Mapping the Dimensions of Labor Revitalization: Movement Innovators Survey the California Frontier

Abstract

In light of the ongoing dialogue regarding the possibility and potential for revitalizing the U.S. labor movement, this paper seeks to map systematically the emblematic activities of this re-emergence. An inventory of innovative and promising labor movement activity is compiled and analyzed through semi-structured interviews with labor scholars, community leaders, organizers, and union officials in California. Analysis of the data suggests several emerging patterns: (1) the declining role of traditional union activity in the new labor movement, (2) the importance of immigrant workers to labor's revitalization, and (3) the absence of white-collar workers from the range of labor activity viewed as promising.