The Death and Life of American Labor: Toward a New Workers’ Movement
In the ’50s and ’60s, he directed organizing with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers. In 1963, he coordinated the labor participation for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Ten years later, the publication of his book False Promises: The Shaping of American Working Class Consciousness was a landmark in the study of the US working-class and workers’ movements.
Aronowitz draws on this long personal history, reflecting on his continuing involvement in labor organizing, with groups such as the Professional Staff Congress of the City University. He brings a historian’s understanding of American workers’ struggles in taking the long view of the labor movement. Then, in a survey of current initiatives, strikes, organizations, and allies, Aronowitz analyzes the possibilities of labor’s rebirth, and sets out a program for a new, broad, radical workers’ movement.
Reviews
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“Stanley Aronowitz is the most important scholar on the past and present US working class.”
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“Nothing less than a brilliantly argued demand for the labor movement to shed its ill-conceived twentieth-century ‘partnership’ garb with Capital and the Democratic Party and reinvent itself in the twenty-first century … Where others see an inevitable demise, Aronowitz finds hope for a rebirth that includes collective bargaining but goes well beyond it.”
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“Four decades after False Promises, his classic study of class consciousness, Stanley Aronowitz stirringly returns to questions of work, power, and inequality in this exciting study. Steeped in historical knowledge, theoretical insight, and movement experience, The Death and Life of American Labor sustains a remarkable combination of sober reflection and grounded hope for a new workers’ movement, one without unions always at its center. It shows how the exhaustion of liberalism and the perils of climate change, temporary work, and new technologies both necessitate and foster fresh approaches.”
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“For over a generation, Stanley Aronowitz has been one of the left’s most prolific, passionate and provocative academic-writer-activists. His special focus has been on the long-running crisis in the trade union movement. Writing for both an academic and lay readership, this latest work addresses concretely the question of union renewal and once again offers his trademark combination of trenchant historical overview, accessible analysis, and application of the radical imagination.”
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“Aronowitz calls for a revival of a radical vision….[The Death and Life of American Labor] should be read by all those who worry about labor’s future.”
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50% off for May Day!
May 1st marks International Workers' Day, a festival of working-class self-organization stretching back over 130 years. It was originally inaugurated to commemorate the Haymarket Massacre of 1886 in Chicago, where a bomb thrown during a worker's strike kicked off a period of anti-labor hysteria.
May Day 2015 in London saw a rally of trade unions, migrant workers & London’s many communities and other organisations finishing in Trafalgar Square. 2016 demos include speakers such as Yannis Gourtsoyhannia (from the Junior Doctor’s dispute), Christine Blower (the General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, to talk about the government’s attacks on education), Frances O'Grady (TUC General Secretary), Jeremy Corbyn, and John McDonnell. See the full details here!
In New York there's a rally and march in Union Square on Sunday starting at noon, in Los Angeles there's a May Day March and Bernie Sanders rally on Saturday starting at 3pm, and in Oakland there's a rally at the Fruitvale Bart starting at noon. See an incomplete list of May Day activities here.
This May Day we bring you the following reading list, AND we're doing a FLASH SALE with 50% off all of them! Don't forget - we have free worldwide shipping and free bundled ebooks where available! -
US politics books are 50% off in celebration of Bernie's epic win in New Hampshire!
Bernie Sanders led Hillary Clinton by a 22-point lead in the New Hampshire primaries, the second biggest democratic New Hampshire primary win in history!And a recent Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll showed that 43 percent of Iowa Democratic caucus goers described themselves as “socialist” while only 38 percent described themselves as “capitalist.”
Bernie Sanders has tapped in to a growing popular movement that demands economic justice for all. Embrace the resurgence of socialist ideas by picking up some new and recently published books on socialist history and American politics.
All of the books on our US Politics Reading List
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A reading list on International Worker's Day
May 1st marks International Workers' Day, a festival of working-class self-organization stretching back over 130 years. It was originally inaugurated to commemorate the Haymarket Massacre of 1886 in Chicago, where a bomb thrown during a worker's strike kicked off a period of anti-labor hysteria.
In 1890, the first internationally coordinated demonstration for an 8-hour day was held, in commemoration of those killed in the massacre. Eight anarchists were executed on trumped-up charges after the event. We present the following reading list:
Other books of interest
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US Labor in Trouble and Transition
by Kim Moody -
Rebel Rank and File
Edited by Aaron Brenner, Robert Brenner, et al. -
It Started in Wisconsin
Edited by Paul Buhle and Mari Jo Buhle
