Stephanie Luce

The living wage movement is considered by many to be the most interesting grassroots enterprise to emerge since the civil rights movement. Ten years after the first ordinance was passed in Baltimore, there are more than one hundred living wage ordinances on the books across the United States, and the movement continues to thrive and grow, despite increasing opposition. This book is not a simple celebration of the living wage movement, but a critical evaluation in which Stephanie Luce, a national expert on living wage campaigns, assesses the strengths and shortcomings of various campaigns and their resulting implementation. Although many local governments have been convinced to pass living wage ordinances, the movement has had less success in ensuring that these ordinances are fully realized. Some cities have consistently enforced their ordinances after passage. In other communities implementation is weak or nonexistent, and thousands of workers do not benefit from laws designed to ensure that they are paid a living wage. Luce provides in Fighting for a Living Wage the first serious examination of the reasons for implementation failure, as well as an analysis of the factors that lead to success. Luce argues that citizens can play a significant role in implementing and monitoring living wage policies, even where governments oppose the movement or are reluctant to enforce the laws in question. Luce finds that the nature of the campaign to formulate and pass policy can influence the likelihood of successful implementation. Surprisingly, the chances for thorough enforcement are greater in communities where living wage campaigns caused more, not less, conflict. For more about this book and its author, click here.

Fighting for a Living Wage

Robert Pollin

The first detailed assessment of the impact of the "living wage" legislation passed in a number of U.S. cities shows how it has improved the lives of the working poor and demonstrates its relatively low cost for employers.

Building a Fair Economy

The Living Wage

Fewer than 12 percent of U.S. workers belong to unions, and union membership rates are falling in much of the world. With tremendous growth in inequality within and between countries, steady or indeed rising unemployment and underemployment, and the marked increase in precarious work and migration, can unions still play a role in raising wages and improving work conditions? This book provides a critical evaluation of labor unions both in the U.S. and globally, examining the factors that have led to the decline of union power and arguing that, despite their challenges, unions still have a vital part to play in the global economy. Stephanie Luce explores the potential sources of power that unions might have, and emerging new strategies and directions for the growth of global labor movements, such as unions, worker centers, informal sector organizations, and worker co-operatives, helping workers resist the impacts of neoliberalism. She shows that unions may in fact be more relevant now than ever. This important assessment of labor movements in the global economy will be required reading for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of labor studies, political and economic sociology, the sociology of work, and social movements.

Stephanie Luce

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