ABSTRACT
In this new era of high worker mobility, organizing needs something more than a worksite as a base. Although in the past few years the spirit of the American labor movement has been revived by a new leadership team committed to major institutional change and devoted to organizing, the actual results have been discouraging. Community organizations have long been caught in battles where all of their organizing cannot turn back the one trend that could save their communities: the loss of decent-paying jobs with benefits. The theory of community unionism is being worked out every day, on the ground. The challenges faced by organizers in Baltimore, Maryland, an early exemplar, and Stamford, Connecticut, a more recent effort, point the way to the questions we need to ask about the future. The victories described above are all examples of Solidarity’s successes in the political sphere.
