Abstract
In October 2021, a special issue of the ILR Review edited by Janice Fine and Michael Piore introduced the concept of a new labor federalism, or “a shift away from national labor and employment standards toward standards imposed by state and local governments” within the United States (Fine and Piore 2021: 1086). Between 1960 and 2014, states enacted 7,256 employment laws; as a share of all enacted bills, employment laws more than quintupled over the same period (Galvin 2024: 42–48). Daniel J. Galvin’s Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers’ Rights provides a necessary step forward in understanding when, why, and ultimately how these laws came to be, successfully arguing that the support of alt-labor groups—or “registered nonprofit organizations that organize low-wage workers to fight for workers’ rights and economic justice” (p. 243)—has been crucial to the passage of subnational employment standards across the United States. “Over the last two decades,” Galvin concludes, "alt-labor groups have indeed led hundreds of policy campaigns at the state and local levels to combat wage theft, raise the minimum wage, strengthen health and safety laws, fight discrimination and sexual harassment, create domestic workers’ and temporary workers’ bills of rights, establish a right to paid sick leave and advance scheduling, and more” (p. 118).
As Galvin notes in the opening pages of the book, “The links between the decline of the labor law regime, the rise of employment law regime, and the political development of alt-labor groups have not been fully fleshed out or clarified analytically” (p. 14). The author brilliantly uses a multi-method approach incorporating a number of both qualitative and quantitative data sources to begin to draw these linkages. Galvin first sets the scene in Chapter 2 by discussing the rise of employment law over recent years, anchored in an analysis of Monthly Labor Review summaries from 1960 to 2014 and drawing largely from his recent work in Studies in American Political Development (Galvin 2019; Galvin and Hacker 2020) and the ILR Review (Galvin 2021). As shown, this exponential growth in employment law happened alongside (and largely as a result of) both the decline of unionization and the “drifting” of federal policy into antiquity. Chapter 3 contextualizes the rise of alt-labor groups within this framework as providing necessary support to low-wage and precarious workers that have “fallen through the cracks” and been left largely unprotected by existing labor and employment law. This analysis is grounded in a national study of minimum wage violations. Using data from the U.S. Current Population Survey, Galvin finds that between 2010 and 2021, more than 50 million workers lost nearly $13 billion per year on average from being paid under the applicable local, state or federal minimum wage rate (p. 73).
Chapter 4 begins to connect the growth of these grassroots organizations to the rise of employment law in recent years. Galvin’s analysis of local newspaper coverage from 2003 to 2019 across 102 cities and counties shows that alt-labor groups were “integral players” in 72% of all minimum wage, paid sick leave, and fair workweek campaigns during this period (p. 119). As compelling as this statistic is alone, however, Galvin supplements this analysis using in-depth interviews with leadership and organizers from 30 alt-labor groups to better understand how the structure, funding, and goals of these grassroots groups ultimately influence—and are influenced by—the groups’ underlying political and organizational strategies.
To that end, one of Alt-Labor’s greatest contributions is understanding how the structure and funding of worker centers and other alt-labor groups have evolved over recent years. While Fine and her colleagues’ work (No One Size Fits All 2018) have made clear the historical reliance of worker centers on 501(c)(3) nonprofit tax-exempt status, including how this status has both expanded and restricted their opportunities and abilities, Chapters 5 and 6 show that alt-labor groups are increasingly turning toward “innovative new organization models” to expand their capacity. An important example of this that Galvin discusses is the creation of sister 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations to expand the group’s ability to participate within the political realm. Galvin makes the case that alt-labor groups today are attempting to build power for workers through altering the very norms and power dynamics that have historically kept their constituents out of the political process: “Rather than resign themselves to working within the confines of the political system as they find it, politically engaged alt-labor groups are determined to change the system in which they operate” (p. 135). Galvin finds that alt-labor groups seek to build power at both the individual level through helping members “reject oppressive and historically entrenched structures and expressions of power” and at the group level through coalition- and capacity-building (p. 139). Galvin ultimately concludes that alt-labor groups have managed to make gains for their members in the policymaking arena through working to augment and leverage their strengths: their deep roots in local communities and the racial and ethnic bonds that unite their members; their organizing skills and their members’ fierce determination to fight for economic, racial and social justice, fueled by their righteous indignation at their exploitation and marginalization; their unique position within the labor movement and in the broader ecosystem of progressive-minded groups; and the flexibility of their organizational forms. (p. 12)
Alt-labor’s turn to politics has, however, come with its share of limitations. While making clear that these organizations have played an essential role in the formation of subnational employment standards, Galvin notes these policies are often “either watered down by the legislative process, poorly enforced, or both” (p. 213). Again through altering the norms and dynamics of the broader political environment, Galvin shows that alt-labor groups have further sought to lift standards for workers by advocating for 1) the creation of local labor standards enforcement agencies, 2) the expansion of their purview, and 3) the implementation of co-enforcement, “whereby government agencies contract with community-based worker organizations embedded in low-wage workers’ communities to better identify, report, and enforce labor standards in high-violation sectors” (p. 206).
The volume’s many contributions raise a number of important questions for future research. For example, as alt-labor groups increasingly prioritize political advocacy, how does this impact their other work in organizing and providing services for workers? In other words, how can these often-small grassroots organizations continue to both build and provide for their membership base if an increasing share of their limited resources are being put into policy work? How are these goals in tension with each other, and perhaps more important, how may they be simultaneously prioritized? What organizational, political, economic, and societal contexts best facilitate this work?
An instant classic of American political development, Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers’ Rights makes clear the essential role worker centers and other alt-labor groups have played in the passage of employment standards across the United States. Galvin’s attention to the importance of worker agency, identity, and power further makes Alt-Labor of interest to scholars of sociology and law and society. Empirically powerful and theoretically rich while still accessible to non-academic audiences, Alt-Labor provides a necessary tool for worker advocates, organizers, and enforcers to navigate and ultimately transform today’s political environment to the benefit of workers and their families.