Immigrant Workers and the Future of the Us Labor Movement - Essay Example

Book Analysis Introduction This analysis is based on the Milkman, Ruth. 2006. LA Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S.Labor Movement. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press. By 2006, the percentage of the workers who were union members in the private sector had decreased from 24 percent to 8 percent. The labor market had been poised as having irrelevant organized labor unions in the last five decades considering the acute decline in the union membership in that duration. In what had seemed to be a mere misjudgment however, the recent developments of organized labor unionists in Los Angeles have proved otherwise. In a world of economic complexities and hardships, there is little redemption instances, especially in cases organized for the rights of the some people and against the hostilities of equal measures. However, the development in Southern California, particularly the recognition by the labor union, and therefore a successful justice for the Janitors campaign was unimaginable union step. According to Milkman (2006), Los Angeles, the previously known for its hostility for labor became the bedrock for unionism with the unlikely leaders emerged from immigrant workers and fought successfully for the workers’ rights. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the LA Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement by Milkman (2006) and address some of the developments and issues concerning the growth of labor union in Los Angeles. The modern labor trace a great history of the workers in the four Los Angeles industry sometimes back; trucking, construction, garment production, and building maintenance. Effects of the Internal and external factors According to Milkman (2006), the middle of the 20th century there was high unionization of the workers throughout the southern part of California. The 1970s and 80s showcased a low waged labor market as the contractual employment had been reduced and the immigrants replaced with native born workers, renewed organizing efforts. This led to struggles and a lasting unionization for the janitors. Although there was a wrong assumption that some of the major downfall of these industries was showcased by the deunionization and the worsening working conditions on the immigrants, close analysis proved otherwise. Milkman (2006) argues in her book, LA Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement that it started with the influx of the foreign-born workers. These foreign-born workers filled the positions of the native-born workers after they had left the so-perceived undesirable jobs. The movement received much external energy from these native-born workers, for instance the Latino workers, who came to work in the United States with a lot of zeal and group oriented mentality. They had a lot of experience from their background which was full of both political and labor struggles. Sharply differing from the native-born workers who somewhat suffered from language constraints and deportation fears, thus proving themselves incapable of being organized, the foreign-born workers enforced fresh new ideas and minds. This made some immediate effects according to Milkman (2006) as they later proved capable of highly responsive and determined in organizing revolts and strikes. In the end, they made Los Angeles the centre for workers’ rights movement. . The recent history of Los Angeles has general highlights of the key issues concerning labor movement’s re-uprising in terms of new leadership, attitudes as well as new organization techniques aimed at some specific labor strategies. This has created some loyalties both from the top organizing organs to the bottom. Through major assessment of development, strategies and labor focus, high alternative and high-road economic agendas have been provided to link up many workers with the possible means of evading poverty and jet into the middle class. The turning point of the ‘Justice for Janitors’ was marked by the victory of the Century City for the national international employees union. After this, there was a series of contacts that set the pace for the ever growing number of the southern California Janitors and other cities around the nation. It is important to note that according to Milkman (2006), the local janitors had not only attained a strong support and position within Los Angeles, but had become dynamically transverse and political thereby spreading and advocating for the larger Latino Immigrants as well. This was a very significant development in California and in the 1990’s considering the deunionization and unfavorable political relationship with such improvements; labor movements became very rampant in the United States. The Justice for janitors had strong internal and external affluent among the members. This was one of the major strength that made the movement to maneuver the harassments, brutality and negativity of the private sector in the Los Angeles. As far as the goals of the movement were concerned, it was very critical to realize the aims and objectives which focused on the freedom to access the fundamental labor rights of a worker. The book has some aspects of labor revitalization and just as Milkman (2006) argues; it energized the central role of the immigrants as far as that revitalization was concerned. In her arguments, she notes that the realization of their goal and thus gaining recognition by the union made the Los Angeles to be an open city and a solid foothold of industrial unionism to date. Effects of Culture and Identity The onset of 1908s was marked by low wages, worker replacement, as well as reduced unionization in Los Angeles. Just as described above, the native-workers were replaced with the foreign workers most of whom were Latino. This led to the inversion of culture and identity differences among the immigrant workers. According to Milkman (p 9), the foreign born workers were increasing in number into these regions, and the Latino immigrants in this case poised a threat of establishing labor standards since they evaluated the jobs they found using the yardstick of imported from the south of the border. Coming to a common goal proved to be very difficult, considering that the Latino foreign workers came from a region where they were used to the political and labor struggles and could deal with this easily. The native-workers on the other hand had a fearful background full of deportation and harassment. Milkman (p 9) argues that the janitors example disapproved the pessimistic assumption of the labor leaders of the new immigrants because the low waged Latino immigrants were mostly veterans of collective political struggles back at their home and were very receptive of the unionism. This coalition of the people with different cultural mindset in this case ironically worked for the advantage of the movement as they generally became well organized to stage the movement. The goals of the movement were supportive of the cultural differences among the immigrant workers, hence the advantage. There was a larger focus that came into being as the workers with different backgrounds came together. There was a complete sense of a larger purpose in their participation and thus the cultural differences in terms of identity did not hinder the movement’s goals especially when it came to recruitment of the movement leaders. The Tactics Employed by the Movement Before the labor movement became the union powerhouse, there was a historical predominance of the AFL, an occurrence of the economic boom driven by the employer-led workforce casualization (Milkman, pp 11). In addition, there large influx of the Latino immigrants served an energized reorganization of the movement. The long standing labor laws were thoroughly oppressive to the workers at that moment and a steady but well calculated tactics were necessary. Advancing from post wars of the 1980s, there was an unexpected fall in job satisfaction and morale accompanied by the growing mistrust of the employers, thus a decreasing worked commitment at an increasing rate. The drives for the change were sensitized, and injustice awareness increased as well. The resulting scheme was that of the renewed interest in the unionism. Learning from the failures of the past labor movements, the movement leaders made a keen interest on the interested workers of the four major industries and after a comprehensive analysis of the worker situations, low wages, demoralized commitments at work, and the oppressive labor laws, the movement adopted strikes, boycotts among others as the best way of making their grievances felt. The union and the government responded by recognizing the labor movement and thus the movement was a success. The success of the movement has become the backbone of labor unions in California, and even in the United states. It shaped the internal structures of the union and a flexible labor market regime was enacted. It was very hard to believe just as it was hardly expected that the group, organized by the immigrant janitors in Los Angeles, would succeed. In 1990, after tensed previous years of struggling and organizations, this group took it to the streets through strikes and went through numerous police brutalities and harassment only to win the recognition of the union in the end. Reference Milkman, Ruth. 2006. LA Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press. Read More