Customer Reviews

Rebuilding Labor: Organizing and Organizers in the New Union Movement

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This book is a good reference tool for the novice Union Organizer. I recommend it highly. It goes over alot of stuff you already know, but it is good to be reminded of such!

I'm happy to see that Amazon will allow you to view the table of contents. This book is a series of academic 'papers' so read the table of contents to see the different topics covered re: organizing labor. This book deals mainly with External Organizing ('organizing the unorganized'). It's informative for the novice organizer but seems to have been written for the established union dealing with organizing rather than for the new organizer herself. The introduction and first four papers (the strategy of organizing rather than maintaining and servicing the contract, the dynamics of union staff vs. member participation, and the two chapters about why and how people resist organization) are helpful to both the new or working organizer and the higher level union staff deciding how to use organizers. The last five papers (how to retain organizing staff, how to best utilize interns, trends in upper level union management, and developing political strategies) seem aimed only at the upper levels of union staff. The different papers have different authors, so some articles are very mathematical and chart-heavy, while others are not. The SEIU and California labor campaigns in particular receive a lot of attention in terms of the 'case studies' and illustrative examples, but the authors move out to broader points applicable to any union. Considering this is a textbook, it flows along pretty well. It is not overly difficult to read, and not overly dry. The individual articles are clearly focused on a single topic each and written in a simple, straightforward manner.

This book examines how the structure of the labour movement and the behavior of organizers and workers impacts union election outcomes.

While comprised mainly of academic papers - the material is accessible and immediately actionable by union organizers and leaders.

I've purchased many copies of this book because every union organizer I have loaned it to likes it so much that they never give it back to me.

Jason Mann, Author: Promoting Your Union: Six strategies to get more organizing leads and union members