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Author: Steve Early
Publisher: Monthly Review Press
ISBN:
978-1-58367-188-7
Publication Date: 2009
Trade paperback
288 pages

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Monthly Review Store


 


 

Embedded with Organized Labor:
Journalistic Reflections on the Class War at Home

by Steve Early

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About this book:

This wide-ranging collection deals with the dilemmas of union radicalism, the obstacles to institutional change within organized labor, and strategies for securing workers' rights in the new global economy. It also addresses questions hotly debated among union activists and friends of labor, including workers' rights as human rights, new forms of worker organization such as worker centers, union democracy, cross-border solidarity, race, gender, and ethnic divisions in the working class, and the lessons of labor history.

Embedded With Organized Labor describes how union members have organized successfully, on the job and in the community, in the face of employer opposition now and in the past. The author has produced a provocative series of essays—an unusual exercise in “participatory labor journalism” useful to any reader concerned about social and economic justice. As workers struggle to survive and the labor movement tries to revive during the current economic crisis, this book provides ideas and inspiration for union activists and friends of labor alike.

Steve Early has been an organizer, strike strategist, labor educator, and lawyer. He recently retired from his job as national staff member of the Communications Workers of America. Early’s articles, reviews, and op-ed pieces have appeared in The Nation, New Politics, CounterPunch, The Progressive, American Prospect, WorkingUSA, New Labor Forum, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and many other publications. He is currently completing a book on the role of 1960s activists in American unions.

“Steve Early says things other people in the labor movement would like to say but don’t, because of protocol, fear of firing, or, if truth be told, fear of afflicting the comfortable.” —Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes

“This is an exciting collection that respects workers enough to engage them in desperately needed discussions about union strategy. It presents a radical defense of the working class and an uncompromising critique of the labor movement as it exists today.” —Sam Gindin, York University Former Research Director, Canadian Auto Workers

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