Strike!: Revised and Updated Edition

Jeremy Brecher's "Strike!" is a history of the mass strike. Starting with the "Great Upheaval" general strike of 1877, it moves quickly through other mass actions of labor history, ending with the labor upheaval of the Vietnam era, with a piece on the significance of the mass strike at the end, as well as a long afterword by the author on changing labor tactics in an increasingly globalised world. Getting this book more or less on a whim, I didn't know what to expect. It turns out that this is a pretty good overview of the history of US labor, or at least one important aspect of it. I'd read a bit about labor struggle in the United States before, but it still doesn't fail to amaze when one reads about the scope of some of these struggles: from mini-wars of the mining industry in the early 20th century and the Great Upheaval strike to the pitched street battles in the San Francisco longshoreman's strike and the Minneapolis general strike, one gets the feeling that strikes were serious, serious business. Some times labor would win the day; more often it seems that the immediate interests of state and its "counselors" (in the words of Adam Smith), the employers. Many times, as the author states in the introduction, workers had to fight their own unions almost as much as they had to battle their employers, sometimes having to organize their own actions organically. Reading about the Seattle General Strike gives one a good sense of just how impressive some of these spontaneous organizations could be, with strikers essentially supplying goods and services for an entire city. Again and again it is affirmed in the book that more often than not, workers took it upon themselves to institute changes, independent of those who wished to control them, and although elements of the socialist movement (Communists, Trotskyists, anarchists, etc.) of the time influenced certain segments, and are briefly mentioned in the book, more often than not said elements were just as suprised as the employers and the unions at some of the actions contained in this writing. The biggest flaw with the book is probably the fact that Brecher doesn't really address a lot of the social undercurrents involved in the strikes he covers (although, that would probably take up another book in and of itself, at the very least.) And, as one reviewer stated earlier, he doesn't mention mass strikes elsewhere that were influencial (such as the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, the same year as the Seattle General Strike). On the good side, as I've said before, if you're looking for a fairly good overview of mass strikes, you could do a lot worse. The afterward is particularly interesting. Brecher mentions that not only has the mass strike of old become increasingly impractical in the wake of globalisation and the changing nature of business, but that (in the United States, anyway) "irresponsible" actions by workers are prohibited by legislation such as Taft-Hartley and the Wagner Act. Being th

"The United States, while founded in revolution and proclaiming itself based on the consent of the governed, reveals under its democratic veneer an ambiguous reality....the emergence in the nineteenth century of a class system whose main actors are workers and corporate capitalists and the persistence of that system through the twentieth century violate the cherished tenets of the American myth. Instead of a society based on freedom and consent, we find a small, circumscribed realm of protected liberties, surrounded by vast--and now increasingly global--hierarchical institutions based on command and backed by force." (pp. 273-4) Using the phenomenon of the mass strike as his focus, Brecher examines this "ambiguous reality" of circumscribed liberties, of command and force, and the way that it has played out in the lives of America's working people. From the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution, when previously independent farmers and craftspeople suddenly found themselves poor wage earners in someone else's factory to the successful Teamster strike against UPS in the late 1990s, the stories that Brecher relates demonstrate the power and integrity that working people have demonstrated repeatedly in their attempts to realize democracy in the workplace. This book demonstrates that, far from being protectors of our liberty, as patriotic platitudes would have us believe, the police and military far too often have been used by the state to defend the economic interests of the few against the needs of the many. It also puts the lie to other cherished myths, such as the notion that working people don't have the capacity for self-management or that labor unions are unambiguously pro-worker and anti-employer. Most importantly, though, through its detailed and energetic accounts of spontaneous insurrections on the part of working people, this book restores a lost history and dignity to the American worker, which is essential for the labor struggles that will be an inevitable part of global capitalism's future. As Bob Marley noted, "if you knew your history, then you would know where you're coming from." In short, this book provides an engaging and highly readable introduction to one aspect of the "lost" history of American labor and whets the appetite for more.

Strike! is a classic book of American labor history. It's definitely worth reading if you want to understand some of the more amazing points when labor negotiations have broken down and workers walked out. Strike, is not a history of the American labor movements. Neither is it a history of strikes, despite the claim of other reviewers. It's an examination of the mass strike. That is when the normal course of labor struggles reach a boiling point. Mass strikes are when a strike starts in a specific shop but spreads horizontally across an industry or even the whole nation. Brecher profiles the few but real times in which a spreading strike presented the possibility of more radical and systemic change. He talks about how at these times of mass strike, the ideas and possibility for real radical change takes hold among previously apolitical rank and file workers. When this happens, often the state, unions, and business conspire together to put a stop to these growing strikes. This is very similar to what happened in with the 'communist' union bosses in France in May 68. As soon as the option of radical change where the bosses of industry and unions could be thrown out, the unions take up their roll as labor regulators. Unfortunately Brecher does not look in to the dynamics of why this happens. Nor does he consider the roll of the IWW, the one American labor federation which worked to create mass strikes. He also does not address the issue of ideology the unions or social movements during the times of mass strike. He rightly, claims that most workers who spread mass strikes are not working from an ideological perspective, but he doesn't look in to the roll in which ideology plays. Often mass strikes take hold in times of general political upheaval, understanding the relationship between mass strikes and other social change struggles seems to me to be an essential and missed point in the book.The other amazing aspect of the book is that it chronicles how labor demands have becoming increasingly less radical over time. During the first mass strikes in the 1880's workers were demanding fundamental autonomy and the dismantling the very system of corporations and trusts. By the last mass strikes in the US during 1960's workers were demanding better wages, conditions, and self management. The concept that the system of exploitation could be dismantled and we could return to a world of small artisans had disappeared.Strike's other fault is that it only looks at American labor history. There were major activities and ideas in other countries which had a direct influence on American labor. Brecher doesn't deal with the roll of immigration and the ideas and practices immigration brings to the labor movement. In the last chapter of this updated edition he talks about the very successful UPS strike. While it is a good story and I think it's important he updated the book, the UPS strike was not a mass strike. We haven't had any mass strikes of the kind Brecher prof

Jeremy Brecher's "Strike!" takes on one narrow subject and does it in a very interesting if limited way. It's simply a history of strikes, no more no less. That history is a fascinating and often shocking one -- few of us in this country know about the huge strikes and violent repression that occurred in the late 19th century and early 20th, and we should. This book catalogues a lot of that history and memorably illustrates the growth of labor consciousness and state opposition. However, it only occasionally gives much context in terms of legal background, the rising and falling strength of the labor movement and the changes in industry. So it's actually a book full of examples from which you'll have to draw your own conclusions, not a comprehensive history. But it's a hard-hitting introduction to labor history and an enticement to read more. Very worthwhile.

A classic ploy of employers who want to keep unions out of their companies is to paint the unions as outsiders, a bunch of rabble rousing radiclas who will disrupt what was once industrial harmony. This theme has lasted through the years, from last century, when all socialists where decried as immmagrants, to modern union busting campaigns.There is certainly a short term, self-serving aspect to this image, but there is also a larger social claim: american workers are basically satisfied. America is the land of opportunity and no regular Joe worker would question this fact if outsiders didn't come in and cause trouble. Jeremy Brecher's classic book, Strike!, runs gaping holes through this image. He details several of the countless times in American history that workers have spontainiously risen to fight for better jobs, better lives and a better world. Further, he shows that labor leaders, whether conservative or radical (socialist, communist etc) have have historically acted to hold the militancy of the workers at bay and channel them into the compromise of collective bargaining. A system which the labor leaders control and profit from.An important book for anyone interested in unions, labor, or the history of the American working class.