Labor History Commons^™

The State Of The Unions 2023: A Profile Of Organized Labor In New York City, New York State, And The United States, Ruth Milkman, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

This report released by the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, State of the Unions 2023: A Profile of Organized Labor in New York City, New York State, and the United States, is a part of an annual publication series, documents recent trends in unionization patterns. The overall level of unionization in both the City and State has been roughly double the national rate over the past two decades. But recently, union density has fallen more in New York City and New York State than in the United States as a whole. In the mid-2010s, both the City and …

Unlovable Labour: Rejecting The "Do What You Love" Ideology, Trey Dykeman

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Miya Tokumitsu’s article ‘In the Name of Love’ is polemic against what she refers to as the DWYL (Do What You Love) movement that has been most recognisably popularised and transformed by Steve Jobs. She denounces this movement as an insidious ideology cleverly disguised as an uplifting lifestyle which has as its tenets labour, profit, and individualism; through her analysis of these tenets, she unveils them as alienation, erasure, and precarity, respectively. Her insights aid her in her aim to demonstrate that these ideological pillars do not support the wellbeing of the proletariat but rather reinforce the rugged structure of …

More Austerity Coming? Lessons From New York City's 1970s Fiscal Crisis, Marc Kagan

Publications and Research

Crises can be moments of opportunity, but it is not foreordained who will seize the ring. The Great Depression ultimately led to the New Deal/Great Society state and increasing equality. 1975 New York City fiscal crisis, on the other hand, laid the groundwork for decades of neoliberal austerity. Despite political vulnerabilities, bankers and their Washington allies acted boldly to protect imperiled assets and remake a city in which the working class wielded some power as a bastion of finance capital. Seemingly powerful unions abandoned the public they served, and followed a risk-averse strategy of concessions in exchange for junior-partner corporatism, …

For Tony Feliciano, A Friend And A Union Man, Marc Kagan

Publications and Research

My friend Tony Feliciano, transit worker 1984-2020, and a union man all his life, died a few weeks ago; he had just turned 61. While transit workers were dying this spring, he actually made it out of the 207th St. Overhaul Shop, where he worked virtually his whole career, in May; he put in his papers and retired to his house in Rockland County.

But he died of a heart attack, before he could even collect his first pension check.

Jewish Time Jump: New York, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Jewish Time Jump: New York (Gottlieb & Ash, 2013) is a place-based mobile augmented reality game and simulation that takes the form of a situated documentary. Players take on the role of time traveling reporters tracking down a story “lost to time” to bring back to their editor at the Jewish Time Jump Gazette. The game is played in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, New York City. Players’ iPhones become their time traveling device and companion. Based on the player’s GPS location, players receive digital images from their location from over a hundred years in the past as well …

What Do Unions Want? When New York State’S Public Employee Unions Turned Down The Right To Strike, Marc Kagan

Publications and Research

In a 1977 package of proposed revisions of New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which governs public employee labor-management relations and prohibits work stoppages, unions were offered the right to strike, while managers would have gained the right to unilaterally change contract terms at expiration. In effect, this deal would have made state labor relations more similar to bargaining in private industry. Offered an expanded ability to strike, the municipal unions instead opted for defensive stability.

Images, Art, And Paraphernalia: Analyzing Tactics Of The United Farm Workers And The Coalition Of Immokalee Workers, Felicia Viano

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

What do grapes and tomatoes have in common? Both of these foods have been or are major points of contention for influential farm worker movements. The United Farm Workers formed by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Gilbert Padilla in 1962 has become a hallmark of success in labor history. This movement used traditional yet innovative methods of social movement strategy, eventually branding themselves as a household name. The images and paraphernalia such as buttons, bumper stickers, and posters distributed during the Delano Grape Strike seemed like a simple concept at the time, but there were strategic decisions made to incorporate …

Free Labor: The Civil War And The Making Of An American Working Class By Mark A. Lause (Review), Joanne Pope Melish

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Father And Servant, Son And Slave: Judaism And Labor In Georgia, 1732-1809, Kylie L. Mccormick

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In 1732 a philanthropic trusteeship was granted the charter to Georgia with the lofty goals of bringing aid to the impoverished in the British Empire and the persecuted Protestants of Europe. Within these goals was an emphasis on using the labor of indentured white servants, an unofficial ban on slavery, and a reluctance to allow Jewish colonists. To understand how both slavery and Judaism took hold in Georgia, this two part study explores the changing labor institutions through the lives of Benjamin Sheftall and his youngest son Levi—the two men who maintained the first Vital Records for Savanah’s Jewry. Benjamin’s …

Dorothy Sue Cobble Interview, Jennifer Thomson

Bucknell: Occupied

Jennifer Thomson, assistant professor of History at Bucknell University, interviews Dorothy Sue Cobble, professor at Rutgers University in the departments of Labor Studies and Employee Relations and the department of History. Thomson and Cobble discuss the feminism movements in the United States and the intersection of women's movements with labor and class movements. Cobble discusses grassroots activism, movements for equal rights and equal pay, and the changing objectives of feminists. Thomson and Cobble conclude by discussing contemporary issues and the historical precedent of affecting change at the state level.

James Livingston Interview, Jennifer Thomson

Bucknell: Occupied

Jennifer Thomson, assistant professor of History at Bucknell University, interviews James Livingston, professor at Rutgers University in the department of History about his new book tentatively entitled F--- Work. Thomson and Livingston discuss cultural ideas about work and full employment. Livingston describes the cultural changes necessary for the adoption of ideas related to transfer payments.

Insurgent Labor Activists At Yale, 1968-1971, Raymond L. Noonan Iii

Kaplan Senior Essay Prize for Use of Library Special Collections

At noon on April 30, 1971, some Yale students began busing their own trays. Others flipped food-filled plates and tables onto the floor. Almost 100 students broke chairs and other furniture.Commons, the main dining hall on campus, became a “slippery, sloshing pigpen,” according to the Yale Daily News. Soon, nearly 300 students flooded Commons, throwing metal trays across the hall while policemen and dining managers watched grimly nearby. “Support the Yale workers,” they chanted, doing all they could to halt Commons’s services. That day, over 1,000 service and maintenance employees at Yale, part of Local 35 of the Federation of …

From England's Bridewell To America's Brides: Imprisoned Women, Shakespeare's Measure For Measure, And Empire, Alicia Meyer

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis examines the experience of largely single women in London’s house of correction, Bridewell Prison, and argues that Bridewell’s prisoners, and the nature of their crimes, reveal the state’s desire for dependent, sexually controlled, yet ultimately productive women. Scholars have largely neglected the place of early modern women’s imprisonment despite its pervasive presence in the everyday lives of common English women. By examining the historical and cultural implications of early modern women and prison, this thesis contends that women’s prisons were more than simply establishments of punishment and reform. A closer examination of Bridewell’s philosophy and practices shows how …