User:Madison Luzar/Labor unions in the united states/Bibliography

Tamara Kay highlights NAFTA as a turning point for activists in labor, environment, and immigration groups, and how although NAFTA was still passed, which may seem like a failure due to a lack of gaining “power over,” there was still a significant level of success in how these coalitions created “power to." She describes how before NAFTA, many of these groups had a history of conflicts and saw their issues as isolated from international issues, but the NAFTA debates allowed them to see how interconnected all of their interests were to each other and to international trade. To shed the label of protectionism and to revive their shrinking power, American labor unions also united with Mexican unions.

In his study, Brian Mayer dives into a case study of the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow, a blue-green alliance, to examine how they reconcile differences between unions and environmental groups. There is also a strong history of differences and stereotypes of opposition between the two sides, often perpetuated by corporate manipulation. There were often instances when the advocacy of one group, usually the work of environmentalists, has unintended consequences for another other group, typically a loss of jobs or degradation of workplace conditions, upsetting labor unions. Mayer concludes that a collective identity is needed when branching two disparate groups and is achieved through the work of "bridge brokers" and the identity consolidation of individuals within each group.

Bruce Nissen examines a case study from South Florida to analyze the claim that US unions are incapable of participating equally in multilateral coalitions with other groups, in this case with communities. He was able to reach some preliminary conclusions to be examined further in future research. He found that coalitions were more likely to be doomed to failure when central leadership did not try to incorporate communities to make decisions but expected full support regardless. The most successful coalitions he found were “common cause” coalitions with their own leadership bodies, and those working in minority/immigrant communities. Also important was the work of bridge builders, having enough resources to keep a paid staff, and growth of social movement activist on a larger scale.

Lowell Turner analyzes the coalition between the United Steelworkers and the Sierra club between 1999 and 2004 and generates preliminary conclusions that coalition-building processes are driven by union strategies (creating grassroots power from bottom-up), defining moments (victories or crises), and spillover (interactions between the groups). He writes that sustained participation will be possible due to expanded coalitions and involvement of citizens, and that the USW-Sierra Club coalitions demonstrates a great example of this for future coalition building, within sector and across local, national, and global levels.

Brian Mayer et al. examined a case study of the New Jersey Work Environment Council, analyzing how the labor-environment coalition framework has created new political opportunities that had not existed before and established right-to-know laws in the US, as well as discussing constraints on framing abilities of coalitions. They argue that coalitions will become increasingly common as problems become more global, especially with how climate change is strongly connected to the industry.