Why Unions Matter [Paperback]

Michael D. Yates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2009

In this new edition of Why Unions Matter, Michael D. Yates shows why unions still matter. Unions mean better pay, benefits, and working conditions for their members; they force employers to treat employees with dignity and respect; and at their best, they provide a way for workers to make society both more democratic and egalitarian. Yates uses simple language, clear data, and engaging examples to show why workers need unions, how unions are formed, how they operate, how collective bargaining works, the role of unions in politics, and what unions have done to bring workers together across the divides of race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. The new edition not onlyupdates the first, but also examines the record of the New Voice slate that took control of the AFL-CIO in 1995, the continuing decline in union membership and density, the Change to Win split in 2005, the growing importance of immigrant workers, the rise of worker centers, the impacts of and labor responses to globalization, and the need for labor to have an independent political voice. This is simply the best introduction to unions on the market.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Yates, an economics professor and labor educator whose earlier books focused on workers legal rights (Power on the Job, South End, 1994), here seeks to cover a much broader canvas: how labor unions work, the victories they have won on the battlefields of sexism and racism, and an argument for unions as the sole means by which working people can obtain dignity, equity, and power. Written in a personal, anecdotal style, yet well documented, this book is particularly successful in the chapters that focus on the nuts and bolts of union activities (collective bargaining, structures, organizing), an area largely ignored by current business and political literature. For this reason alone it is a valuable addition to large public and academic libraries.Donna L. Schulman, Cornell Univ. Libs., Ithaca, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

"A comprehensive, readable introduction to the history, structure, functioning, and yes, the problems of United States unions. For labor and political activists just coming on the scene or veterans looking for that missing overview, this is the best place to start."
-—Kim Moody,founder of Labor Notes, author of Workers in a Lean World and U.S. Labor in Trouble and Transition

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Monthly Review Press; 2 edition (May 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583671900
• ISBN-13: 978-1583671900
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,661 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Yates is a writer, editor, and labor educator. Among his books are Why Unions Matter (Monthly Review Press, 1998, second revised edition 2009), Longer Hours, Fewer Jobs (Monthly Review Press, 1994), Power on the Job (South End Press, 1994), Naming the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy (Monthly Review Press, 2002),More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States (Monthly Review Press, 2007), Cheap Motels and a Hotplate: an Economist's Travelogue (Monthly Review Press, 2007), and In and Out of the Working Class (Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2009). He has also published more than 200 articles and reviews in a wide variety of journals, magazines, blogs, websites, and newspapers. He is currently Associate Editor of Monthly Review magazine and Editorial Director of Monthly Review Press. He taught economics and labor relations at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown from 1969 until his retirement in 2001. He won the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1984. Since 1980, he has been a labor educator, teaching trade union members in a wide variety of formats, from one-day seminars to six-week courses to semester-long classes. He has taught union members through Penn State's Union Leadership program, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Labor Center, Indiana University, Cornell's Labor Centers in Manhattan and Albany, and through individual arrangements with unions, including SEIU (1199), UNITE, USWA, UFCW, and OCAW. Yates also worked in the research Office of the United Farm Workers Union and has served as a labor arbitrator with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mediation. He and his wife Karen Korenoski have been traveling the United States for the past eight years. These travels are recounted in his latest book Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate: an Economist's Travelogue.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Important Michael Yates Book, February 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Why Unions Matter (Paperback)

Over the past decade, economist Michael Yates has written a number of books for working people -- "Power on the Job," "The Labor Law Handbook," "Longer Hours, Fewer Jobs: Employment and Unemployment in the United States" and now "Why Unions Matter." Yates manages to write in a clear readable style and, at the same time, talk about complex matters. He is also one of the very few nonlawyers who has an understanding and grasp of the role of law. "Why Unions Matter" manages to provide a lot of information about union history, labor economics, and even how to organize a union and bargain a contract in a very concise book. While I might differ with Yates on some details, I think this book makes a valuable contribution. It and his other books should be on every unionist's bookshelf, and unionists should lobby their public libraries to carry Yates' books.

As a final note, it is a very rare thing for academics, such as Yates, to write for a popular audience. All the pressures in academia are to write for other academics. It takes imagination, caring and courage to do what Yates does, and he deserves our gratitude for it.

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars On Further Review, July 22, 2003

By 

J. Grattan "Ideas can move the world" (Lawrenceville, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Unions Matter (Paperback)

The author makes it abundantly clear that without the backing of a labor union, most workers stand little chance of countering unilateral and capricious employer actions. A collective bargaining agreement is a quasi-constitution that provides for due process for workers in many workplace situations. Otherwise, employees simply work "at the will" of employers with no recourse to challenge decisions.

The author explores the steps that generally need to be taken to form a union under the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Beyond those procedures, he repeatedly stresses the class and workplace solidarity needed to form an effective union. But the main American labor movement in its evolution has never developed a coherent stance on the class nature of capitalism. Bureaucratic, bread-and-butter, business unionism describes the American labor movement after WWII. It is an orientation that does not seek to transform the essential dominance of American capital over the American working class.

It is clear that the American labor movement has since the Civil War faced incredible opposition from both employers and the state, including the police, the armed forces, and the judiciary. In addition, the various media empires portray unions as un-American or criminal in nature. Nonetheless, the author is unhappy with the conservatism of the labor movement regardless of any practical reasons for that stance. He views the purge of left-wing elements from unions and the lack of union internal democracy as developments that greatly weaken the ability of unions to fully represent the working class.

The key structure of unions is the local union that is centered on one or more workplaces in a geographical area. Naturally their concerns are with local issues and generally not on broader working class concerns. The author wishes to see a far more aggressive labor presence in the political realm. Issues such as employment as a right, national health care, shorter work hours, greater equality in pay, and democratization of workplaces need to appear on the political agenda of organized labor. The author does not really address the issue of what would be the role for labor unions if the American working class actually became powerful enough to implement pro-worker legislation. For example, what would the role for unions be in worker-dominated firms?

Yes, unions do matter. No other organizations even remotely afford workers the voice and protection that unions do within workplaces. But there is wide variability in their effectiveness. Furthermore, it is rather obvious that the labor movement as presently conceived has been quite limited in its ability to counter the global forces of capitalism that have been playing havoc with the world's working classes. Basically, the author is not quite as pro-union as it might seem at first glance.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Place to Start, March 10, 2007

By 

John Green (Hayward CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Unions Matter (Paperback)

This is an excellent introduction to unions. The author covers the basic legal, economic and political aspects with a critical eye. This should be mandatory reading for union members and everyone else that wants to stand up to Corporate America.

Michael Yates' anecdotal stories of rank-and-file resistance to corporate greed and business unionism deserve to widely read in and of themselves.