Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction by Lynn R. Williams
- 1 A Future for the American Labor Movement?
- 2 Industrial Relations in a Time of Change
- 3 A Survey of American Union Strategies
- 4 The Old Reformist Unionism: The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor
- 5 The New Reformist Unionism: CAFE
- 6 A New Version of an Old Reformist Strategy: Employee Ownership
- 7 Social Democratic Unionism in Action: Strategies of European Trade Unions
- 8 A New Twist and TURN on Social Democratic Unionism: Unions and Regional Economic Development
- 9 A Labor Movement for the Twenty-First Century
- Appendix: Interview with John J. Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO
- References
- Index
8 - A New Twist and TURN on Social Democratic Unionism: Unions and Regional Economic Development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction by Lynn R. Williams
- 1 A Future for the American Labor Movement?
- 2 Industrial Relations in a Time of Change
- 3 A Survey of American Union Strategies
- 4 The Old Reformist Unionism: The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor
- 5 The New Reformist Unionism: CAFE
- 6 A New Version of an Old Reformist Strategy: Employee Ownership
- 7 Social Democratic Unionism in Action: Strategies of European Trade Unions
- 8 A New Twist and TURN on Social Democratic Unionism: Unions and Regional Economic Development
- 9 A Labor Movement for the Twenty-First Century
- Appendix: Interview with John J. Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO
- References
- Index
Summary
We want to finance an industrial investment strategy in the U.S. that respects the aspirations of its beneficiaries – our union members and working people in general – and that creates good jobs.
Leo Gerard, Secretary-Treasurer (subsequently International President), United Steelworkers of America, 1999Union support for regional and local economic development is a contemporary Social Democratic Unionist strategy that deserves special attention. One of the interesting things about the current actions in this direction in both Western Europe and the United States is the importance of worker training as an instrument for economic development. Grassroots union involvement in economic development has become important in the European Community (EC), largely through the efforts of the Trade Union Regional Network (TURN). It is aborning in the United States, based partly on experience in Canada with Labor Sponsored Investment Funds (LSIFs).
This chapter will first discuss the origins and nature of Europe's TURN, an organization that engages in a variety of initiatives related to regional economic development. We will then look at union involvement in regional economic development in both Western Europe and North America. Training and its role in development will then be considered. An interesting special aspect of TURN, its nature as a network of local unions in different countries, will be described. Then, some conclusions on the meaning of all of this for the future of American unions will be drawn.
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- Information
- The Future of the American Labor Movement , pp. 172 - 186Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002