100 Years of Labour in the USA

by Daniel Guérin

English, French (translation)

252 pages

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Daniel Guérin was a French anarcho-communist author, best known for his work Anarchism: From Theory to Practice , as well as his collection No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism in which he collected writings on the idea and movement it inspired, from the first writings of Max Stirner in the mid-19th century through the first half of the 20th century.

He is also known for his opposition to Nazism, fascism, Stalinism and colonialism, in addition to his support for the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) during the Spanish Civil War, and his revolutionary defence of free love and homosexuality.

Reviews

[Rodolfo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even if written in the 60s, this book is a concise masterpiece for anyone who wants to understand why trade unions are so weak in the US. It presents a (quite) fast-paced history of the US trade unions, starting from the Knights of Labour, going through the start of the IWW, the AFL, the CIO, the New Deal, Taft-Harvey and the AFL-CIO merger, up to the end of the 1960s. The book also includes a chapter on Blacks and the Labour movement, and a relatively informative section on the state of unions in the south. The author is sufficiently critical of everything, and every one, and this only adds to the greatness of the story, he feels no need to apologize for anyone's or any tendencies' mistake. Unfortunately the book's perspectives turned out to be quite inaccurate, and it is missing anything after and including Carter. However, this does not diminish the informative value of the story, again, an essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why the US works the way it does.