Description
Book SynopsisThe labor-liberal alliance in late twentieth-century American politics
Trade Review"Battista's well-researched, informative account of labor's political struggles illuminates an important dimension of industrial relations history. Highly recommended."--Choice
"Battista's analysis of attempts to rebuild a labor-liberal coalition provides considerable new information about the role played by union leaders and their reformer counterparts."--Industrial and Labor Relations Review
“[Battista] provides a rich discussion of political rivalries between the dominant and dissident wings of labor, competition over institutional resources, and the coordination of position-taking between labor liberals and non-labor liberals.”--Journal of American History
“I recommend the book—certainly anyone who lived through the last four or five decades and possesses a scholarly interest in American politics will find themselves informed.”--Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare
“Battista’s focus on the forty years after 1968 offers readers new insights into efforts by labor liberals to reconstruct the alliance to fir the contemporary political environment. . . . Highly readable.”--
Labor Studies Journal"An important source both for historians and labour-liberal activists."--
Labour/Le Travail"
The Revival of Labor Liberalism is a well-focused narrative history of the liberal-labor coalition during a time of great political and economic change. Anyone who is interested in understanding the development of liberalism and labor politics over the last forty years will find this book exceptionally useful."--Taylor E. Dark, author of
The Unions and the Democrats: An Enduring Alliance"An innovative analysis of the social bases of liberal unionism,
The Revival of Labor Liberalism addresses an important question: What happened to the liberal-labor coalition after the late 1960s and early '70s? Rejecting the simple and too often assumed answer that the coalitions simply collapsed, missing an opportunity to achieve many of the long-time goals of the New Deal-coalition, Battista sets out to show that the left-liberal wing of the labor movement enjoyed a resurgence in the mid-1990s, which itself grew out of a number of different left-liberal-labor alliances that were forged in the late 1970s and '80s."--Peter B. Levy, author of
The New Left and Labor in the 1960sTable of ContentsAcknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
PART 1: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE LABOR-LIBERAL COALITION
1. Understanding the Labor-Liberal Coalition 9
2. The Rise of the Labor-Liberal Coalition 27
3. The Decline of the Labor-Liberal Coalition 43
4. Labor Redivided 61
PART 2: THE REVIVAL OF THE LABOR-LIBERAL COALITION: CASE STUDIES
5. The Progressive Alliance 83
6. The Citizen Labor Energy Coalition 103
7. The National Labor Committee 122
8. The Political Strategy and Social Bases of the Dissident Unions 147
PART 3: THE PAST AND FUTURE OF LABOR-LIBERAL POLITICS
9. Toward, and Beyond, 1995 165
10. The Labor-Liberal Coalition: Retrospect and Prospect 191
Appendix 213
Notes 215
Index 261
