In Unions, Race, and Popular Democracy, Kim Scipes dives deep into the historical intricacies of labor organizing, focusing on the struggles against white supremacy and racism in the workplace, union, and respective communities in and around Chicago, including Northwest Indiana. Comparing unions in the steel and meatpacking industries during the critical decades of the mid-twentieth century, Scipes argues there were two opposing conceptualizations of trade unionism within the Congress of Industrial Organizations and each led to different organizational behaviors: the steelworkers overwhelmingly ignored these issues, while the packinghouse workers directly confronted them. Scipes explores the ramifications of the approaches of steel and meatpacking unionism and illuminates the processes that resulted in the dismantling of progressive unionism in the United States.
By detailing how previous labor activists dealt with these issues, Unions, Race, and Popular Democracy offers valuable insights for labor activism during our contemporary moment and aids efforts to reignite movement determination in times perilous for US labor, works to advance the wellbeing of workers overall, and supports the positive social change efforts of our world.