Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement Book

This is a great book that I highly recommend, not just for labor types, but also those who have no direct experience with labor unions nor count themselves as part of the labor movement. I especially recommend this book for smart members of the public who are ambivalent or against labor unions.

While the book is intended to explain American organized labor to a European audience, it serves as a great introduction to an American audience (I realize that his point actually is a sad statement about how foreign American labor is to much of the American public!).

In Europe, the state is responsible for providing for workers' needs and regulating one's relationship with one's employer. In contrast, in the U.S., the provision of key needs such as healthcare is left to the whim of one's employer. Those without employment, are often left without a sufficient safety net. In such a desperate situation as is ours, the need for the labor movement is paramount. Unlike the European context, In the U.S., we don't even have the protection from being fired for any (or no) reason, unless we are protected by a union contract.

Hard Work is smart without being inaccessibly academic, popular in its appeal to core American values and traditions, and forceful in its argument. Not only does it provide an admiringly concise history of the movement; it also compellingly argues the necessary role of unions in our society, while at the same time patiently and unblinkingly describes both the external and internal forces that weaken the movement. The latter includes anti-democratic forces of capital against the American worker, as well as the strategic mistakes the movement has made.

The book is ultimately cautiously optimistic, reviewing promising trends in social justice unionism and innovations in strategic organizing. Read this and restore the faith; join the struggle.