ILR Impact Brief - Labor Branches Out: Resurgence in the Urban Core

Abstract

[Excerpt] Agency (the choices made and strategies pursued by leaders and organizations) and opportunity structure (the presence or absence of institutional, political, and/or social barriers)—are the two factors that seem to account for the revitalization of city-based labor movements in several locales, such as Seattle, Buffalo, Los Angeles, and San Jose; European unions have not progressed quite as far in this regard. Rather than focus exclusively on traditional workplace issues, unions active in contemporary urban labor movements are forging coalitions with other actors in civil society and mobilizing grassroots participation in union campaigns as well as in the democratic process.