Notes on the future of the labor movement, Part I: Definitions

First, defining terms. The "labor movement": to many, this phrase evokes established labor unions, and refers solely to the fate of these organizations. Teamster truck drivers, building construction workers in hard hats, Laborers picketing next to an inflated rat. Maybe the image includes teachers and municipal employees, maybe nurses and janitors. But what about the Occupy activists demonstrating against elite, corporate power, on behalf of "the 99%"? This movement was concerned with the issues of working people, but is it considered part of the so-called "labor movement"? Does it matter whether this movement concerned itself with actual workplace issues? But there is also a tremendous amount of organizing and activism that directly concerns workplace issues but may not always be considered part of the labor movement, per se. This is the work I want to write about here. In New York, this includes new organizations of domestic workers, taxi drivers, fast food workers, carwash workers, retail sales clerks, freelancers, and day laborers.

It seems to me that many activists shy away from calling themselves part of the "labor movement." This isn't surprising. The terminology of the "labor movement" evokes bad associations for many: corruption, racism, anti-immigrant nativism, and a mission concerned more with contract gains for the few than with broad social improvements for the many. When I spent time in law school working with and studying organizations of Latino immigrants working together for improvements in their workplaces, the group's members were frustrated with their experiences with traditional unions. When I described my interest in this area, I talked about "immigrant workers' rights", or perhaps "workers' rights" when I was feeling more expansive. I don't recall using the term "labor movement" myself at e time, and I don't recall hearing, at least at that time, nearly a decade ago, the folks i encountered in my work talk about being part of the labor movement. (In a future post perhaps I can make a more academic study of this entirely anecdotal hypothesis.) If anything, they appeared to view their work with immigrants and traditionally unorganized workers (domestic workers, day laborers, for example) as challenging the labor movement.

I'm not sure if this language is changing, but I suspect it is and believe it should. As someone doing work connected to the traditional labor movement, what this term evokes for me is the ubiquitous trope, "the labor movement is in serious decline" or "the labor movement is nearly moribund."

But I see hundreds of green shoots in the "labor movement" - so long as we define terms properly. So here's my definition: in my mind, the labor movement refers to the struggle of people who work for a living, people whose livelihood depends on receiving renumeration from others, wage-earners, to improve their conditions both in and out of workplace, to the extent that those outside-the-workplace issues are directly related to the ones within the workplace, like healthcare or childcare.

With that expansive definition of the labor movement in mind, my next posts will discuss some of my observations on the future of that movement.