coalitions with community and religious activists interested in these issues. Where there are unions on campus, it is important to connect to them. And campus based personnel, whether students or faculty, need to reach out to Central Labor Councils and local unions. Perhaps not all of labor will welcome our participation, but many will, and it is important to make the effort. A professor in the Claremont College system, Nigel Boyle (a historian?), taught a public service course on organizing. Students enrolled for the course, attended a 2 day session taught by staff from the Organizing Institute, were matched with unions that needed student workers, and then worked 10 (15, 20) hours a week for the union while earning college credit. Others could also create such courses; we could share information about doing so. Lots of people do a "junior year abroad" as a broadening experience. We should each work to see that our campus offers a "junior year abroad" of working with labor in some kind of internship. In whatever we do, we need to be aware of and be sensitive to the existence of sectarian movements who are much less concerned about building the labor movement than they are about building their own sectarian movement, who will attempt to take over any group, who will disrupt meetings and insist the group focus on the agenda of their sectarian group.
INFORMATION SHARING To the extent we have an active communications system, whether a list-serve or a newsletter, we can use it to share ideas. Some possibilities: 1. Share information about speakers -- who are good people to invite, people's experiences with different speakers, the situations for which they are most appropriate and where they might have more difficulty, ways of connecting with local labor. 2. Develop a labor film series at your college; we can share curriculum ideas, develop an annotated list of films and ways of organizing the series 3. Share information about research projects -- academics can report on what we and others are doing. Anyone could indicate what unions or other labor groups need done, of research that would benefit labor activities in your area. This could become a way for unions to get answers to pressing problems, or to get leads to who could answer, and for people to take on the most needed research. 4. Create a job listing service. For example, sometimes person A knows of a union or other labor group who needs an intern, but does not know anyone who has the needed qualifications and is interested; if person A could post the job, perhaps other students would be eager to apply for the job, or other faculty would know of interested students. 5. We should copy the conservatives: people could write generic op-ed pieces and letters-to-the-editor, and put them on a Homepage or list-serve. Other people could then download those, adapt them to their local area by filling in local names or examples, sign their own names and send them to their local newspapers. In general, whenever labor related material appears in the press (or should have appeared, but doesn't), write a letter to the editor about it making some pro-labor point. Conservatives and anti-labor people are much more visible and active than pro-labor people. Chris Woods of the Organizing Institute pointed out that when Time magazine did a good article on Union Summer, the next issue had several anti-labor responses, but no pro-labor statements.
START AN A.S.A. SECTION Some felt we should create an ASA section on labor movements, and use that as a means to get a newsletter, be assurred of a session at each ASA meeting, regularly elect a set of officers who will be responsible for seeing that things get done, etc. (Coming soon on a list-serve near you: the pros and cons of starting an A.S.A. section.) ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^ David Croteau Sociology/ Virginia Commonwealth University E-mail: dcroteau@saturn.vcu.edu
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