A Union for Every Worker: Collective Action and Democratic Party Discourse

• In Event: Interest Group and Party Alliances in Historical Perspective

Abstract

Scholars of the American welfare state have demonstrated a post-1970s shift toward individualized risk and an increasingly atomized public. This change in the welfare state occurs at the same time as rapid decline in private sector union membership, and increasing unionization rates of public sector employees. Here, I look closely at the form of the Democratic Party’s support of organized labor. Of particular interest are how growing labor unrest has increased rhetoric of labor support, but a particularized form that emphasizes the rights of individual workers rather than collective goals. As such, problems that workers have in common that could be helped through workplace democracy or decreased inequality are discarded in favor of increased emphasis on an individual’s rights to organize, associate, or speak freely. The analysis demonstrates a tendency within the Democratic Party to emphasize that success in politics and the workplace stem through increasing individualized effort.

Author

• Laura C. Bucci, Saint Joseph's University