Overview

Labor unions remain the largest membership-based organizations in major North American cities, even after years of decline. Labor continues to play a vital role in mobilizing urban residents, shaping urban conflict, and crafting the policies and regulations that are transforming our urban spaces. As unions become more involved in the daily life of the city, they find themselves confronting the familiar dilemma of how to fold union priorities into broader campaigns that address nonunion workers and the lives of union members beyond the workplace. If we are right to believe that the future of the labor movement is an urban one, union activists and staffers, urban policymakers, elected officials, and members of the public alike will require a fuller understanding of what impels unions to become involved in urban policy issues, what dilemmas structure the choices unions make, and what impact unions have on the lives of urban residents, beyond their members. Unions and the City serves as a road map toward both a stronger labor movement and a socially just urbanism. The book presents the findings of a collaborative project in which a team of labor researchers and labor geographers based in New York City and Toronto investigated how and why labor unions were becoming more involved in urban regulation and urban planning. The contributors assess the effectiveness of this involvement in terms of labor goals-such as protecting employment levels, retaining bargaining relationships with employers, and organizing new workforces-as well as broader social consequences of union strategies, such as expanding access to public services, improving employment equity, and making neighborhoods more affordable. Focusing on four key economic sectors (film, hospitality, green energy, and child care), this book reveals that unions can exert a surprising level of influence in various aspects of urban policymaking and that they can have a significant impact on how cities are changing and on the experiences of urban residents. Contributors Simon Black, Brock University; Maria Figueroa, Cornell University; Lois S. Gray, Cornell University; Ian Thomas MacDonald, University of Montreal; James Nugent, University of Toronto; Susanna F. Schaller, City College Center for Worker Education; Steven Tufts, York University; K. C. Wagner, Cornell University; Mildred Warner, Cornell University; Thorben Wieditz, York University

Full Product Details

Author:   Ian Thomas MacDonald
Publisher:   Cornell University Press
Imprint:   Cornell University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.907kg
ISBN:  

9781501706547

ISBN 10:   1501706543
Pages:   260
Publication Date:   13 June 2017
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

"Introduction. The Urbanization of Union Strategy and Struggle, Ian MacDonald Part 1. LABOR AND THE HOSPITABLE CITY,Ian MacDonald 1. Labor Strategy and the Politics of Elite Division in Midtown Manhattan, Ian MacDonald 2. Organized Labor and Casino Politics in Toronto, Steven Tufts Part 2. LABOR AND THE CREATIVE CITY, Maria Figueroa, Lois S. Gray, and Thorben Wieditz 3. New York Film Production Unions Enter the Political Arena in Search of Tax Subsidies,Maria Figueroa and Lois S. Gray 4. Film Unions' Struggle to Defend Studio Space in Toronto, Thorben Wieditz Part 3. LABOR AND THE SUSTAINABLE CITY, James Nugent 5. Building a Green New York: Construction Unions and Community Alliances, Maria Figueroa 6. Struggling for Good Green Jobs in Toronto's Deindustrializing Suburbs, James Nugent Part 4. LABOR AND THE CARING CITY, Simon Black 7. Creating a City for Workers: Union Strategies on Child Care in New York City, Susanna F. Schaller, K. C. Wagner, and Mildred E. Warner 8. In Defense of ""Gold-Plated"" Child Care: Union Struggles to Preserve Quality Care and Quality Care Work in Toronto, Simon Black Conclusion, Ian MacDonald"

Reviews

Unions and the City is a welcome addition to the growing field of 'labor revitalization.' It pursues the important theme of labor's successful urban strategies in the contemporary neoliberal era of austerity, declining union memberships, and increasing antiunion political action. As such, it augments the spatial dimension of analysis in the labor revitalization field by framing the set of eight well-written cases-four industry sectors in two cities, Toronto and New York-in terms of critical urban geography. This book will appeal to a readership in search of strategies for revitalizing labor in urban areas. -Daniel B. Cornfield, Vanderbilt University, coeditor of Labor in the New Urban Battlegrounds: Local Solidarity in a Global Economy Unions and the City addresses an important topic within both labor studies and urban politics-namely the potential for labor's engagement in urban development to be an important pathway for renewing labor's power (and implicitly also for developing more equitable cities). -Chris Benner, Dorothy E. Everett Chair in Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship and Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz, coauthor of Equity, Growth, and Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America's Metro Areas

"""Unions and the City is a welcome addition to the growing field of 'labor revitalization.' It pursues the important theme of labor's successful urban strategies in the contemporary neoliberal era of austerity, declining union memberships, and increasing antiunion political action. As such, it augments the spatial dimension of analysis in the labor revitalization field by framing the set of eight well-written cases-four industry sectors in two cities, Toronto and New York-in terms of critical urban geography. This book will appeal to a readership in search of strategies for revitalizing labor in urban areas.""-Daniel B. Cornfield, Vanderbilt University, coeditor of Labor in the New Urban Battlegrounds: Local Solidarity in a Global Economy ""Unions and the City addresses an important topic within both labor studies and urban politics-namely the potential for labor's engagement in urban development to be an important pathway for renewing labor's power (and implicitly also for developing more equitable cities).""-Chris Benner, Dorothy E. Everett Chair in Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship and Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz, coauthor of Equity, Growth, and Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America's Metro Areas"

Author Information

Ian Thomas MacDonald is Assistant Professor in the School of Industrial Relations at the University of Montreal.

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