Art Shostak

A professional speaker for businesses, foundations, and governmental bodies, I particularly enjoy speaking formally for Labor groups, and my occasional appearances on TV or radio talk shows are either as a Labor-aligned sociologist or in debate with a union-avoidance consultant or lawyer.

Of late, my research and advocacy have focused on Labor and computer power, having written in 1999 the first book ever about the bright possibilities for Labor (CyberUnion: Empowering Labor through Computer Technology). In 2002 I edited a second book of advice from grass-roots enthusiasts (The CyberUnion Handbook). My website (CyberUnions.net) facilitates dialogue, and I speak annually at LaborTech, the national conference of Labor digerati types. Much as in 1962, when I championed the Jeffersonian Democracy aspects of "company unions," so also do I urge unionists to employ inter-activity to help revitalize theLabor Movement and empower the rank-and-file.


My work with Organized Labor has been simultaneous with many other exercises in applied sociology, including an unsuccessful effort to help unionize my Drexel University colleagues, to help males in abortion clinic waiting rooms get support; and so on. The synergy has been bracing. Much is recounted in my 32 books, including two new book publication series I finished editing in 2004  for high school students (one series is on the consequences of the Iraq War; the other on key aspects of the future). Looking back, and looking forward to how much will always remain to be done, especially where Organized Labor is concerned, I fervently wish more and more colleagues would join our ranks as applied sociologists.

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Here's Dr. Shostak's professional snapshot -

Since earning a Ph.D in Sociology in 1961 Art has attempted in his 32
books and numerous projects to employ the discipline for the Greater
Good: In the 1960s, for example, he created an energetic  grass-roots
social movement early in the War on Poverty to help Philadelphians
fight City Hall for power over the local anti-poverty program.  He
also advised the University of Pennsylvania on its design for the
first Job Corps operation in the USA.  In the 1970s he helped the New
Communities Division of HUD decide whether or not building
contractors were as innovative as the terms of their giant HUD loans
required. He also helped the Ford Foundation test in Graterford
Prison a new model for parole release preparation courses. As well,
he served as the Survey Researcher for PATCO for a year and a half
before the disastrous strike of 1981. In the 1980s he worked for HUD
on a project that attempted to borrow space shuttle technology and
apply it to community environment problems.  He also helped the AARP
explore reform options for the pending wave in 2010 of Boomer
retirements.  As well, he completed the first-ever survey of males in
the waiting rooms of abortion clinics, and published a book urging
overdue reforms.  In the 1990s Art focused on ways by which Organized
Labor might make creative and empowering use of computer power.  Now,
in the early 21st century, Art is busy trying to get support for his
blueprint for a high school that focuses on the future.  He continues
to campaign for abortion clinic education in family planning for
waiting room males, and is writing an assessment of what the 1981
PATCO strike has meant for America. Having retired after 42 wonderful
years on campus (including 25 years teaching part-time for the Labor
Movement), Art now teaches on the Internet.  His two courses -
Industrial Sociology, and, Futuristics, help break ground in this
relatively new  educational mode, much as Art has tried to show the
way throughout his career. 

Comments may be made directly to Dr. Shostak at shostaka@drexel.edu or see his website at  http://www.futureshaping.com/shostak  .