Raising expectations (and raising hell): my decade fighting for the labor movement

"In 1995, in the first contested election in the history of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney won the presidency of the nation’s largest labor federation, promising renewal and resurgence. Today, less than 7 percent of American private-sector workers belong to a union, the lowest percentage since the b...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: McAlevey, Jane
Institution:ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
Format: TEXT
Language:English
Published: London 2014
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Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19119280124919374629-Raising-expectations-(and-rais.htm
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author McAlevey, Jane
author_facet McAlevey, Jane
collection Library items
description "In 1995, in the first contested election in the history of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney won the presidency of the nation’s largest labor federation, promising renewal and resurgence. Today, less than 7 percent of American private-sector workers belong to a union, the lowest percentage since the beginning of the twentieth century, and public employee collective bargaining has been dealt devastating blows in Wisconsin and elsewhere. What happened? Jane McAlevey is famous—and notorious—in the American labor movement as the hard-charging organizer who racked up a string of victories at a time when union leaders said winning wasn’t possible. Then she was bounced from the movement, a victim of the high-level internecine warfare that has torn apart organized labor. In this engrossing and funny narrative—that reflects the personality of its charismatic, wisecracking author—McAlevey tells the story of a number of dramatic organizing and contract victories, and the unconventional strategies that helped achieve them. Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell) argues that labor can be revived, but only if the movement acknowledges its mistakes and fully commits to deep organizing, participatory education, militancy, and an approach to workers and their communities that more resembles the campaigns of the 1930s—in short, social movement unionism that involves raising workers’ expectations (while raising hell)."
format TEXT
geographic USA
id 19119280124919374629_ad5e3687a61346199d56b8518f7587d6
institution ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
is_hierarchy_id 19119280124919374629_ad5e3687a61346199d56b8518f7587d6
is_hierarchy_title Raising expectations (and raising hell): my decade fighting for the labor movement
language English
physical VI, 329 p.
Paper
publishDate 2014
publisher London
Verso
spellingShingle McAlevey, Jane
history
labour movement
trade unionism
trade union power
Raising expectations (and raising hell): my decade fighting for the labor movement
thumbnail https://www.labourline.org/Image_prev.jpg?Archive=122808094008
title Raising expectations (and raising hell): my decade fighting for the labor movement
topic history
labour movement
trade unionism
trade union power
url https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19119280124919374629-Raising-expectations-(and-rais.htm