With God on Our Side

The Struggle for Workers' Rights in a Catholic Hospital

AvAdam D. Reich

Inbunden, Engelska, 2012

Del i serien Culture and Politics of Health Care Work

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Beskrivning

When unions undertake labor organizing campaigns, they often do so from strong moral positions, contrasting workers' rights to decent pay or better working conditions with the more venal financial motives of management. But how does labor confront management when management itself has moral legitimacy? In With God on Our Side, Adam D. Reich tells the story of a five-year campaign to unionize Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, a Catholic hospital in California. Based on his own work as a volunteer organizer with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Reich explores how both union leaders and hospital leaders sought to show they were upholding the Catholic "mission" of the hospital against a market represented by the other. Ultimately, workers and union leaders were able to reinterpret Catholic values in ways that supported their efforts to organize.More generally, Reich argues that unions must weave together economic and cultural power in order to ensure their continued relevancy in the postindustrial world. In addition to advocating for workers' economic interests, unions must engage with workers' emotional investments in their work, must contend with the kind of moral authority that Santa Rosa Hospital leaders exerted to dissuade workers from organizing, and must connect labor's project to broader conceptions of the public good.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2012-04-15
Mått:152 x 229 x undefined mm
Vikt:454 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Culture and Politics of Health Care Work
Antal sidor:208
Förlag:Cornell University Press
ISBN:9780801450662
Utmärkelser:Honorable Mention, 2013 Distinguished Scholarly Mo

Utforska kategorier

Arbetsmarknaden inom Ekonomi och Ledarskap
Omvårdnad inom Medicin
Hälso- och sjukvård inom Medicin

Mer om författaren

Adam D. Reich is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Hidden Truth.

Recensioner i media

Reich chronicles the successful drive for recognition of a healthcare workers union at a Catholic hospital in this articulate and conceptually interesting sociological account... a case study that holds implications for the wider context of unionization today. As private sector unionization enters its fifth decade of decline, the us-versus-them frame that guided pro-union efforts in the past must give way, the author argues, to greater attention to the meaning of vocation and worker solidarity, especially for employees in public services and those with vocational moral commitments like health care.(Choice) Reich uses his experience as a volunteer organizer with the Service Employees International Union to explain how a Catholic hospital administration at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital reacted to unionizers employing a Catholic strategy. The book suggests some of the new opportunities and challenges presented by unionizers confronting an employer with a strong moral and cultural identity.(Conscience) Reich's central thesis is that unions and workers will increase their workplace voice and power if they add a strong ideological and emotional component to their time-honored strategies of exerting economic and political leverage and of forging strong community alliances. This is a timely and compelling affirmation. It gives Reich's work a pathfinding quality which makes the book an invaluable resource for workers, labor leaders and activists, labor students and scholars, and anyone attempting to improve labor-management relationships.(American Catholic Studies) This is an engaging book written by a former doctoral student and one-time volunteer organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).... With God on Our Side makes a significant contribution to labour history and labour studies by reminding us of the cultural dimensions of labour struggles.(Labour/Le Travail)

Innehållsförteckning

Introduction: Work's Meaning and Labor's Power1. The Labor of Love: Vocational Commitments in the Hospital2. Losing It: The Limits of Economic Interests and Political Power3. A Struggle over New Things: Contesting Catholic Teaching4. Winning the Heart Way: Organizing and Cultural Struggle5. Trouble in the House of Labor: Alternative Visions of New UnionismConclusion: What Should Unions Do?