Over the last half century, two major historical developments in the United States have transformed workers' rights and altered low-wage workers' ability to combat their exploitation. First, while labor laws, which raise labor standards through collective bargaining--have grown increasingly ineffective, employment laws--which establish only the most minimal terms and conditions of employment--have proliferated at the state and local levels. Second, as large, well-endowed labor unions have declined, new nonunion, nonprofit organizations, called "alt-labor groups," have emerged to support marginalized workers. In Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers' Rights, political scientist Daniel J. Galvin examines how these under-resourced groups help their members in an era when weak employment laws have become the primary mechanism for protecting workers.

Alt-labor groups have long offered skills training, advocacy, and opportunities for collective action, but as Galvin explains, they have grown frustrated by the limited impact of such traditional strategies and have increasingly turned to public policy to strengthen employment laws. Alt-labor groups have successfully led policy campaigns to combat wage theft, raise the minimum wage, create paid sick leave, establish fair workweek standards, and more. But relative to their larger, wealthier, and better-connected opponents, alt-labor groups are small, poor, and weak. Their tax-exempt status limits the extent of their permissible political activities. Their members are primarily low-wage immigrant workers and workers of color. And with few exceptions, they lack large dues-paying memberships so must rely on philanthropic foundations and other unpredictable sources of funding. So how have alt-labor groups managed to make gains for their members?

Drawing on datasets, surveys, local newspapers as well as interviews with alt-labor leaders and workers, Galvin reveals that alt-labor groups have succeeded by augmenting and leveraging their strengths: their deep roots in local communities, their commitment to year-round organizing, their unique position in the labor movement as the primary advocates for low-wage nonunionized workers, and the flexibility of their organizational forms. And in recent years, a growing number of groups have also become more politically engaged and have set out to alter their political environments by cultivating more engaged citizens, changing policymakers' incentives, and creating conditions conducive to further policy changes. These efforts seek to enhance alt-labor groups' probabilities of success in the near term while incrementally shifting the balance of power over the long term.

Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers' Rights provides an illuminating account of how and why alt-labor groups have increasingly turned to policy and politics to combat workplace exploitation and create new rights and protections for workers.