Labor

At a time when some forecast a declining role for unions, growing numbers of professional, technical, and contingent workers are joining union ranks. These men and women are gaining an increasingly influential voice in the workplace and within the labor movement. Through this new voice, they are also attempting to address many of the larger issues affecting workers in the new economy. These issues—including a desire to improve the quality of their work, the need to keep pace with changing technologies and a globalizing economy, workplace flexibility, threats to professional autonomy, and the wish to work collaboratively with employers—go far beyond traditional union concerns. The Albert Shanker Institute promotes discussions and sponsors research to explore new structures, services, and roles for unions as they work to meet these challenges.

Latest Publications

A Discussion on the Challenges Facing Government, Public Services and Public Sector Collective Bargaining in the U.S.

 Based on a transcript of a seminar in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute entitled “The War Against Public Service and Public Employee Unions.” On June 8, 2011, leaders of U.S. public employee unions met in Washington, D.C. to discuss the crisis facing government and public services in the U.S. and to consider strategies and [...]

American Labor in U.S. History Textbooks

Albert Shanker Institute released a report on how labor’s story has been distorted in high school history textbooks. Download the report

A Cry for Justice: The Voices of Chinese Workers

The accounts in this book, told inworkers’ voices frominside China, are drawn directly from radio interviews conducted by Han Dongfang, who was a leader of the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation (BWAF), an independent labor group organized during the Tienanmen Square protests. Download the report