December 15, 2023
The transformative potential of organized labor. Labor journalist Nolan makes his book debut with a rousing look at union activities across the country and an impassioned argument for the protection of workers' rights. Noting the small percentage of unionized workers in America, the author emphasizes the correlation between the decades-long decline in union membership and the commensurate increase in inequality. "Even in the bluest and most union-friendly states in the country," he writes, "less than a quarter of working people are union members." Many states--South Carolina, for one--are openly hostile to unions. In Las Vegas, the casino industry has continued to try to break the work of the Culinary Union, whose 60,000 members include housekeepers, porters, food servers, and cooks. In California, child care workers joined with domestic workers and school support staff to unionize. "A union," Nolan reports, "does not need to arise out of a single group of workers who come to the same building every day and get paid by the same company. A union can be made from any coherent group of working people with a common interest--even if they are spread across a thousand miles of distance and work individually out of their homes and are not allowed to be a union, according to the current law." Hospitality workers in Miami, fast food workers in West Virginia, Nabisco employees in Portland, Oregon, and graduate students at Yale all serve as examples of successful efforts to unionize, even as they fight resistance from recalcitrant bosses. Nolan interweaves his investigation of particular unions with a profile of Sara Nelson, a tireless union leader who became head of the Association of Flight Attendants in 2014 and emerged as a forceful spokesperson for workers' rights. United labor, he writes, has the power to change the economic, social, and political landscape. Spirited reporting on workers' lives.
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Starred review from February 1, 2024
Over the past few years, a wave of high-profile trade union actions in the United States has brought labor organizing to the forefront of the collective consciousness of the nation. Journalist Nolan, in his first book, offers a new and fresh perspective on the recent evolution of labor movements in the United States. In largely separate but thematically overlapping chapters, the book alternates between unraveling the histories of large and small unions across the country and following Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (an affiliate of the AFL-CIO), as she rises through the ranks of her union and navigates political obstacles. This important book shows how unions in a wide range of industries can utilize their inherent power and explores the complicated and necessary relationship between labor and politics, encouraging readers to examine how one affects the other. VERDICT Well researched and reported, with a propulsive storytelling style. Nolan's outstanding book will interest readers who follow news about equality efforts but might not be familiar with the complex world of labor organizing.--Whitney Kramer
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