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Poor Workers' Unions | Praise
"Finally, the book we've all been waiting for! With gripping tales of
grassroots experiments in social justice unionism from the 1960s to the present,
Vanessa Tait cracks wide open our concept of what a labor movement looks like,
and shows how it can be part and parcel of movements for racial and gender justice.
In the process, she does a stunning job of helping us imagine workers' movements
that are creative, democratic, and, above all, build power from below-pointing
the way to a vibrant future for labor."
—Dana Frank, UC-Santa Cruz; author of Buy
American: The Untold Story of Economic Nationalism
"At a time when the U.S. labor movement is engaging in an unprecedented
public debate over the course of its future—over what course will best assure
that it has a future—one of the luckiest breaks we could hope for would be for
an informed and talented labor communicator to publish a book that not only
advocates a focus that has been missing from the discussion, but also lays out
the evidence of the past four decades for why this focus is critical to our
success. Poor Workers’ Unions does
all that. This is the most important contribution yet to the current debate
over the smartest direction for the labor movement’s future."
—David Swanson, Media Coordinator for the International
Labor Communications Association, formerly Communications Coordinator for ACORN
"Poor Workers’ Unions makes a
critical contribution to the current debate about union restructuring and reform.
While some labor strategists are arguing for mergers and consolidations that
would leave workers with even less of a voice in their own unions, Vanessa Tait
emphasizes the importance of building workplace power through grassroots organization
and rank-and-file control. This book reminds us that participatory democracy—a
concept that animated progressive activism in the 1960s—should not be abandoned
in today’s labor movement."
—Steve Early, Administrative Assistant to the
Vice-President of Communications Workers of America, District 1
"Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic won’t revive the labor movement.
Poor Workers’ Unions examines some
of the most exciting and impressive attempts to develop new forms to incorporate
workers whom unions have largely neglected. Vanessa Tait makes a valuable contribution
to the new impulse by showing us the struggles already underway."
—Dan Clawson, Author of The
Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements
"Poor Workers’ Unions is an important
and inspiring book about how workers of color and women workers are taking the
lead in building democratic, grassroots labor and community movements even in
today’s hostile political climate."
—Karen Brodkin Sacks, Professor of women’s
studies and anthropology, UCLA
"History has shown that periods of insurgence in the labor movement have
been driven by workers who were formerly marginalized by the existing labor
movement and that these workers have organized themselves and built institutions
which differ markedly from existing unions. Tait’s Poor
Workers’ Unions documents the contemporary recurrence of this historical
pattern. The picture to which she gives us access offers hope to those of us
who continue to anticipate a turnaround in the fortunes of the U.S. labor movement."
—Peter Rachleff, Author of Hard-Pressed
in the Heartland: The Hormel Strike and the Future of the Labor Movement
"Vanessa Tait’s insightful documentation of poor people’s organizing and
the labor movement over the last fifty years reminds us of this important history.
Poor Workers’ Unions is evidence that
activism is not dead but has been rejuvenated under a broader justice agenda
that addresses women and men’s everyday lives."
—Mary Romero, Author of Maid
in the U.S.A.
"Vanessa Tait has made a critical contribution to broadening our understanding
of who and what is the labor movement in the USA. With detail, analysis, and
a compelling writing style, Tait captures the dynamism of alternative forms
of working-class organization that have long been ignored. In formulating a
new direction for organized labor in the USA, the history Tait addresses must
become a recognized part of our foundation."
—Bill Fletcher, Jr., President, TransAfrica
Forum and former Assistant to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
"While the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions desperately try to figure
out how to rebuild and energize the labor movement, Vanessa Tait reveals in
this exceptional book that poor workers have been showing the way for the past
forty years. Tait examines and analyzes in meticulous detail a wide range of
movements organized by poor workers to improve their circumstances and build
a more just society. She demonstrates that these movements were founded and
developed upon principles of rank-and-file control, democracy, community involvement,
and solidarity and aimed to improve all aspects of workers’ lives. These are
precisely the principles and aims upon which a new labor movement must be based
but which the official labor movement has been slow to embrace. Both labor activists
and labor historians will learn much from this book."
—Michael Yates, Author of Why
Unions Matter, Naming
the System, and Power
on the Job
"Tait persuasively demonstrates that organized labor quickly strayed from its grassroots rank and file beginnings, becoming instead a conservative, class-based bureaucracy bent on the status quo and dismissive not only on poor workers but also of the real needs of workers everywhere—needs that stretch far beyond wages and benefits to encompass such social justice issues as welfare, childcare, housing, and immigrant rights as well as race and gender both in the workplace and community."
—Altar Magazine
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