Labor Pains : Stories from Inside America's New Union Movement

by Erem, Suzan

• ISBN13: 9781583670583
• ISBN10: 1583670580
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-10-01
• Publisher: Monthly Review Pr

Summary

Labor Pains is an insider's account of the struggle to rebuild a vibrant and powerful trade union movement in the United States. It takes as its starting point the daily experience of a union organizer, and brings that experience to life. It enables us to grasp how the conflicting demands of race, class, and gender are lived in the new union movement.The role of the unions is defined mainly by larger economic and political agendas. While keeping these agendas clearly in sight, Erem focuses primarily on aspects of the life of the union which often remain hidden. The personal crises of union members become entangled in the work of the union. The energies of the union are focused not only on winning gains from bosses but also on maintaining internal cohesion and morale among workers. Barriers of race, age and gender are constantly negotiated and overcome, and conflicts flare up across them at moments of tension. And union life goes on not only when the workers have made their point, or won a victory, but after defeat as well. The personalities and ambitions of union organizers converge at times and become a source of tension at others. Each individual within the larger collective has their own task of finding a viable balance between public and private selves.These intersecting lines of force are imaginatively recreated in this book. Erem writes as a woman in a union movement which is dominated by men; as the child of immigrants in a movement whose members are increasingly immigrants themselves; as one who finds herself in the racial no man's land between black and white. While never underestimating the obstacles in the way of the union movement, she makes a powerful and passionate case for organizing the disorganized and empowering the powerless.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(6)
Prologue	7	(4)
Centrifugal Force	11	(2)
Make Way For a New Day	13	(5)
Spinning into the Job	18	(1)
No Reds in the Rainbow	19	(5)
Lois Anne's Labor Movement	24	(8)
The Stage Is Set	32	(2)
Union Staffer: A Job Description	34	(5)
Even the Dead	39	(4)
The Evolution of a President	43	(3)
Child's Play in the Toy Store	46	(6)
The Day I Got Freedom	52	(5)
Organizing: When It Works	57	(13)
A Toast to the Winners	70	(7)
Going in Unarmed	77	(7)
A White ``N'' and Other Slander	84	(14)
Barbie in Work Boots	98	(6)
Hanging Them Out to Dry	104	(1)
Enter a Health Care Giant	105	(6)
Futility	111	(50)
Another Night Alone	113	(2)
Still Can't Win for Losing	115	(7)
The Revival of the Boycott	122	(4)
The Mysterious Death of Josef	126	(7)
When Bullets Fly	133	(8)
The President Creates His Generals	141	(2)
The Violence Inside	143	(4)
Bad Boys	147	(5)
The Smell of Scotch	152	(3)
Playing the Race Card	155	(3)
Finding My Lines	158	(3)
Hope	161	(52)
Striking a Hospital	163	(9)
The Union Begins to Crumble	172	(4)
As United as We Get	176	(3)
A Home for the Holidays	179	(4)
Frogs in a Beaker	183	(3)
The Reverend Returns	186	(7)
Our Doors	193	(9)
From the Beginning	202	(4)
Going East?	206	(1)
The Struggle Continues	207	(6)
Epilogue	213