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From the Floor Up: Building the Next Upsurge

Clawson’s The Next Upsurge is an upbeat, optimistic look at what is not, but someday might be. It speaks to students, labor academics, and the progressive labor left. Clawson seeks to bridge the chasms between the student, community, environmental, and labor movements, and the movements of women and people of color. In his optimistic appeal, Clawson challenges activists in all these arenas to look deep within themselves and the aspirations of their movements, and to relate all their issues to the issues of the larger society, on workplace, community and individual issues. Clawson has made a valuable contribution to re-opening this discussion for re-evaluation at this time. Many social movements today do not take the labor movement seriously. They have not seen its power, because labor is at an all-time low. Unions only rarely mobilize their members in struggle, and victories have been even more rare. Moreover, the media tends to portray unions as undemocratic and powerless, and union leaders and often members as self-interested and far removed from the needs and struggles of poor workers and communities. The examples chosen by Clawson have sought to paint a picture of labor that is a natural component of working communities, where workers have the same interests as the community because they live there and have the same needs. The case studies in The Next Upsurge are also designed to demonstrate to labor that it must think with a bolder vision, and remember that a wing of the labor movement was always involved in social struggles and social unionism. When unions become involved in movements for social justice and global justice, Clawson argues, not only do they achieve worthy goals, but they also gain one key to the success of union organizing. This is certainly not the first time that academics, activists and radicals