Customer Reviews

Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When It's Flat on Its Back (Plume)

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You know how some people say, "I don't believe in religion, but I believe in God"? Thomas Geoghegan doesn't necessarily believe in labor unions, but he believes in labor. Or maybe: he doesn't believe ultimate salvation is to be found in unions, but that there's no alternative to them for now, and that without them we're ... well, we're in the state we're in today, where workers are powerless and can be left unemployed and uninsured at any moment. A world without unions is a world where we're scared.

This is just not the world we ought to be living in. There is a better way and a better world, of course. We know that we can't get to this world on our own. On our own, we are isolated from the rest of those who are suffering. We are powerless so long as we are isolated.

It's virtually an axiom, then, that some form of collective resistance to limitlessly powerful corporations is necessary. We simply cannot do it on our own. It does not follow, however, that labor unions are the ideal form of that resistance. It also doesn't follow that government is the ideal form. But in their highly imperfect way, says Thomas Geoghegan, labor unions are far better than a world without them. He backs this up with story upon story about corporations absolutely crushing workers in the absence of any labor-union resistance.

Geoghegan himself is a labor lawyer who's been fighting the fight alongside labor unions for a quarter century or more. He's also often worked against them: he's sued the Teamsters repeatedly, in essence fighting for more union democracy. He's trying to get the unions that the employees deserve.

He's not had much luck fighting against them. For a short time, Geoghegan's heart leapt for joy when Ron Carey was at the Teamsters' helm, but the Carey era ended quickly enough and James P. Hoffa (son of Jimmy Hoffa) took over.

As for fighting alongside them, that hasn't worked very well either. Unions are down to 10% or so of the working population. Not coincidentally (as any reader of Paul Krugman knows well), the Democratic party is in a shambles and has been for at least thirty years. The Democrats need the unions.

What makes this book so agonizing is Geoghegan's insistence that a few little changes would bring democracy to the unions, unions to the workers, and the Democratic party to power. One such change is a card-check system like the one Canada uses. Consequently, Canadian union membership has been consistently in the 30% range for at least a decade. When we dream of the better world that Canadians seem to inhabit, it's well to consider how they got there.

The fact that just over the border is a country not much different than ours, but whose policies could hardly be more different, gives the lie to the notion that unions have disappeared in the U.S. because of changing workplaces. Yes, we're now a service economy rather than an industrial economy. But so is Canada. Geoghegan dispenses with any number of commonplaces like this one.

In general, he spends the most time dismantling the idea that unions' disappearance is in some sense "natural." It's not. It has a lot to do with Republicans and with conservative courts. It has to do with Taft-Hartley. It has to do with one law after another that smashed unions into the ground. There was nothing natural about it.

This book doesn't give much in the way of solutions, but I'm not even sure that's its point. Merely getting people -- especially Democrats -- to recognize a problem is plenty. Getting them to recognize a human-created problem is better still. Along the way, Geoghegan is impossibly funny, chatty, and self-deprecating. While I can't quite call this book a "joy" -- it's too maddening for that -- I do submit that it's indispensible and should be on every American's bookshelf.

I first read this book about 10 years ago, and I was struck by both the author's despair, and the amount of work that needs to be done. He does a great job of convincing the reader that unions are relevant. He also made me see that they should be saved, from themselves, and from the incredibly restrictive U.S. labour laws.

I recently picked this up again. Both a great sketch of labor history and especially labor in the 80's, and also a kind of coming of age story of a man struggling with his idealism. For all that, it's absolutely fun to read - the tone is sharp and fast, and the author never takes himself too seriously. Reminds me of another favorite on a different topic, Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner.

Far and away the best book I've ever read on the labor movement, *highly* recommended. It's short, and beautifully written, combining:

1/ the author's 1960s coming-of-age story: his '60s romance was the labor movement rather than civil rights or antiwar; he went on to Harvard law school to do (and still does) labor law;

2/ a basic primer of US labor history, of which Americans (me included) are woefully (and not accidentally!) ignorant; and

3/ a gritty report from the trenches on how badly working people have been getting shafted in our lifetimes. (Surprise: a key villain is the allegedly "liberal" Warren Court.)

A must-read, both for the news it brings and for the power and effect of its writing.

If you are a long suffering fan of labor, this book's for you. Really well written and engaging account from a lawyer on the front lines of the labor movement.

I just finished this book and really enjoyed it. I am a law student who is very interested in labor law and this book provided me with a good overview of labor history and a realistic perspective on the fight that labor faces going forward. It also does all of that in an entertaining way. The author is very honest, which of course is necessary if a book is going to hold anyone's attention. The book is not a "rah rah labor" book. The author is not shy about showing how labor is sometimes its own worst enemy and the outlook isn't exactly bright. But, like MLK said, the truth shall set you free and anything worth having is worth fighting for. Read this book and get the scoop on labor in America.

As other reviewers have noted, this is easily the most comprehensive and insightful contemporary book on the state of organized labor in the US. Geoghegan is a master of prose and a brilliant story teller, guiding the reader through both complex legal thought and ever more complex labor relations analysis. As an aspiring labor attorney myself, I feel that the book was a necessary, albeit incredibly depressing, read. I recommend it to anyone who is wondering why, in a country with such a vast amount of wealth and resources, there is 10% unemployment and a fifth of the population on food stamps.

This is an outstanding book, full of heart and voice. I've begun using it in my Business Reporting class at Boston University.

This is an excellent book about labor unions which sides with labor from a fresh perspective. Pro free trade, the author is not just peddling the same old protectionist line. From the first line of the book, you realize this author knows what he's talking about and speaks for no one but himself. Also a good book for anyone interested in the fortunes of the Democratic party.

How can you be "for labor" these days?

Some realities:

1. Union membership as a percentage of the workforce continues its four-decade decline.
2. The public reputation of unions has never recovered from the corruption scandals of the 1950s.
3. Michael Moore has done everything he can to revitalize unions, to no avail. He won a Golden Globe; if HE can't do it...
4. The very recent splintering of the AFL-CIO could be the beginning of the end.
5. We've become too isolated and self-centered as a society for this stuff to work here in the foreseeable future.

That said, T.G. personifies the idealistic young lawyer who really wants to help. I was that person once, too. I perceived union leaders as thuggish, power-centric, retrograde, defensive and whatever the exact opposite of visionary is. Leadership makes or breaks human endeavor; I interpreted this to mean that unions were hopeless.

PS - I would like to know whether this book trades on E-Bay; the irony would be irresistable.