Kim Scipes

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• PhD in Sociology
• Professor Emeritus at Purdue University Northwest

Recognizing the severity of the environmental crisis facing humans across the planet, while focusing on the United States, this paper proposes a program that addresses the environmental crisis while providing for economic security for all Americans. It revolves around a drastic reduction of production, and a corresponding limiting of work by each p...

This article theorizes global labor solidarity for the first time as far as I know. It includes a conceptualization of imperialism that goes beyond Marxist efforts. It focuses on building global labor solidarity, giving history of solidarity efforts, motivations for solidarity, discusses solidarity across different levels of domination, presents sc...

Arguing there are alternatives to the generally moribund trade unionism currently found in the United States, this article presents the Kilusang Mayo Uno Labor Center of the Philippines, an exemplar of social movement unionism, as providing one alternative developing among labor organizations in the Global South. It presents a theoretical discussio...

Provides a good literature review of research on AFL-CIO's foreign policy, with a special emphasis on research done since 2010.

"Climate change is real and it's happening now"--the title is pretty clear. This article was published in the "Northwest Indiana Times" newspaper (Munster, IN) on January 8, 2023, pages B-1 and B-7, and is on-line for free at https://www.nwitimes.com/eedition/page-b1/page_dd756322-24c7-58e3-99f3-854ad3290e3f.html and https://www.nwitimes.com/eediti...

Explains that the chaos and confusion spawned in the first weeks of the second Trump Administration is purposeful and designed to disorient and confuse. By his attacks on USAID and National Endowment for Democracy--both funding conduits for the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center--he is attacking soft power institutions who have failed in preserving the US...

This is a review essay of Jeff Goodell's excellent, but ultimately limited new book, "The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet" (2024). Goodell argues--I believe correctly--that the heat will kill humans first of all environmental responses to our degredation of the planet. This review has already been published by Z Netw...

This is a very detailed examination of AFL and AFL-CIO foreign policy program between the 1940s and 1990s, showing not only their efforts but the process by which they carried out this work. Focusing on anticommunism to rationalize its repressive work against workers around the world with especially strong focus on the work of the American Institut...

Argues that the major contradiction in the world over the past 500+ years has been that between the imperial countries and the formerly colonized countries, yet most people--especially Americans--have not been taught about US imperialism and the US effort to dominate the world, especially since World War II. Discusses US Empire, and argues no contr...

Expecting a Harris-Walz victory, this article suggests a comprehensive strategy for the Left going forward, based on analysis of US Empire, the capitalist economic system, and the climate crisis, showing how they are all related and entwined. This has already been published (August 25, 2024) by Z Network at https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whats-...

Argues the need for progressives need to build organizations so as to build power from the bottom up. Discusses the experiences of PARC, a community cultural center and organizing inititiatives in Michigan City, Indiana from 2017-20221. This has already been published by Z Network at https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/its-time-to-organize-or-die/ .

This leads to a video published by Z Network that gives the most extensive and complex understanding of the The Crisis available to the general public. It has already been published at Z Network just published a video of my talk of June 22, 2024. https://znetwork.org/zvideo/the-climate-crisis-capitalism-or-human-animal-most-plants-survival/ . If t...

Argues that unions must reject the failed business unionism of the past (at least) 40 years, and create a unionism (social justice unionism) that uses the power of an organized workplace to fight not only for better conditions in the workplace but also in the larger lives of workers in their respective communities, at the local, national, and globa...

Labor activists have long-been encouraging workers to build international labor solidarity to empower each other and to improve all workers’ lives and well-being going back to before the First International. This tradition, while dismembered by the Cold War between the US and the UK on one hand and the Soviet Union on the other, has been resuscitat...

A critical review essay of an important book.

This is a review essay of a late 2023 book by Adam Aron. I appreciate the scientific work in the volume, but find a lot of the politics to be limited; liking what Araon has tried to do, but arguing he--and others doing similar work--need to go much farther, including incorporating the concept of the US Empire into their work. This has already been...

A critical review of Bevins' fascinating book that asks why, after more protesting around the world than any time in human history, change has been so limited? He examines 10 different countries, seeking answers from activists on the ground. This review has been already published at https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/review-of-if-we-burn-the-mass-pr...

Uses example of massive change in international affairs coverage by the Northwest Indiana Times (USA) that suggests that Zionist media control re coverage of Israel might be breaking down because of the Israel-Gaza war, and this might suggest that Zionist hegemony of US politics re the Middle East is being seriously questioned. This has been publi...

Argues that mobilization is not sufficient for social change; that people have to create organizations to fight for social change, and this article shares some practical advice and suggestions from one who has been active for over 50 years. This article has already been published at https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/organizing-to-save-the-world-bui...

While the US has tried to dominate the world since at least 1945, it is especially since 1981 that its goals and efforts have been most clear. Despite that, there is a tremendous amount of confusion among scholars, activists, and the general public about how this all fits together; some innocent confusion, while some definite obfuscation and flat o...

Looks at efforts of the US Empire to dominate the world over the past 40 years. Shows impact on the world and on "ordinary" people in the US. Shows $32 TRILLION in debt, failure of neo-liberal economic project, and disastrous impact of people in the US as well as around much of the world. Challenges much of the nonsense presented in corporate media...

This article looks at the international trade union movement and quickly examines where it's been, where it's at, and suggests where it needs to go. Many important references included. Basically argues that dynamics of labor movement have shifted to Global South, states that there's a lot that unions in the North can learn from, and argues the need...

Hughes details the early cold war alliance between the AFL and the CIA, with special focus on France. Establishes unequivocally this connection, although she also shows the AFL controlled its own operations.

The mainstream media has isolated the political left of US politics--I'm talking left of the liberal Dems, although they episodically throw a "bone" to Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortz--not only from political issues and debates, but from US culture. I argue that It's time we on the left fight against this marginalization and work to injec...

Environmental destruction is becoming an increasing threat to the well-being if not survival of a growing number of people around the world; it literally threatens the lives and well-being of millions if not billions of people around the planet. (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its' latest report of March 19, 2023, estimates that...

Looks at the crisis of the Colorado River in the southwestern US, and discusses the potential impact upon 40 million people. Argues that while people have been ignoring limits set by nature, things have gotten so bad that even people are beginning to impose limits to unimpeded growth. Article has been published in "Green Social Thought" and is on...

This debate over the purpose of sociological research has historically been one between Marx and Weber: is sociology's role to analyze society (ala Weber) or to change it (Marx)? The issue of climate change and environmental destruction is one that has been relegated to the margins of Sociology, being seen as an "environmental" issue. The changes...

Argues that the US Left (however defined, but left of the Democrats) does not understand that the US is the homeland of the US Empire, and must be understood as such. Discusses US military spending and national debt increase--over $30 TRILLION since 1981 alone! Argues that the US Left cannot defeat the US Empire by itself, but argues the need to wi...

Africa has long been looked at by outsiders as a continent that is hopelessly mired in corruption and incapable of social and economic development. This especially pertains to sub-Saharan Africa, overwhelmingly populated by black people, thus fitting the trope of white supremists that black people cannot successfully govern themselves. This book by...

Despite imperial country claims--especially by the UK and the US--that Africans were too incapable of handling independence, Susan Williams' masterful book details how it was the imperial countries (especially including Belgium) that actively schemed and undercut African struggles for independence. She particularly focuses on The Congo and Patrice...

Examines recent IPCC report, and translates findings from "scientese" to English for interested non-experts. Also, critiques IPCC report for not discussing the impact of war or capitalism on the environment. This article has ready been published at https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/making-sense-of-the-latest-ipcc-report-2023/ ,

Review of Frank Emspak's "Troublemaker: Saying No to Power" a.nd is on the Labor Notes web site under "archives" for January 2023 Article is on-line for free at https://labornotes.org/blogs/2023/01/review-learning-older-generation-troublemakers?

A response to Schuhrke's article, "From Solidarity to Shock Therapy: The AFL-CIO and the Fall of Soviet Communism," and this is combined with Schuhrke's reaction to my response. This has been published at https://www.lawcha.org/2023/01/04/scipes-schuhrke-exchange/ ,

After examining the history of the global trade union movement, mainly dominated by unions in imperial (so called "developed") countries, it is argued that the trade union movement has shifted to countries in the Global South, and that unions in the imperial countries should learn from and work with them. This has already been published and is on-...

One of the encouraging things this long-time labor activist has been watching over the past several years is the emerging development of unions across the world and in the United States. We're hearing about new organizing efforts in Argentina, China, Iran, Mexico, South Africa, Vietnam, and other places, including the United States. And while I'm a...

Review of bookl

Noting the extensive number of progressive protests, mobilizations, and social disruption from below since the mid-1980s, not just in the US but around the world, this article suggests that what is going on is the expansion of the global economic and social justice movement, a bottom-up form of globalization. It suggests that this is, ultimately, a...

This a review of a book that is an account of the assault on a democratic union in Mexico in 1990, and the efforts to uncover what really happened. Published on-line for free at https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/02/28/as-workers-win-victories-in-mexico-its-important-to-remember-past-machinations-against-them/ .

Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2020 ISBN: 978-1-64259-124-8 Paperback-Reviewed by Kim Scipes Like many of you, I use an iPhone. It is a technological wonder and allows me to do things unimaginable even a few years ago; it has more computer power than NASA had to put men on the Moon in the late 1960s-early 1970s. These phones are designed by Apple, Inc.

Review of Peter Cole's book, "Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area."

An excellent comparative-history study that examines the efforts to fight racism and oppression by longshore workers (aka dockers) in the San Francisco Bay Area and Duban, South Africa.

This is an edited collection, edited by Kim Scipes. Introduction (Scipes) discusses globalization in relatively new ways, and Ch 1 (Scipes) discusses international labor theory; Ch 2 (Nastovski) is on Canadian workers; Ch 3 (Jungehülsing) is on solidarity with Mexican and Salvadorean workers; Ch 4 (Dobrusin) on efforts to build labor solidarity acr...

This study examines the foreign policy program of the AFL and, later, the AFL-CIO, arguing that this program comes from within the US labor movement, not from without, as has long been claimed. This reactionary labor policy began in late 1800s-early 1900s--BEFORE the Bolshevik Revolution--and continues to date. Book details origins and emergence of...

Historical and comparative study of unionization of steel and meatpacking in Chicago area, including Northwest Indiana between 1933-55, and how both unions addressed racial oppression of Blacks and Latinos in workplaces, unions, and communities. Much unpublished material--extensive detail--on origins of steel unionism in area, which began BEFORE em...

This is the first and, to date (March 2021), ONLY national study of KMU Labor Center, one of the most developed and dynamic labor organizations in the world. Based on six research trips to the Philippines, and extensive travel across archipelago. Focuses on four regional political economies: capitalist agriculture on Mindanao; extractive mining (co...

Efforts to build bottom-up global labor solidarity began in the late 1970s and continue today, having greater social impact than ever before. In Building Global Labor Solidarity: Lessons from the Philippines, South Africa, Northwestern Europe, and the United States Kim Scipes—who worked as a union printer in 1984 and has remained an active particip...

Argues that accolades for the late John Sweeney, President Emeritus of AFL-CIO, overlooked several of his actions that should not be forgotten, especially his collaboration with the US Government's National Endowment for (reactionary) Democracy; his collaboration with George W Bush's administration--before Trump's, one of the most reactionary in US...

Examines efforts to explain the development of social movement unionism from a structural-based analysis, and finds them inadequate.

How can we theoretically understand labor movements and worker mobilization? 1 We saw in the preceding chapter that structural approaches to understanding worker mobilization simply are incorrect. However, if they are incorrect, how can we correctly understand them? This chapter is intended to begin to lay the theoretical groundwork for understandi...

Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution by Don Fitz Monthly Review Press, 2020 ISBN: 978-158367-860-2 (paper)-of the Cuban health care system. Review published at https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/18/cubas-revolution-in-health-care/ .

Workers in East Asia have shown over the past 50 years that they are capable of challenging capital, despite facing vehement opposition by corporations, oftentimes joined by governments and their militaries, and sometimes even armed thugs. They have built some of the most dynamic labour organizations in the world. This article is designed to put th...

A review essay of Jörg Nowak's 2019 book "Mass Strikes and Social Movements in Brazil and India: Popular Mobilisation in the Long Depression." This has been published on-line for free at https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol8/iss1/2/ .

Examines the development of labor studies on a global level since 1978. Published on-line for free at https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol8/iss1/1/ .

This innovative study examines labor struggles in India and Brazil, and this is my review of this work.

Review essay of book, "You Say You Want a Revolution: SDS, PL and Adventures in Building a Worker-Student Alliance" edited by John F. Levin and Earl Silbar, 2019.

Review of a book on the Progressive Labor Party/Worker-Student Alliance of the 1960s.

This article is asking if it's time for labor activists in the US to begin discussing the possible need to create a new labor center, instead of relying on the AFL-CIO.

This article notes the overall failure of the AFL-CIO over the past 40 years, and asks if it might be time to try something new, such as establish a new labor center in the United States. Argues that this question needs to be discussed by Labor Notes, and suggests space for this be created at the upcoming (but now cancelled) Labor Notes conference...

Labour imperialism is the concept that has been developed to describe one labour movement dominating or seeking to dominate the labour movement of another political community, and is overwhelmingly based on analyses of the international activities of the American Federation of Labor, both before and after its 1955 merger with the Congress of Indust...

Efforts to build bottom-up global labor solidarity began in the late 1970s and continue today, having greater social impact than ever before. In Building Global Labor Solidarity: Lessons from the Philippines, South Africa, Northwestern Europe, and the United States Kim Scipes—who worked as a union printer in 1984 and has remained an active particip...

Efforts to build bottom-up global labor solidarity began in the late 1970s and continue today, having greater social impact than ever before. In Building Global Labor Solidarity: Lessons from the Philippines, South Africa, Northwestern Europe, and the United States Kim Scipes—who worked as a union printer in 1984 and has remained an active particip...

Efforts to build bottom-up global labor solidarity began in the late 1970s and continue today, having greater social impact than ever before. In Building Global Labor Solidarity: Lessons from the Philippines, South Africa, Northwestern Europe, and the United States Kim Scipes—who worked as a union printer in 1984 and has remained an active particip...

Efforts to build bottom-up global labor solidarity began in the late 1970s and continue today, having greater social impact than ever before. In Building Global Labor Solidarity: Lessons from the Philippines, South Africa, Northwestern Europe, and the United States Kim Scipes—who worked as a union printer in 1984 and has remained an active particip...

Efforts to build bottom-up global labor solidarity began in the late 1970s and continue today, having greater social impact than ever before. In Building Global Labor Solidarity: Lessons from the Philippines, South Africa, Northwestern Europe, and the United States Kim Scipes—who worked as a union printer in 1984 and has remained an active particip...

A review essay on Progressive Labor and the Worker-Student Alliance of the 1960s.

A Review Essay" by Kim Scipes Robert O'Brien's latest book is an interesting look at a generally unknown labor initiative across the Global South that has developed over the past thirty years, uniting trade unions and labor activists for mutual protection, militant labor action and to advance the interests of workers globally. This book, and the pr...

Reviews a book on the Progressive Labor Party of the US, which adds to our knowledge of 1960s.

Workers in a number of progressive labor movements across the Global South have united in a relatively new global labor organization, SIGTUR (Southern Initiative on Globalization and Trade Union Rights), which this book describes its origins and development.

This is a review of Anthony Carew's 2018 book, which examines AFL-CIO operations overseas from 1945 to 1970.

"In the Shadow of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power" by Alfred W. McCoy. McCoy now accepts the concept of the US Empire, with the United States being the heartland; that the Empire is falling apart; and that it is in the process of being replaced by China. In this review, I critically evaluate these claims, and find th...

McCoy supports vividly his claim that the US has an Empire, and with his latest book, Alfred W. McCoy has fully developed the claim regarding the US Empire. In it, he argues three things: (1) that the US has an empire, with the United States being the heartland of the US Empire; (2) that this empire, after 70 or so years, is falling apart, deterior...

This is my analysis of the AFL-CIO--which is considered by many as "the labor movement"--as of late 2016/early 2017; my extensive background in the labor movement for making such an analysis; and introduces four articles in the first of a two-part series that I edited for "Class, Race and Corporate Power," a peer-reviewed journal that tries to get...

The organizational failure of labor leadership in the US is more than individual failures, which could perhaps be overcome by the election of new leaders. The author argues that the model of trade unionism that has dominated US unionism--business unionism--offers no viable way forward and must be replaced by another model: social justice unionism.

The organizational failure of labor leadership in the US is more than individual failure, which could perhaps be overcome by the election of new leaders. The author argues that the model of trade unionism that has dominated US unionism--business unionism--offers no viable way forward and must be replaced by another model: social justice unionism.

Review essay of Theodore W. Allen, "The Invention of the White Race"; Edward E. Baptist, "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism"; and Sven Beckert, "Empire of Cotton: A Global History."

Includes links to many of my publications.

Noting the massive shift of production from the Global North to the Global South, Immanuel Ness focuses on three case studies--from the Pearl River Delta in China, India and South Africa--to illuminate what is going on. His empirical research is the heart of this study. We need to recognize the struggles of our sister and brother workers around the...

After the election of John Sweeney as President of the AFL-CIO in October 1995, activists and supportive intellectuals in the United States began thinking about how to revitalize the almost moribund American labor movement. A key part of this literature has revolved around the concept of “social movement unionism.” This term touched a nerve, and ha...

New labor movements are currently emerging across the Global South. This is happening in countries as disparate as China, Egypt, and Iran. New developments are taking place within labor movements in places such as Colombia, Indonesia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan and Venezuela. Activists and leaders in these labor movements are seeking information from w...

This new volume of writings on the foreign policy of the AFL-CIO is both interesting and frustrating: interesting because they bring some new research results to light, and frustrating because this is a obviously a political project against more critical analyses of the AFL-CIO’s foreign policy, of which this reviewer’s is one, as it “ignores” most...

Examines why the CUT Labor Center in Brazil "retreated" from being an exemplar of "social movement unionism, and tries to understand the processes so it can be prevented in future cases.

Reviewed by Kim Scipes Jeffrey Sluyter-Beltrão has made a major contribution to our understanding of the "new unionism"-organizationally centered in the CUT (Central Única dos Trabalhadores)-that developed in Brazil between 1978-95. This is a book rich in detail, and focuses on factors internal to the CUT to understand the processes by which this l...

Building on Alberto Melucci’s argument that to understand a social movement, we must look at the period before emergence as a social movement, this article examines labor activists’ efforts to reform the foreign policy program of the AFL-CIO: has sufficient groundwork been laid that a serious possibility of an alternative globalization movement can...

This work conclusively proves that the American Federation of Labor's Free Trade Union Committee collaborated extensively with the CIA in France after World War II (roughly 1946-48) to undercut the desires of French workers. It also supports Kim Scipes' claim that AFL (and later, AFL-CIO) foreign policy was developed WITHIN the US labor movement an...

Review of "'In the Interest of Democracy': The Rise and Fall of the Early Cold War Alliance between the American Federation of Labor and the Central Intelligence Agency by Quenby Olmsted Hughes.

Arguing that the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and then after 1955, the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), have sought to dominate labor organizations globally, this article establishes this theoretically as “labor imperialism.” The essay then asks: why do labor leaders engage in labor imperialism? Thi...

This article discusses the AFL-CIO's foreign operations, recognizing that labor's fore policy is made by people at the highest levels of the labor movement--i.e., INSIDE the labor movement--and not external forces such as the US government, White House, State Department or CIA. It compares labor's foreign operations under the then-progressive John...

Throughout much of its history, the AFL-CIO has carried out a reactionary labor program around the world. It has been unequivocally established that the AFL-CIO has worked to overthrow democratically-elected governments, collaborated with dictators against progressive labor movements, and supported reactionary labor movements against progressive go...

Labor Studies Journal 29.3 (2004) 119-120 The issue of workers' role in the increasingly "knowledge-based" economy and the necessity to create a "lifelong learning culture" in every workplace have been the focus of official studies in industrialized countries around the world over the past ten to fiteen years. These studies, as Livingstone and Sawc...

This is an excellent corporate history of US Steel, although doesn't have much on workers or union.