US LABOR IN TROUBLE AND TRANSITION US LABOR IN TROUBLE A N D TRANSITION: The Failure of Reform from Above, the Promise of Revival from Below 4 KIM MOODY oooooooooooooo First published by Verso 2007 © Kim Moody 2007 All rights reserved The moral right of the author has been asserted 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 VERSO UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F OEG USA: 180 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014-4606 www.versobooks.com Verso is the imprint of New Left Books ISBN: 978-1-84467-154—0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-84467-155-7 (hbk) BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Typeset by Hewer Text Uk Ltd, Edinburgh Printed and bound in the USA by Courier Stoughton Inc. w w A -m x O CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii List of Tables List of Acronyms xi A Message about the Future from the Present The Great Transformation The Changing Industrial Geography 37 The Changing Industrial Demography 58 Lost Decades 79 The End of Militancy, the Surrender of the Workplace, and the Origins of Decline 98 \l Winning to Change: The Failure of Reform from Above |2| The Politics of Defeat—One More Time I43 The Split: Reform from Above Again I69 Beneath the Split: Resistance and Change from Below I98 Paths to Power, Roads Not Taken 224 Notes 249 Index 279 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A special acknowledgment goes to my partner Sheila Cohen, with whom I have worked out many of my ideas and from whom I have borrowed more than a few. Her collaboration and support have been invaluable. The past and present staff and the many close associates of Labor Note: might all take more than a little credit for the facts, analysis, ideas, and experiences that went into this book. My many years on the Labor N om staff were an in-depth apprenticeship in the life and realities of the labor movement in the United States and a few other countries as well. This project continues to educate thousands of the activists and grassroots leaders who make the labor movement possible. As any look at my endnotes will reveal, Labor Notes was a key source of information on trends in working-class organization and activity. The hundreds of union and community activists I have known through my work at Labor Note: have also contributed to this book through what I have learned from them. Only a few of them actually appear in the book, but they have all helped to shape my thinking. I add to this list the staff and students at the Cornell labor studies program in New York City. The Centre for Research in Employment Studiesat the University of Hertfordshire provided me with some of the much-needed time it took to complete my research and pull this book together. Finally, I wish to thank the editors and staff at Verso, for whom this is my third book, for their suggestions and patience. TABLES 2.1 Average Rate of Profit, 1950—73 2.2 Indicators of Global Economic Integration 2.3 US Foreign Direct Investment Outflow: Total and Manufacturing as a Percentage of Total 2.4 Foreign Direct Investment in Manufacturing: Outflows and Inflows, 1984—2004 2.5 US International Trade: Exports and Imports of Goods, 1984— 2004 2.6 Real Private Nonresidential Fixed Investment, 1991—2004 2.7 Manufacturing: Real Fixed Assets per Production Worker, 1990—2004 2.8 The 57—second Work Minute: Value Added in Manufacturing, 2002 3.1 Real GDP by Type of Product 1980—2005;S ervices as a Percentage of GDP 3.2 Employees in Nonfarm Industries, 1990—2005 3.3 Real Value Added in Manufacturing: South and US 3.4 Foreign Direct Investment in the US and US South, 1990—2003 3.5 Construction Contracts by Value, US and the South, 1990—2003 3.6 Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures, 1985—2003 4.1 Industrialization Indices, 1870—1920 4.2 Women in the US Civilian Labor Force, 1950-70 4.3 Changes in Population in the Northeast and Midwest, 1950—70 4.4 Civilian Labor Force by Gender and Race, 197 5—2004 4.5 Immigrant Population, 1995—2004 4.6 Latin American Legal Immigration by Decade 4.7 Percentage of Employed Asians and Latinos in Major Occupational Groups, 2003 5 5.1 Real Average Weekly Wages (1982 dollars) for Production and Nonsupervisory Workers