IWS Documented News INTERNATIONAL

IWS Documented News Service
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Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
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ILR School, Catherwood Library (on behalf of the Midwest Center for Labor Research now called the Center for Labor & Community Research -- http://www.clcr.org/about/history.php )

 

 

LABOR RESEARCH REVIEW 1982-1996 (All 24 Issues full-text & FREE)

http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/lrr/

 

To a generation of trade union scholars and activists, Labor Research Review was a central forum for analysis, criticism, and strategic thinking on the American labor movement in the late 20th century.

 

Chicago labor activist Dan Swinney at the Midwest Center for Labor Research, helped by a dedicated editorial board of union and community organizers and allies in the academy, published LRR’s 24 volumes from 1982 to 1996. These were years of wrenching change for organized labor, with an economic shift from industry to services and the growing impact of globalization. But it was also a period of creative organizing, bargaining, and alliance-building whose effects carry into the present day.

 

From Volume 1 on strategies for halting plant shutdowns to Volume 24 on new models of organizing, bargaining, and international solidarity, LRR was an outlet for labor strategists willing to break with orthodox thinking and offer an alternative vision of trade union revitalization. Many LRR contributors later moved into positions of senior responsibility in trade unions and other social advocacy organizations or distinguished themselves as scholars of the labor movement.

 

DigitalCommons@ILR now makes universally available this unique record of trade union and community strategies and tactics in a key period of crisis and opportunity for the labor movement.

 

Press Release 8 September 2010

Labor history digitized

Economic shifts, globalization chronicled in publication added to DigitalCommons@ILR

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/news/Labor-history-digitized_090810.html

 

Crisis and opportunity for the American labor movement played out for two decades in the Labor Research Review.

 

The publication which captured an era of change is now available to scholars and the public at DigitalCommons@ILR.

 

All 24 issues of the Labor Research Review were digitized this year by the Catherwood Library.

 

The publication was a forum for analysis, criticism and strategic thinking from 1982 to 1996, said Lance Compa, who proposed the project.

 

"These were years of wrenching change for organized labor, with an economic shift from industry to services and the growing impact of globalization," said Compa, a senior lecturer in the ILR Department of Labor Relations, Law, and History.

 

"But it was also a period of creative organizing, bargaining, and alliance building whose effects carry into the present day," he said.

 

From the first volume on strategies for halting plant shutdowns to the final volume on new models of organizing, bargaining and international solidarity, he said, the journal "was an outlet for labor strategists willing to break with orthodox thinking and offer an alternative vision of trade union revitalization."

 

It was published by the Midwest Center for Labor Research in Chicago.

 

Contributors to Labor Research Review, Compa said, "are still deeply involved in trade union advocacy at all levels – union leadership, community organizations, and in the industrial relations and labor law field."

 

They are thrilled it is now available online for public use and as a resource for trade unionists and their allies, he said.

 

"The goal of DigitalCommons@ILR," said Catherwood Web and Digital Projects Manager Jim DelRosso, "is to make material such as this available to those who can use it."

 

According to DelRosso, preserving historical material is a priority for the Catherwood Library, and that priority is reflected in many of the collections within DigitalCommons@ILR, which now contains more than 13,000 documents.

 

The online document collection, he said, "shows some of what Catherwood does -- not just for scholars and researchers -- but for the world of work, in general."

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This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.

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Stuart Basefsky                   
Director, IWS News Bureau                
Institute for Workplace Studies 
Cornell/ILR School                        
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor             
New York, NY 10016                        
                                   
Telephone: (607) 255-2703                
Fax: (607) 255-9641                       
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu                  
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