American History

There has been almost a complete consensus that the labor movements have been in severe crisis in the past two decades.  To some extent, the weakening was as a result of spatial fixes. But some of the special fixes cannot be used to describe the general weakening of the labor movements. This is applicable since the weakening of the movements in the sites of capital emigration would lead to the creation and strengthening of the new sites where the capital flows.

From this perspective, considering the central role of the explanation regarding severity and spread of the crisis within the labor movements appears to be rooted in the enormous ballooning of the financial fix in the late twentieth century, and also the shift in its character, I can advocate that the movement is dormant in playing its role to benefit the workers as a whole.

Recalling on the workers success that the union works to represent, there are several duties that the union should perform and more so intensively advocate for. Besides working in close with the government, the union should innovatively organize its members. There have been declined striking activities the union density has fallen, as well as the reduction of the wage and insecurity in the job industry. These trends have undermined the labor movement ability to bring the workers together and in ability to represent them accordingly. This has greatly reduced the future of the workers as the subject and the recovering of the social institutions of the civil society.

However, during the past twenty years, the labor movements experienced an up surging with a back lash mounting on them as a result of globalization. Seattle demonstrations started revitalizing the movement and many people including scholars who had undermined the movements started engaging in the movement. This also led to the commissioning of large academic conferences that were organized and also the formation of sociological movement by the year 2000.

The labor movement represents the major union in any country. Therefore the chances of fighting for power are very high.  The movement should emphasize on the intensive filing tactics on ranks and positions to gain political leadership.  The use of such tactics helps in building the union and achieving its success. The labor movements had pivotal moments and were very influential as it came to politics and fight for justice in the 1970s. At this time, the public sector was very active and they were fruitful to nurture a number of leaders as a result of their professional organizing. This led to the defined partnership and coordination in the civil rights and the labor movements. There was also the inclusion of the black power movements. However, this was not the case in the last two decades. Is it that the movements have negated this or is it lacks of proper management.

The employee should be involved in the programs of the social movements to help connect him with the employer. This is done by organizing of community and their active participation that may include use of alliances with the aim of strengthening the social movement. Consequently, the labor movements have been hyper mobilized with capital.  The hyper mobility of capital has weakened their state sovereignty and the states cannot control the flow of capital effectively.  As a result, the rights for the workers are not protected and the citizens are rendered to job insecurity.  The state then risks abandonment of its citizens where the investors run in search of cheap labor and profit maximization.

The union for the agricultural workers helps to achieve lasting success in bringing collective bargaining to the workers. This also calls for the extensive member participation in union decision making and even if possible some decisions should be made using the members referendum. This minimizes the distance between the leaders and the members. Nevertheless, no union leader should be paid higher than the highest paid member of the union. In the recent past, there has been reorganization and transformation of these processes. This has undermined the traditional bases of workers and their bargaining power.

High wages encourage workers in the making of careers on their craft irrespective of the seasonal and cyclical downturns. This should also include workers training programs to ensure a continuing investment. This should be done under the influence of the workers movement. Of recent past, there has been relocation of industrial capital to low wage areas. This has led to the weakening of labor in the locations where the emigration took place. Consecutively, the new sites have experienced favor and new working classes have been created and also strengthened.

The world is currently under the economic crisis, and we cannot fail to consider this as one of the cases resulting to the failure of the labor movements. Being in the world of capitalism there must be a recession or even a depression in some areas. This has pushed many people into the pauper like status which directly affects the industrial sector. Therefore, organizing people at this extreme poverty level would almost turn to be a night mare.

The failure in the labor movements have resulted to the intensive campaigns for globalization. This will involve globalized production that not only creates a world class that is increasingly sharing common perspectives of life and work but also creates a world scale labor force. But this is yet to be proven a safe step since the between country inequalities rather than within country inequalities still account for the total world income inequality. This calls for the promotion of labor internationalism where only the global labor movement can work effectively and handle the global organizations challenge.