We Are the Union

How Worker-To-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-0-520-39491-9
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 336 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 150 mm x 225 mm, Gewicht: 470 g

A riveting account of labor's bottom-up resurgence, providing a roadmap for workers, unions, and social movements to win widely.

After decades of union decline and rising inequality, an inspiring wave of workplace organizing—from Starbucks stores to Amazon warehouses to southern auto factories—has thrust unionization into the national spotlight. By analyzing this surge and telling the stories of the courageous workers driving it forward, We Are the Union makes a case for how to overcome business as usual in both corporate America and organized labor.

Eric Blanc shows that recent struggles have developed a new organizing model, worker-to-worker unionism, which builds scalable power by giving rank-and-filers an unprecedented degree of leadership. Through digital tools and ambitious campaigns, young worker leaders are turning the labor movement back into a movement—and they're winning. Rigorously researched and compellingly written, We Are the Union illustrates how this new grassroots approach can exponentially grow the power of working people to overcome economic exploitation, racial injustice, and authoritarianism at work and beyond.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Blanc, Eric

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Unternehmensorganisation, Corporate Responsibility Tarifverhandlungen, Schlichtung
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Gewerkschaften, Industrielle Beziehungen
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Arbeitsmarkt
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

List of Illustrations

Prologue

Introduction

PART ONE: ANALYSIS
1. Defining Worker-to-Worker Unionism

2. Organizing on a Dispersed Terrain

PART TWO: EXAMPLES OF VICTORY
3. Three Worker-to-Worker Wins

4. Many Ways to Win (Beyond First Contracts)

5. Starbucks Workers’ Big Breakthrough

PART THREE: HOW TO WIN BIG
6. Which Model Can Win Widely?

7. Tactics to Win Big

PART FOUR: DRIVING FORCES
8. Government Policy

9. Digital Tools

10. Youth Radicalization

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Appendix: Survey and Interview Methodology

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Eric Blanc is Assistant Professor of Labor Studies at Rutgers University, an organizer trainer in the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers' Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics, and director of the Worker to Worker Collaborative.