Class Acts: An Anthropology of Urban Workers and Their Union

by Durrenberger,E. Paul

• ISBN13: 9781594510830
• ISBN10: 1594510830
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2005-03-16
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

U.S. labor leaders are constantly developing new programs to revive the union movement. What happens when these plans collide with the daily lives of front-line union staff and members? This book examines the often conflicting interests of key players in the trenches of a national effort to bring back the U.S. labor movement. Brutally honest, funny, and never dull, this anthropological ethnography shows the daily struggles of union members today to bring about positive change and hold together their urban labor union in an era of globalization, outsourcing, and deindustrialization. The authors, a union activist and an anthropologist respectively, pair up to offer insider views of labor unions andof how anthropological fieldwork is done. Explaining, coaching, and warning Paul of hazards, Suzan, the communications director for the local union, provides inside views and details of day-to-day interactions. Paul, the anthropologist, provides outside analytical views that relate Suzan's experiences and his own observations to the wider view anthropology offers through the lenses of ethnography, holism, and comparativism. The result is a story of one dynamic union local, one anthropological study, and the lit fuse that connects them until the end.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Preface	xiii
Introduction	1	(8)
Part I: The Science: What We Learned
1 Taking It on the Road	9	(16)
2 What a Union Looks Like	25	(12)
3 Being a Union Rep	37	(10)
4 The Anthropology of It	47	(14)
5 Disasters	61	(10)
6 Ritual—Here, There, and Everywhere	71	(8)
7 Getting a Raise	79	(8)
8 The Boss over a Barrel—The Workers' Boycott	87	(14)
9 That'll Teach You—Cognition and Practice	101	(12)
10 What Does Change People's Minds?	113	(14)
Part II: The Stories: What We Went through to Learn It
11 Sifting through the Remains	127	(4)
12 Translating Anthropology—The Proposal	131	(6)
13 Riding with Tiny	137	(4)
14 A Day in the Life—Hurry Up and Wait	141	(8)
15 We Smell a Rat	149	(4)
16 The Study Explodes	153	(6)
17 Report to the Local	159	(6)
18 The Aftermath	165	(4)
19 An Old Song	169	(16)
Epilogue: What Class Struggle?	185	(6)
Appendix: Report to the Executive Board	191	(10)
References	201	(10)
Index	211