An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism (Haymarket) [Paperback]

Kim Moody (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0860919293 | ISBN-13: 978-0860919292

Over the past decade American labor has faced a tidal wave of wage cuts, plant closures and broken strikes. In this first comprehensive history of the labor movement from Truman to Reagan, Kim Moody shows how the AFL-CIO's conservative ideology of 'business unionism' effectively disarmed unions in face of a domestic right turn and an epochal shift to globalized production. Eschewing alliances with new social forces in favour of its old Cold War liaisons and illusory compacts with big business, the AFL-CIO under George Meany and Lane Kirkland has been forced to surrender many of its postwar gains. With extraordinary attention to the viewpoints of rank-and-file workers, Moody chronicles the major, but largely unreported, efforts of labor's grassroots to find its way out of the crisis. In case-studies of auto, steel, meatpacking and trucking, he traces the rise of 'anti-concession' movements and in other case-studies describes the formidable obstacles to the 'organization of the unorganized' in the service sector. A detailed analysis of the Rainbow Coalition's potential to unite labor with other progressive groups follows together with a pathbreaking consideration of the possibilities of a new 'labor internationalism'.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kim Moody, on the staff of the Detroit-based Labor Notes, is one of the most respected labor journalists in North America. He works closely with the rank-and-file anti-concession movement, and has been on the scene of most of the current labor struggles he describes.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Verso (February 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0860919293
• ISBN-13: 978-0860919292
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,795,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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