ABSTRACT
This chapter chronicles a partial alternative to the narrow efforts of union coalitions to defend the parochial economic interests of their industries. This alternative was an attempt on the part of a coalition of diverse, organized, inclusive labor unions, in alliance with grass-roots and other activist groups, to take action against unemployment among workers in unions of all kinds in New York City during the recession of the early 1990s. The chapter also analyzes the motivations of the unions and union leaders who, encouraged by a grass roots activist organization called the New York Unemployed Committee (NYUC), embarked on tentative efforts to form a coalition to extend unemployment benefits known as The New York Labor Campaign on Unemployment. The NYUC gained the support in part because of the failings of the Central Labor Council, which was supposed to be the political wing of the labor movement in New York.
