Labor and Community Organizing

Since the 1990s, labor unions and community organizations have increasingly experimented with working in collaboration in order to bring about greater justice and benefits for both workers and community residents. What accounts for the rise of labor-community activism? What are some of its inherent strengths and tensions? What are the conditions under which the strategy has succeeded, and when has it foundered? What does the future hold? How might labor-community activism intersect with some of the new mobilizations around economic justice that are occurring around the country? Presenters: Janice Fine Professor in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University and Author of Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream Ian Macdonald Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University Jeffrey Bellamy Executive Director of Syracuse Alliance for a New Economy Mark Spadafore Political Organizer for SEIU Local 1199