What do you think?
Rate this book
The Working Class in American History
We Are All Leaders: The Alternative Unionism of the Early 1930s
Contains the Bryant Spann Memorial Prize in Literature for 1997, an award-winning essay, "The Very Last Hurrah" by Eric Leif Davin.
- GenresLaborHistoryNonfiction
360 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1996
About the author
Staughton Lynd
68 books42 followersThe son of renowned sociologists Robert Staughton Lynd and Helen Lynd, Staughton Lynd grew up in New York City. He earned a BA from Harvard, an MA and PhD in history from Columbia. He taught at Spelman College in Georgia (where he was acquainted with Howard Zinn) and Yale University. In 1964, Lynd served as director of Freedom Schools in the Mississippi Summer Project. An opponent of the Vietnam War, Lynd chaired the first march against the war in Washington DC in 1965 and, along with Tom Hayden and Herbert Aptheker, went on a controversial trip to Hanoi in December 1965 that cost him his position at Yale.
In the late 1960s Lynd moved to Chicago, where he was involved in community organizing. An oral history project of the working class undertaken with his wife inspired Lynd to earn a JD from the University of Chicago in 1976. After graduating the Lynds moved to Ohio, where Staughton worked as an attorney and activist.
In the late 1960s Lynd moved to Chicago, where he was involved in community organizing. An oral history project of the working class undertaken with his wife inspired Lynd to earn a JD from the University of Chicago in 1976. After graduating the Lynds moved to Ohio, where Staughton worked as an attorney and activist.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 11, 2018
Lynd's book is a collection of histories of alternative unionism that bloomed in the wake of the Great Depression in the years before the CIO organizing boom. Lynd argues in the introduction that the CIO actually hurt a lot of this creative organizing effort as an intentionally top-down union effort, as envisioned by United Mine Workers of America President John L. Lewis, and that after contracts were won, it intentionally dismantled and suppressed shop-floor steward activism. He notes that the other two visions of the CIO are 1) it was a large social movement with mass egalitarianism, mass enthusiasm, "primitive democracy" which were eventually crushed by central bureaucratic maneuverings and 2) that the CIO depended heavily on the leadership, so that a Communist leadership would have made it turn out very differently. In other words, bureaucrats won't clean up bureaucracy and its founding was marred by its initial roots from the autocratic Lewis (I don't entirely buy that, because it varied depending on the union. It was certainly true with the Steelworkers, but mixed in the Autoworkers and not true in the Electrical Workers union.)
Lynd also notes that much of the militant creative organizing was similar to earlier IWW organizing because many of the organizers had actually been involved with the Wobblies 10-15 years earlier, or were directly inspired by their tactics. This "solidarity unionism" which was rooted in the community as much as it was the workplace helped inspire a more total vision and practice of how an egalitarian world would be lived. Lynd furthers that the National Recovery Act and the Wagner Act helped funnel creative organizing into government sponsored action, envisioning unions as semi-public entities in which rules would be put into place which illegalized spontaneous or broader labor organizing. Of course, the NLRB has only become less effective and many unions are avoiding it all together now because of how dysfunctional it has become under the guidance of openly hostile conservative politicians. Indeed, the CIO grew because Lewis's vision of the CIO was that it would operate under the NLRB to bring about labor peace, not worker democracy.
That all said, the bulk of the book concentrates on how the later CIO surge helped end the earlier militancy (which I believe is too general a statement, as it certainly is true in the cases mentioned but helped spawn it in other places.) Chapter one looks at the Nut Pickers Union that was spawned from early efforts by Communist-organized Unemployed Councils. Chapter 2 moves to the Independent Union of All Workers in Austin, Minnesota, which organized "wall to wall" industrial unions before dying off after it affiliated with a larger CIO. Chapter three moves to the Southern Textiles organizing campaign that involved African-American workers for one of the first times. Chapter four explores the Southern Tenant Farmers Union that organized across workplace and community lines, inspired by Communists but later dying off when the CP abandoned them and the CIO could not effectively organize using their model. Chapter five explores the defeat of efforts to make a true labor party. Chapter six looks to women in Minnesota labor movement in the 1930s. Chapter seven explores how miners took over property against the will of the UMWA constantly. Chapter eight looks to solidarity unionism in Barberton Ohio. Chapter nine ends on a personal account of organizing during the Great Depression.
Lynd also notes that much of the militant creative organizing was similar to earlier IWW organizing because many of the organizers had actually been involved with the Wobblies 10-15 years earlier, or were directly inspired by their tactics. This "solidarity unionism" which was rooted in the community as much as it was the workplace helped inspire a more total vision and practice of how an egalitarian world would be lived. Lynd furthers that the National Recovery Act and the Wagner Act helped funnel creative organizing into government sponsored action, envisioning unions as semi-public entities in which rules would be put into place which illegalized spontaneous or broader labor organizing. Of course, the NLRB has only become less effective and many unions are avoiding it all together now because of how dysfunctional it has become under the guidance of openly hostile conservative politicians. Indeed, the CIO grew because Lewis's vision of the CIO was that it would operate under the NLRB to bring about labor peace, not worker democracy.
That all said, the bulk of the book concentrates on how the later CIO surge helped end the earlier militancy (which I believe is too general a statement, as it certainly is true in the cases mentioned but helped spawn it in other places.) Chapter one looks at the Nut Pickers Union that was spawned from early efforts by Communist-organized Unemployed Councils. Chapter 2 moves to the Independent Union of All Workers in Austin, Minnesota, which organized "wall to wall" industrial unions before dying off after it affiliated with a larger CIO. Chapter three moves to the Southern Textiles organizing campaign that involved African-American workers for one of the first times. Chapter four explores the Southern Tenant Farmers Union that organized across workplace and community lines, inspired by Communists but later dying off when the CP abandoned them and the CIO could not effectively organize using their model. Chapter five explores the defeat of efforts to make a true labor party. Chapter six looks to women in Minnesota labor movement in the 1930s. Chapter seven explores how miners took over property against the will of the UMWA constantly. Chapter eight looks to solidarity unionism in Barberton Ohio. Chapter nine ends on a personal account of organizing during the Great Depression.
Displaying 1 of 1 review