The Blue Eagle at Work: Reclaiming Democratic Rights in the American Workplace (Book Review)

Abstract:     
With private sector union density at an eighty-year low -- somewhere below 8 percent -- reviving union power throught effective organizing strategies is unquestionably "the issue." This crisis is rightly driving the heated debate among feuding factions in the U.S. labor leadership. but the debate -- focused on how the American labor movement should structure itself at the top and how much of its financial resources should be devoted to the penultimate task of reversing the national decline in union membership -- in some way misses the boat. Both factions of the now-divided American labor movement must come to terms with the fact that even where significant resources are devoted to union organizing campaigns, victory is routinely stymied by obdurate employers prone to zealous "union avoidance campaigns" and a labor law regime that is undeniably hostile to accepted labor organizing processes.

Keywords: democratic rights, workplace, labor and employment law

Accepted Paper Series