The Unfinished Struggle is one of the most concise, comprehensive, and accessible histories of the modern American labor movement ever written. Labor scholar and activist Steve Babson's dramatic narrative examines the numerous attempts to organize workers from the Great Uprising of 1877 to the 'sitdown' strikes of the 1930s to the present day. Babson illuminates the tumultuous past, evolving agenda, and continuing conflicts of the labor movement. He carefully identifies the causes of labor's decline in recent decades and explains union leaders' attempts to revive their organizations. Most important, Babson shows readers how the fortunes of organized labor are tied to larger trends in American history.
Steve Babson is a labor program specialist at the Labor Studies Center, Wayne State University. He is the author of Building the Union: Skilled Workers and Anglo-Gaelic Immigrants in the Rise of the UAW and Working Detroit: The Making of a Union Town, as well as the editor of Lean Work: Empowerment and Exploitation in the Global Auto Industry.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 The Great Uprising, 1877—1910 Chapter 2 Rise and Fall, 1910—1929 Chapter 3 Triumph and Containment, 1929—1941 Chapter 4 Growth and Accommodation, 1941—1965 Chapter 5 At the Crossroads