“Social Justice Infrastructure” Organizations as New Actors From the Community: The Case of South Florida

Abstract

This article reviews the decline of U.S. unions and examines proposals for their revitalization. It also notes the emergence of new actors in working class communities to fill the void left by declining union power. Using south Florida as an example, it chronicles the growth of a “social justice infrastructure” of community organizations such as worker centers, working-class grassroots community organizing groups, faith-based worker rights groups, and labor-community coalition groups. It notes difficulties in building deep coalitions between traditional unions and such groups and explores the possibility of “networks” as a new promising organizational form. It finds limitations to the network form also, and proposes that a synergistic conjunction of various types of political and economic struggles and forms holds more promise than any one particular organizational form.

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