Gabriel Winant, historian and author of The Next Shift, joins the show to discuss the decline of union power in the face of speed-ups and an expanding framework of labor relations.
Our conversation focuses on worker rebellion, the political failure alongside economic gains for organized labor in the postwar era, and the lessons we can learn from the defeat of the New Deal.
He draws attention to the period known as the "great exception," where unions experienced their high-water mark in power and organization, and problematizes some of the common claims about this era. Particularly, Winant shows how the present regime of privatized healthcare was embedded in the struggle over shop floor power in the postwar United States.
Get a copy of Winant's book, The Next Shift, at https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674238091
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