Presidents Havel, Bollinger,<strong>and</strong> ClintonUnion ManScholar-activist Dorian Warren Isn’t Giving Up on Organized Laborby Raphael Pope-SussmanOn Easter Sunday morning, Dorian Warren woke up early, puton a narrow-cut, charcoal pinstripe suit <strong>and</strong> a tri-tone pastelshirt, <strong>and</strong> stepped out <strong>of</strong> his Upper West Side apartment. ButWarren didn’t head <strong>of</strong>f to church. Instead, he rode in a charteredLincoln Town Car down to 30 Rockefeller Center where hewas scheduled to appear on MSNBC’s “Melissa Harris-Perry.”Link back to contents page16 Superscript
to Harris-Perry, who also has a Mormon heritage, thatthey were “part <strong>of</strong> another 1 percent—the 1 percent <strong>of</strong>black folks that were part <strong>of</strong> the Mormon church.”There is, <strong>of</strong> course, a deeper resonance to Warren’sjoke. In the past year Warren has written <strong>and</strong> spokenfrequently about the significance <strong>of</strong> Occupy WallStreet, which he has called “the first time we’ve seenthe emergence <strong>of</strong> a populist movement on the leftsince the 1930s.” Writing with Joe Lowndes <strong>of</strong> the University<strong>of</strong> Oregon in Dissent, Warren, a <strong>for</strong>mer communityorganizer, <strong>of</strong>fered prescriptions <strong>for</strong> how OccupyWall Street could strengthen its organizational structure<strong>and</strong> avoid being co-opted by the Democratic Party.In The Washington Post last fall he <strong>and</strong> coauthor PaulFrymer <strong>of</strong> Princeton invoked both Occupy Wall Street<strong>and</strong> the NBA lockout to illustrate the disproportionatepower employers wield over employees, a disparity thathas become all the more pronounced given thedecline in union membership among the Americanlabor <strong>for</strong>ce.Though the initial momentum <strong>of</strong> the Occupy movementhas now diminished somewhat, Warren is nonethelessa man to follow. He was recently appointed tothe editorial board <strong>of</strong> The Nation, <strong>and</strong> has two booksdue out next year. Moreover, the issues he studies—labor, identity, <strong>and</strong> inequality—lie at the heart <strong>of</strong> thecurrent crisis in the American polity.Warren, an activist, scholar <strong>of</strong> labor politics, <strong>and</strong> an associatepr<strong>of</strong>essor in the Department <strong>of</strong> Political Science,has been an occasional guest on the political talk showsince it premiered in February. On Easter Sunday, hehad been invited, along with Princeton pr<strong>of</strong>essor JulianZelizer, to discuss the challenge facing Republican Presidentialnominee Mitt Romney in reaching out to Americanslargely unfamiliar with the tenets <strong>of</strong> his Mormonfaith. After drawing a parallel between Romney’s December2007 “Faith in America” speech <strong>and</strong> Barack Obama’skeynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention,Warren <strong>of</strong>fered his views on which parts <strong>of</strong>Mormonism—like the church’s active involvement inthe campaign <strong>for</strong> Cali<strong>for</strong>nia’s Proposition 8—could beconsidered “legitimate” targets <strong>for</strong> scrutiny. He spokefrom personal experience, as an activist accustomed tostrategizing <strong>for</strong> campaigns <strong>and</strong> as someone raised in theChurch <strong>of</strong> Jesus Christ <strong>of</strong> Latter-Day Saints: he quippedDorian Warren’s story begins on the SouthSide <strong>of</strong> Chicago, where he <strong>and</strong> his older brother Brentwere born <strong>and</strong> raised by Bertella Warren, a singlemother, elementary school teacher, <strong>and</strong> member <strong>of</strong> theChicago Teachers Union. The family wasn’t wealthy,but she was able to provide a com<strong>for</strong>table home <strong>for</strong>the boys, who never wanted <strong>for</strong> necessities. Like herown mother, a school custodian <strong>and</strong> a member <strong>of</strong> whatwould become the first local <strong>of</strong> the Service EmployeesInternational Union, Bertella had found a job that <strong>of</strong>feredher children the possibility <strong>of</strong> a better life.Providing paid sick leave when the children were ill,a decent paycheck, family health insurance, <strong>and</strong> jobsecurity, the union <strong>of</strong>fered the family a measure <strong>of</strong>financial stability. “But <strong>for</strong> the union,” Warren says,“we would have <strong>of</strong>ficially been living under the povertyline.”Superscript 17Link back to contents page
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