The Union Makes Us Strong
Author | : David Wellman |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 386 |
Release | : 1997-08-28 |
ISBN-10 | : 0521629683 |
ISBN-13 | : 9780521629683 |
Rating | : 4/5 (83 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: American labour history is typically interpreted by scholars as a history of defeat. Hidden by this conventional wisdom are a handful of militant unions that did not follow the putative Congress of Industrial Organizations trajectory. Based on three years of ethnographic research, this book examines a union that organised itself to systematically challenge management's rule on the shopfloor: San Francisco's longshore union. American unionism looks quite different than conventional wisdom suggests when everyday union practices are observed. American labour's trajectory, this book argues, is neither inevitable nor determined; militant, democratic forms of unionism are possible in the United States; and collective bargaining does not automatically eliminate contests for workplace control. The contract is a bargain that reflects and reproduces fundamental disagreement; it states how production and conflict will proceed.