Books by "Anthony J. Kelly"
5 books found
This comprehensive history examines more than a century of politics and protests from centennial garment workers to millennials with megaphones. As the major industrial center of the Midwest, Chicago provided a welcome home for Socialism in America. The city provided a soapbox for firebrand speechmaking, a home for political exiles, and a springboard for activism. When Josephine Conger-Kaneko began printing The Socialist Woman in 1909 and then ran for alderwoman in 1914, she could appeal to an audience and an electorate sympathetic to the Socialist Party in unprecedented numbers. But Chicago was also a stronghold of mercantile and political interests that were strongly opposed to the Socialist Party. As a result, the city frequently served as a pressure cooker for the nation's economic and ideological tension. That tension boiled over in incidents like the 1886 Haymarket Riot, the 1894 Pullman Strike, and the 1919 Race Riots. And that same tension continues to dictate the terms of engagement for contemporary protest movements and labor disputes.
This book charts the path to revitalisation for trade unions in Australia, the USA, the UK, and Italy. It examines the examples of innovation and digital campaigning that are enabling unions to build new forms of worker power – and overcome decades of declining membership wrought by neoliberalism, globalisation, and hostility from employers and the state. The study evaluates the responses of unions in each country to falling membership levels since the 1980s. It considers the US 'organising model' and its adoption in Australia and the UK, comparing this with the strategies of Italian unions which have been more deliberately focused on precarious and migrant workers. The increasing reliance of US unions on community alliances, as seen in the 'Fight for $15' and similar campaigns, is scrutinised along with new union prototypes like Hospo Voice in Australia, the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain and SI Cobas in Italy. The book includes an in-depth analysis of union responses to the gig economy in the four countries, and the emergence of self-organised worker collectives to combat this exploitative business model. The vital role played by unions in defending the interests of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic is also examined. As well as highlighting the most successful union initiatives to meet the challenges of the past 30 years, the book assesses the strengths and deficiencies of the legal framework for union representation in the four nations. It identifies the labour law reforms needed to rebuild collectivism, but argues that more is needed than favourable laws. This cross-national study provides a rich basis for identifying the combination of reforms, strategies and linkages required to ensure that unions can remain relevant for a new generation of digitally-active workers.
Dorian Wilde and his lover ADA Alice Rowe suffer personal harm as they save Philadelphia from a sinister triangle of secret societies bent on establishing a shadow government in the City.
In a time of rising inequality and plutocratic government, citizens’ movements are emerging with growing frequency to offer populist challenges to the declining living standards of masses of Americans, and to protest the conditions through which individuals suffer in poor communities across the country. This book looks at the progression of modern social uprisings in the post-2008 period, including the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the Bernie Sanders “Revolution,” Trump’s populism, the anti-Trump revolt, and #MeToo. A key theme is that populism and mass anger at the political-economic status quo take different forms depending on whether the protests are progressive-left or right-wing in orientation. Employing theories of elite politics and pluralism, and using a mixed methods approach, Anthony DiMaggio harnesses his rich experience with movement politics and his engagement with a wide range of media and public opinion data to explain where we are today and how we got here – always with an eye on moving ahead. Aimed at courses on social movements wherever they’re taught, this book also offers general readers insight into contemporary politics and protest.