A RENEGADE UNION: ORGANIZING IN THE SERVICE AND DISTRIBUTIVE INDUSTRIES, SOME LESSONS FROM THE PAST

In: Working USA: the journal of labor & society, Band 15, Heft 2, S. 177-195

Abstract

This article examines the history of labor organizing in the service, distribution, and processing industries. It examines Local/District 65's (Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union) efforts to find a "home" for its differing "orientation" as it targeted low‐wage distribution, processing, and service workers, more often Black, Puerto Rican, and Jewish, in New York who worked in small, largely "invisible," 10–20‐person shops, using what it called a "catchall" or area‐based organizing strategy. The union's history helps us better understand the challenges the contemporary labor movement faces organizing in the Wal‐Mart era as low‐wage service, distribution, and processing (warehouse) jobs become the norm.