ISBN13: | 9780252088537 |
ISBN10: | 02520885311 |
Binding: | Paperback |
No. of pages: | 336 pages |
Size: | 235x156 mm |
Weight: | 454 g |
Language: | English |
Illustrations: | 18 black & white photographs |
700 |
We Always Had a Union
GBP 21.99
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From the start, New York’s organized hotel workers experimented with and adapted how they organized and governed members and related to other labor unions. Richman follows union fortunes from early IWW activity through the Communist-led affiliates of the American Federation of Labor in the 1920s and 1930s, the shaping of breakthrough negotiating strategies, and the postwar era. As Richman shows, workers adopted a radicalism and militancy seldom associated with an AFL organization while openly negotiating the Communist Party’s power and influence within the union, until the Party’s eclipse in the 1950s.
An inspiring story of action and perseverance, We Always Had a Union profiles a foundational American labor union and offers lessons for today’s workers and organizers.
?Richman has provided the definitive study of the New York hotel workers? unions. This brilliantly researched study deserves attention from any labor historian or student of the Left. Richman brings long-forgotten unions back to our attention and demonstrates why we must know this history today.?--Erik Loomis, author of A History of America in Ten Strikes
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
- The Unsafest Proposition in the World, 1912–1913
- Bolsheviki Methods, 1913–1918
- Practical Trade Union Tactics, 1919–1924
- Strange as It May Seem, 1925–1929
- Political Sentimental Giddiness, 1929–1934
- An Industry Has Been Freed, 1934–1938
- Status Quo, 1938–1939
- Only the Question of Final Alliances Remains, 1939–1941
- We Cook, Serve, Work for Victory, 1941–1945
- In Normal Order, 1945–1947
- The Crack, 1947–1950
- Trusteeship, 1950–1953
Afterword
Notes
Sources
Index