Race and Labor Matters in the New U.S. Economy

Race and Labor in the United States is a powerful compilation of penetrating essays revealing essential contradictions of race and class in America. It is bound to become a standard in the field and is essential reading for students and scholars of U.S. labor and racial social dynamics in the 21st century. -- Gerald Horne, John and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies, University of Houston As the class divide grows precipitously in the United States, far too little attention is drawn to the racial divide. Race and Labor Matters in the United States is a sobering book revealing that the color line remains bound with the growing poverty and declining wages for all workers. This book is a seminal work and should be required reading for students of race relations and political economy in America. -- David Addams, American Civil Liberties Union, Director of Diversity Editors Marable, Ness and Wilson have produced an informative, timely overview of the enduring problems of race in the US. Recommended. * CHOICE * ...Race and Labor Matters in the New U.S. Economy provides excellent advice to the labor movement and unions on improving their standing within the American society of the new millenium. -- Lopez Matthews, 2007 * The Journal of African American History * Demographic change in the U.S. is engendering a diverse labor force starkly separated along the lines of race and ethnicity. This comprehensive book by leading historians, political economists, labor experts, and sociologists, challenges the dominant perspective of a harmonious nation by recovering race from our historical collective consciousness. Marable, Ness, and Wilson are at the cutting-edge of the debate on race and class. Race and Labor in the United States is essential reading for all interested in the latest thinking by scholars and activists around the issues of race and labor. -- Juan Gonzalez, President (emeritus) of the National Association of Hispanic Journalist and host of Democracy Now

Manning Marable is professor of history and political science and founding director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. Marable is the author or editor of nearly twenty books and scholarly anthologies, including The Great Wells of Democracy, Freedom on My Mind, and How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America. Immanuel Ness is professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He is the author of numerous books, including Trade Unions and the Betrayal of the Unemployed. Ness is editor of WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society and the award-winning Encyclopedia of American Social Movements. Joseph Wilson is professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He is the author of numerous books including, Tearing Down the Color Bar, The Re-Education of the American Working Class, and Black Labor in America.

Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 The Imperative of Black Worker Mobilization in Renewing Organized Labor in the United States, Bill Fletcher, Jr. Chapter 3 Black Leadership and Organized Labor: From Workplace to Community, Manning Marable, Joseph Wilson Chapter 4 Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement for Building a Worker Rights Movement, Aldon Morris and Dan Clawson Chapter 5 Labor Against Empire: At Home and Abroad, Robin D.G. Kelley Chapter 6 Achilles' Heel and the Tortoise: Race and the Labor Movement in the United States of America, Michael Goldfield Chapter 7 Organizing around Work in the Black Community: the Struggle against Bad Jobs Held by African Americans, Steven Pitts Chapter 8 "By Working People for Working People": New Haven's Trade Union Plaza and the Fight for Affordable Housing, Mandi Isaacs Jackson Chapter 9 Race, Labor and Urban Community: Negotiating a "New Social Contract" in New Haven, Chris Rhomberg and Louise Simmons Chapter 10 Race and Privatization and the Working Conditions of Low-wage Health Care Laborers, Immanuel Ness and Roland Zullo