The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements by Dan Clawson, Ithaca: ILR Press, 2003, 256 pp., ISBN 0-8014-8870-2.

The bulk of the book focuses on particular types of (potential) movements. There is a chapter on “gender styles and union issues,” in which Clawson laments organized labour’s missed opportunity in its relations with women’s groups. There is a chapter on “community and color,” examining efforts at local organizing groups largely on ethnic lines. A chapter on “neoliberal globalization” looks at a few cases of spontaneous grassroots international solidarity. Another chapter on “codes of conducts and living wage campaigns” showcases some of the most sustained and largest scale efforts, but ends with an expression of concern that these may be too paternalist, grounded in students and others who are outside the true working class. The main strength of the book is in its stories. Clawson has gathered together a range of accounts of inspiring activist struggles that go beyond the “normal” frame of union-management battles, strikes, and so on, moments that have mobilized grassroots energy from diverse sources, uniting unions with community groups, upsetting expectations, disrupting business as usual, and (in a few cases) winning some signal victories. A number of these accounts are enriched by personal interviews, and some of them have not, to my knowledge, been published before. Thus a long section is devoted to the labour-community alliance in Stamford, Connecticut, with many details that were new to me. Clawson is able to provide the colour and feel of critical meetings and actions in this struggle. Other movements will be more familiar to most of his intended audience, though this may be a useful gathering for labour studies courses : the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, the Yale organizing campaign, Justice for Janitors, the 1997 UPS strike. I felt, at times, that I was being told a little too often that these stories were “amazing” and “incredible” examples of courage and dedication, but in truth, they are inspiring and deserve to be publicized and understood by all those who want to advance social justice. It is much less clear, however, exactly what these stories tell us about the future or about the most fruitful courses of action. It is, of course, as Clawson freely admits, virtually impossible to predict when movements will take off; historically, upsurges such as the Civil Rights movement or the labour organizing wave of the 1930s have caught everyone by surprise, even their participants. Thus, given today’s rather quiescent landscape, Clawson is reduced to arguing that such an unexpected surge could happen again as it has before. This is valuable as an expression of optimism and as a way of sustaining hopes for a progressive revival, but does not really help us in looking for it. There are, however, a number of more specific theoretical claims which could help in thinking about labour strategies if these were more strongly argued; unfortunately, Clawson too often leaves things either vague or in a state of internal contradiction. One important dimension, for example, is that of class. Clawson clearly starts from a working-class perspective; he frequently judges the worth of movements, not by their effectiveness, but by whether or not they were led by workers. This seems to lead into some dead ends. On the one hand, Clawson is concerned that several of the most “workerist” efforts he documents have remained encapsulated and have failed to sustain themselves on their own : the Stamford battle, for example—perhaps the purest example of a labour community alliance of the kind Clawson advocates—remains limited and dependent on AFL-CIO support which is already being reduced. On the other hand, he is suspicious of the most objectively successful of the …