“The Class Idea” (And How to Get It)
Many progressives in the United States are prone to making gloomy jokes about moving North whenever conservative forces grip our national institutions. After all: Canadians have unions! They have health care! They don’t pretend that everyone’s middle class! Why, people wonder, are the politics and labor movements of the two countries so different? In his new book, Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada, sociology professor Barry Eidlin grapples with this question. His explanation not only illuminates the history but suggests some ideas about a course correction for the U.S. labor movement. Following World War II, Eidlin tells us, Canadian unions won battles with company owners and consolidated legal power, just as American unions had done previously. But beginning in the 1960s, their fortunes diverged. In the United States, the percentage of workers in unions steadily declined, and unions’ political influence within the Democratic Party was […]