Issues

Winter 2013

Winter 2013
Winter 2013 • Volume 22 Issue 1

Volume 22, Issue 1

Table of Contents

From the Editorial Team                                                                                        

Under the Radar
By Ben Becker
Unreported and under-reported news and views that matter.

On the Contrary

“We Are the 99%”:The Political Arithmetic of Revolt
By Michael Yates

Election 2012: Is a Second Term a Second Chance for Labor?
By Gordon Lafer
How to make the most of the Democratic victory.

Higher Education in Crisis?

Mortgaging the Future: Student Debt in the Age of Austerity
By Andrew Ross
How to fight back against debt peonage.

Faculty Unions at the Crossroads:Why Playing Defense Is a Losing Strategy
By Dan Clawson
Building alliances outside the faculty lounge.

Obamacare: Will It Work?

Obamacare and Collective Bargaining: The Massachusetts Experience
By Malini Cadambi Daniel and Erica Rafford Noyes
What the labor movement can expect from the new health care insurance.

Obamacare Confronts a Fiscal Crisis:Why the Affordable

Care Act Doesn’t Add Up
By Marcia Angell
What will the political fallout look like?

The Marxist Moment

Marx, Race, and Neoliberalism
By Adolph Reed, Jr.

Marxism and Right-Wing Populism:The Case of the Tea Party
By Lee Sustar

Informal Workers in the Developing World: Organizing in the Global Economy
By Martha Alter Chen
How are informal workers organizing worldwide?

Stormy Weather: Climate Change and a Divided Labor Movement
By Jeremy Brecher and the Labor Network for Sustainability
Can labor collaborate to save the earth?

Working-Class Voices of Contemporary America

A Sisterhood Made of Steel
By Sue Doro and Donna De Graaf-Smith

Economic Prospects

Austerity Economics Is Bad Economics
By Robert Pollin

Roots of Rebellion
A guide to insurgencies from coast to coast.

Town versus Gown in Los Angeles
By Peter Dreier

In the Rearview Mirror
Revisiting the past to illuminate the present.

Only Yesterday:The Strange Odyssey of the Republican Party
By Steve Fraser and Joshua B. Freeman

Caught in the Web
Labor news, views, and resources online.

Public Education and Public Health versus the Privatizers
By Liza Featherstone

Books and the Arts

Class Struggle at the Dinner Table                                                              

The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table
By Tracie McMillan
Reviewed by Sherry Linkon

Democracy on the Shopfloor                                                                       

We Are the Union: Democratic Unionism and Dissent at Boeing
By Dana L. Cloud
Reviewed by Joseph A. McCartin

Lights, Camera, Action                                                                                

Below the Line: Producers and Production Studies in the New Television Economy
By Vicki Mayer
Reviewed by Alexander Russo

Have Mercy                                                                                                

With God on Our Side:The Struggle for Workers’ Rights in a Catholic Hospital
By Adam D. Reich
Reviewed by Mike Miller

Out of the Mainstream: Books and Films You May Have Missed                       

By Matt Witt

Poetry                                                                                                                  

Letters to the Editors                                                                                         

Our Book Shelf: Recent Publications by Members of New Labor Forum’s