Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers' Rights

"Over the last half century, two major historical developments have transformed the nature of workers' rights and fundamentally altered the ability of low-wage workers to combat their exploitation. First, employment law-rather than labor law-now serves as the primary basis of workers' rights. Second, small, under-resourced, overburdened nonprofit worker organizations ("alt-labor groups")-rather than large, well-endowed labor unions-are now at the vanguard of organizing vulnerable, marginalized workers. Using diverse data and multiple methodological approaches, Daniel J. Galvin unpacks these developments and clarifies the links between them. Galvin shows that alt-labor groups have turned increasingly to public policy to scale up their work-and met with surprising success. This he attributes to their efforts to augment and leverage their strengths: their deep roots in local communities, their commitment to year-round organizing, their unique position within the labor movement, and the flexibility of their organizational forms. A growing number of alt-labor groups have also become more politically engaged, endeavoring to alter the contours of their political environments. They seek to enhance their probabilities of policy success while also incrementally shifting the balance of power over the long term. Alt-labor's turn to policy and politics does not resolve the groups' many internal tensions, organizational challenges, or structural constraints; rather, it reflects them and may be understood as a response to them-while creating new challenges for the groups. How can alt-labor groups manage these tensions, build capacity, develop resilience, compensate for their limitations, and maximize their strengths while making progress for their members? This is the question that animates the book"--