Economic Justice, Labor and Community Practice

Facing economic upheaval and growing inequality, people in local communities are fighting for economic justice. Coalitions from labor, grassroots community organizations, the faith community, immigrant communities and other progressive forces are emerging across the U.S. and Canada and winning better jobs, benefits from local development and better working conditions. A multi-disciplinary group of scholars and activists provide background and analysis of these struggles and offer insights into successful community practice. From the vantage points of community organizing, labor studies, political science, urban studies, social policy and active practitioners, this volume presents both background on the problem of economic and social inequality and portrays cases of how community practice is being redefined, how unions are pursuing their goals via labor-community coalitions, and the issues confronted as these new and vital alliances form. Community practitioners from social work, urban planning, active union members and leaders, labor educators, and those in the partnerships they have formed all will find useful insights from these analyses. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Community Practice.

Louise Simmons is Associate Professor of Social Work and Director of the Urban Semester Program at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. Scott Harding is Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work.

1. Introduction Scott Harding and Louise Simmons Economic Realities, History and Framing 2. Inequality and Its Discontents: The Threatened Middle Class Jill Littrell, Fred Brooks, Jan Ivery and Mary Ohmer 3. Promoting Economic Justice in a Global Context: International Comparisons of Policies that Support Economic Justice Cynthia Rocha 4. Social Workers, Unions and Low Wage Workers: A Historical Perspective Michael Reisch 5. Where's the "Freedom" in Free Trade? Framing Practices and Global Economic Justice Loretta Pyles Labor-Community Partnerships for Economic Justice 6. The Politics and Practice of Economic Justice: Community Benefits Agreements as Tactic and Strategy of the New Accountable Development Movement Virginia Parks and Dorian Warren 7. Evolving Strategies of Labor-Community Coalition Building David Dobbie 8. Organizing Community and Labor Coalitions for Community Benefits Agreements in African American Communities: Ensuring Successful Partnerships Bonnie Young Laing 9. Critical Pedagogy as a Tool for Labor-Community Coalition Building Roland Zullo and Gregory Pratt On the Front Lines, In the Classrooms 10. "Social Justice Infrastructure" Organizations as New Actors from the Community: the Case of South Florida Bruce Nissen 11. Working Hard, Living Poor: Social Work and the Movement for Livable Wages Susan Kerr Chandler 12. Organizing for Immigrant Rights: Policy Barriers and Community Campaigns Jill Hanley and Eric Shragge 13. Outcomes of Two Construction Trades Pre-Apprenticeship Programs: A Comparison Helena Worthen and Rev. Anthony Haynes 14. One Small Revolution: Unionization, Community Practice, and Workload in Child Welfare Tara LaRose