The U.S. labor movement is a sham! Does anyone need any more proof. Union big wigs work hand in hand with corporate big wigs. They provide a docile work force which can be easily manipulated, intimidated and exploited. If anyone reads any more and if you can find it, this is a good book which digs into the cozy relationship between big business and big union : Taking Care of Busines. http://www.amazon.co...k/dp/B008A5XNHY
" Publisher Comments:
In this original, colorful history of "business unionism," Paul Buhle explains how trade union leaders in the United States became remote from the workers they claimed to represent as they allied with the very corporate executives and government officials who persistently opposed labor's interests.
At the center of the tale are three of the most powerful labor leaders of the past century: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, and Lane Kirkland, successive presidents of the American Federation of Labor and its descendent, the AFL-CIO. Many other labor leaders, from John L. Lewis to Walter Reuther, receive in-depth treatment.
Taking Care of Business demonstrates how a union hierarchy heavily populated by former radicals thwarted women and people of color from joining unions, suppressed shop floor militance, and colluded with business and government at home and abroad. Buhle shows how these leaders defeated generations of radical union members who sought a more democratic, class-based approach for the movement."
About the author of this book;
Paul Buhle was born in Champaign, Illinois, on September 27, 1944. His mother was a
nurse with the maiden name of Pearle Drake. His father, Merlyn Buhle, was a geologist. On December 30, 1963, Paul Buhle married a woman who later earned a doctorate in history and co-authored several works with Buhle.
Buhle graduated from the
University of Illinois in 1966, where he had been a spokesperson for the chapter of
Students for a Democratic Society's antiwar activities. He received a Master's degree from the
University of Connecticut (in 1967) and a Ph.D. from the
University of Wisconsin–Madison (in 1975). He had been active in the civil rights movement in SDS, and a member for some months of the
Socialist Labor Party.[sup]
[/sup]In 2006-07, he was one of the founding figures of the new
Students for a Democratic Society, and more recently a leader of the Movement for a Democratic Society.
Buhle was founding editor of the journal
Radical America (1967–1999), an unofficial organ of Students for a Democratic Society,[sup]
[3][/sup] founder of
Cultural Correspondence (1977–83), a journal of popular culture studies, and founder and director of the Oral History of the American Left archive at
New York University in 1976. In Rhode Island, he co-founded the Rhode Island Labor History Society, was active in labor history and labor support activities and produced several popular histories of the state's labor movement. He also produced
Vanishing Rhode Island, a pictorial history and plea for preservation; and with his students,
Underground Rhode Island.' He has contributed frequently to the journals and newspapers The Nation
, The Village Voice
, Monthly Review
, Jewish Currents
, The Chronicle of Higher Education
and The San Francisco Chronicle
.
Buhle is the co-author of four books on the history of the
Hollywood Blacklist and the editor of a series of graphic non-fiction works by American comics artists and writers, among them
Harvey Pekar, Sabrina Jones and Sharon Rudahl.
