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Global Transformations, Local Activism: “New” Unionism’S Engagement With Economic And Health Care Transformation In Urban Central Appalachia, Rebecca Adkins Fletcher

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

It has long been argued that the organization of the U.S. health care system is shaped by the struggles between capital and labor, and this relationship is of increasing significance today. Transformations from an industrial to a service economy, rising insurance costs, neoliberal social policies, and decreased labor union power have increased the number of Americans with reduced access to health care, especially for service workers and women. This dissertation is an ethnographic study of how workers in two leading unions in the “new” unionism movement, the Retail, Wholesale, and Distribution Service Union (RWDSU) and the United Steelworkers (USW) in …