US Trade Unionism since 1940
(see also US Trade Unionism before 1940 & Global Trade Unionism)
Basics
On the Web: Articles
Who Murdered Gilberto Soto? David Bacon, American Prospect (1/4/05).
On the Web: Specialized Sites
American Federation of State, County & Municipal Workers (AFSCME).
American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
Association for Union Democracy.
Czarnecki's Labor Education Links.
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. German Social Democrat organization promoting world-wide struggle trade union democracy, social development & human rights.
Hotel & Restaurant Employees International Union.
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The "Wobblies," still alive & kicking.
International Labour Organization (ILO).
Labor Notes: Putting the movement back in the Trade Union Movement.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Teamsters for a Democratic Union.
United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE).
United Food & Commercial Workers International (UFCW).
In the Library: Articles
Benson, H.W. "Miners for democracy: a report from West Virginia," Dissent 19,4 (1972):632-38.
__________. "Labor leaders, intellectuals, & freedom in the unions," Dissent 20,2 (1973):206-10.
Cooper, Marc. "The naked & the red," Nation (4/21/03):21-23. Union organizing among Las Vegas strippers & nude dancers.
Goldblatt, Louis. "Labor & overdue social change," Monthly Review 33,4 (9/81):64.
Foster, John Bellamy. "The working class: is it dead?" Monthly Review (12/86):55-64.
Koeppel, Barbara. "Ron Carey," Progressive (4/95):34-36.
Kwik, Phil. "Pittston: class war in the coalfields," Against the Current (1-2/1990):7-9.
Lynd, Staughton. "Trade unionism in the USA," New Left Review 184 (1990):76-95. Review essay on Moody, An Injury to All & Montgomery The Fall of the House of Labor, with reply by Moody.
Weiler, Paul. "Promise to keep: securing worker's rights to self-organization under the NLRA," Harvard Law Review (6/83):1769-1825.
Wrenn, Rob. "The decline of American labor," Socialist Review 82/83 (1985):89-117.
Wypijewski, Joann. "Whose steel?," Nation (7/15/02):16-21. US steel industry needs help.
Yates, Michael D. "Does the US labor movement have a future?" Monthly Review 48,9(2/97):1-18.
_____________. "From the coal wars to the Pittston strike," Monthly Review 42,2 (6/90):25-39.
In the Library: Non-Fiction Books
Bergquist, Charles. Labor & the Course of American Democracy: US History in Latin American Perspective (NY, 1996).
Bingham, Clara & Laura Leedy Gansler. Class Action (NY: Doubleday, 2002). Hard-fought lawsuit by women workers at Eveleth iron mine in Minnesota. Obtained redress for demeaning treatment, & redefined sexual harassment law.
Boyle, Kevin. The UAW & the Heyday of American Liberalism (Ithaca: Cornell, 1995).
Braverman, Harry. Technology, the Labor Process & the Working Class (NY: Monthly Review, 1976).
Brecher, Jeremy. Strike! [1972] (rev. ed.; Boston: South End, 1997). Strikes in trade union movement since 1870s.
__________ ; Jerry Lombardi & Jan Stackhouse (eds.) Brass Valley: The Story of Working People's Lives & Struggles in an American Industrial Region (Philadelphia: Temple, 1980).
__________ & Tim Costello (eds.) Building Bridges: The Emerging Grassroots Coalition of Labor & Community (NY:
Monthly Review, 1990).
Buhle, Paul & Alan Dawley (eds.) Working for Democracy: American Workers from the Revolution to the Present (Urbana: U. Illinois, 1985).
__________. From the Knights of Labor to the New World Order: Essays on Labor & Culture (NY: Garland, 1997).
Cherny, Robert W.; William Issel & Kieran Walsh Taylor (eds.) American Labor & the Cold War: Grassroots Politics & Postwar Political Culture (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers, 2004).
Cherry, Robert. Who Gets the Good Jobs? Combating Race & Gender Disparities (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers, 2001).
Clark, Paul F. The Miner's Fight for Democracy: Arnold Miller & the Reform of the United Mine Workers (Ithaca: Cornell, 1981).
Cook, Fred J. Walter Reuther: Building the House of Labor (Chicago: Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1963).
Dark, Taylor E. The Unions & the Democrats. An Enduring Alliance (Ithaca, 1999).
Erem, Suzan. Labor Pains: Inside America's New Union Movement (NY: Monthly Review, 2002). Conflicting demands of race, class & gender as experienced by a union organizer.
Franco, Joseph with Richard Hammer. Hoffa's Man: The Rise & Fall of Jimmy Hoffa as Witnessed by his Strongest Arm (NY: Prentice-Hall, 1987).
Fraser, Steven & Joshua B. Freeman. Audacious Democracy. Labor, Intellectuals, & the Social Reconstruction of America (NY, 1997).
García, Mario T. Memories of Chicano History: The Life & Narrative of Bert Corona (Berkeley: U. California, 1994).
Gerstle, Gary. Working-Class Americanism: The Politics of Labor in a Textile City, 1914-1960 (NY: Cambridge, 1989)
Gindin, Sam. The Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth & Transformation of a Union (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1995). How, while the American UAW declined, the CAW became an increasingly independent & progressive trade union.
Ginger, Ann Fagan & David Christiano (ed.) The Cold War Against Labor (NY: Monthly Review, 1982).
Griffith, Barbara S. Crisis of American Labor: Operation Dixie & Defeat of the CIO (Philadelphia: Temple, 1988).
Halpern, Rick & Roger Horowitz. Meatpackers: An Oral History of Black Packinghouse Workers & their Struggle for Racial & Economic Equality (NY: Monthly Review, 199?).
Heron, Craig & Robert Storey (eds.) On the Job: Confronting the Labour Process in Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queens, 1986).
James, Ralph C. & Estelle Dinerstein James. Hoffa & the Teamsters: A Study of Union Power (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1965).
Kelber, Harry. Ten Ways to Reform an Undemocratic AFL-CIO: How Members Can Reclaim their Rights & Have a Voice & a Role in their Unions (Brooklyn NY: Labor Educator, 2003).
Korstad, Robert Rodgers. Civil Rights Unionism (Chapel Hill: U. North Carolina, 2003).
Kraditor, Aileen S. "Jimmy Higgins": The Mental World of the American Rank-and-File Communist, 1930-1958 (NY: Greenwood, 1988)
LaBotz, Dan. Rank-&-File Rebellion: Teamsters for a Democratic Union (NY: Routledge, 1990). Critical review by Jonathan Tasini in Nation (3/25/91):387-8.
Lens, Sidney. The Crisis of American Labor (NY: Sagamore, 1959).
__________. Working Men: The Story of Labor (NY: Putnam, 1960).
Lichtenstein, Nelson. State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (Princeton: Princeton U, 2002?).
Lipsitz, Georg. Rainbow at Midnight: Labor & Culture in the 1940s (Urbana: U. of Illinois, 1994).
Lynd, Alice & Staughton Lynd (eds.) Rank & File: Personal Histories by Working-Class Organizers (Boston: Beacon, 1973).
Lynd, Staughton (ed.) American Labor Radicalism: Testimonies & Interpretations (NY: Wiley, 1973).
__________. The Fight Against Shutdowns: Youngstown's Steel Mill Closings (San Pedro: Singlejack, 1982).
__________. Solidarity Unionism: Rebuilding the Labor Movement from Below (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1992).
__________. Labor Law for the Rank-&-Filer, or, Building Solidarity while Staying Clear of the Law (2nd ed.; Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1994).
__________ & Alice Lynd (eds.) The New Rank & File (Ithaca NY: ILR, 2000).
Mantsios, Gregory (ed.) A New Labor Movement for a New Century (NY: Monthly Review, 199?).
Moldea, Dan E. The Hoffa Wars: Teamsters, Rebels, Politicians & the Mob (NY: Paddington, 1978).
Moody, Kim. An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism (NY: Verso, 1988).
Montgomery, David. What's Happening to the American Worker? (Somerville MA: New England Free Press, 1970).
Mort, Jo-Ann. Not Your Father’s Union Movement: Inside the AFL-CIO (NY, 1998).
Murolo, Priscilla; A.B. Chitty & Joe Sacco. From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States (NY, 2001).
Ness, Immanuel & Stuart Eimer (eds.) Central Labor Councils & the Revival of American Unionism: Organizing for Social Justice in Our Communities (Armonk, N.Y. : M.E. Sharpe, 2001)
Orren, Karen. Belated Feudalism: Labor, the Law & Liberal Development in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge, 1992).
Rachleff, Peter. Hard Pressed in the Heartland: The Hormel Strike & the Future of the Labor Movement (Boston: South End, 1993).
Salvatore, Nick. Seventy Years of Life & Labor: An Autobiography (ed. Nick Salvatore; Ithaca: Cornell, 1984).
Tattam, William & Jerry Lembcke. One Union in Wood: A Political History of the International Woodworkers of America (NY: International, 1984).
Tillman, Ray M. & Michael S. Cummings (eds.) The Transformation of U.S. Unions: Voices, Visions, & Strategies from the Grassroots (Boulder CO, 1999).
Wood, Ellen Meiksins. The Retreat from Class (London: Verso, 1986).
Yates, Michael D. Why Unions Matter (NY: Monthly Review, 199?).
__________. Power on the Job: The Legal Rights of Working People (Boston: South End, 1995).
Zieger, Robert H. & Gailbert J. Gall. American Workers, American Unions: The Twentieth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2003).
Zimbalist, Andrew (ed.) Case Studies on the Labor Process (NY: Monthly Review, 1979).
In the Library: Fiction
Hannibal, Edward & Robert Boris. Blood Feud (NY: Ballantine, 1979). Robert Kennedy vs. Jimmy Hoffa.
In the Library: For Young Readers
In the Library: Poetry
In the Library: Drama
In the Library: Photography
CD & Audio
Film & Video
"Blue Collar" [1978], dir. Paul Schrader, ?m. In video stores. Trade union corruption in Detroit auto plant.
"Bread & Roses" [2000?], dir. Ken Loach, 110m. In video stores.
"Business as Usual" [1987], dir. Lezli-An Barret, ?m. Notable true-story account of women's resistance to sexual harassment in Liverpool workplace.
"F.I.S.T." [1978], dir. Norman Jewison, ?m. In video stores. Drama of teamster organizing.
"Germinal" [1993], dir. Claude Berri & Arlette Langmann, 158m. In video stores. 19th-c. French coal miners' strike, based on novel by Emile Zola.
"Hoffa" [1993], dir. Danny Vito, 140m. In video stores.
"I'm All Right Jack" [1959], dir. John & Roy Boulting, ?m. Conservative anti-union propaganda masquerading as comedy.
"The Life & Times of Rosie the Riveter" [1980], dir. Connie Field, ?m. Documentary on role of women in industrial production during & just after World War II.
"Nine to Five" [1980], dir. Colin Higgins, 110m. In video stores. Office workers imagining resistance.
"Norma Rae" [1979], dir. Martin Ritt, 113m. In video stores. Perhaps the best argument on film for why working people need a real trade union movement.
"The Organizer (I compagni)" [1963], dir. Mario Monicello, 130m. Poignant story of violent class war & an idealist organizer in late 19th-c. Turin.
"Salt of the Earth" [1954], dir. Herbert J. Biberman, 94m. In video stores. Mexican American women take lead in strike at New Mexico's Empire Zinc mine.
"Silkwood" [1983], dir. Mike Nichols, ?m. In video stores. Oklahoma nuclear plant worker grows militant in response to endangerment of workers' health by radiation, & dies in mysterious circumstances.
"Strike" [1924], dir. Sergei Eisenstein, ?m. Classic silent film on 1912 strike by Russian factory workers, brutally repressed by Tsarist authorities.
"On the Waterfront" [1954], dir. Elia Kazan, 108m. In video stores. Ex-boxer turned NY longshoreman stands up to corrupt union bosses.
"Union Maids" [1976], dir. James Klein, Julia Reichert & Miles Mogulescu, 52m. From New Day Films.
"Wall Street" [1987], dir. Oliver Stone, ?m. In video stores. Trade unionism marginal to story, but its values are eloquently expressed by Martin Sheen as father to one of the ruthless brokers.