Labor Power and Strategy

by John Womack Jr., Peter Olney (Editor), Glenn Perusek (Editor)

Overview

What would it take to topple Amazon? To change how health care works in America? To break up the media monopolies that have taken hold of our information and imaginations? How is it possible to organize those without hope working on the margins? In Labor Power and Strategy, legendary strategist, historian, and labor organizer John Womack, speaks directly to a new generation, providing rational, radical, experience-based perspectives that help target and run smart, strategic, effective campaigns in the working class.

In this sleek, practical, pocket inspiration, Womack lays out a timely plan for identifying chokepoints and taking advantage of supply chain issues in order to seize and build labor power and solidarity. Interviewed by Peter Olney of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union—Womack’s lively, illuminating thoughts are built upon by ten young labor organizers and educators, whose responses create a rich dialogue and open a space for joyful, achievable change. With stories of triumph that will bring readers to tears this back-pocket primer is an instant classic.

With contributions from Gene Bruskin, Carey Dall, Dan DiMaggio, Katy Fox-Hodess, Bill Fletcher Jr., Jane McAlevey, Jack Metzgar, Joel Ochoa, Melissa Shetler, and Rand Wilson.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781629639741
Publisher:	PM Press
Publication date:	01/24/2023
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

John Womack Jr. is the Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics, emeritus, at Harvard University. He served as chairman of the Department of History, 1982–85, and acting chairman, 1991–92. Born and raised in Norman, Oklahoma, he first joined a union, the International Laborers and Hod Carriers, while in high school, earning a union wage in summer construction work. He held his card until he graduated from college and went to work at The Louisville Times—then into graduate studies and later into academic work.

Peter Olney is a retired Director of Organizing for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). He was Associate Director of the University of California’s Institute for Labor and Employment (ILE). Olney holds a Master’s in Business Administration from UCLA. He resides in San Francisco, California. Olney teaches building trades union organizers as a member of the faculty of the Building Trades Academy at Michigan State University. Olney is an editor of The Stansbury Forum (stansburyforum.com).

Glenn Perusek conducts strategic research for organizing and contract campaigns and is a member of the faculty of the Building Trades Academy at Michigan State University. He directed the Center for Strategic Research at the national AFL-CIO; worked in strategic research and campaigns at the IBEW and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. His work includes Tragedy and Necessity: From Sarajevo to the Berlin Wall; Shifting Terrain; Depth of Field; and Trade Union Politics: American Unions and Economic Change. Glenn earned a BA summa cum laude from Kent State University, where he was Mona Fletcher Award winner. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago, where he was Merriam Fellow and winner of the Baker Prize, a research competition in the social sciences. Glenn was a journeyman member of the Chicago Typographical Union.

Table of Contents

Introduction – Peter Olney
Situating Womack – Glenn Perusek
The Womack Interviews – John Womack
Should Spartacus Have Organized the Roman Citizenry Rather Than the Slaves? – Bill Fletcher Jr.
Relaying These Insights is More Urgent Now than Ever – Dan DiMaggio
The Importance of Organization and Political and Community Context in the Exercise of Worker Power – Katy Fox Hodess
Organizing Strategic Workers on “The Seam” – Carey Dall
Associational Power, Too – Jack Metzgar
An Opinion in the Context of the Womack Interviews – Joel Ochoa
How to Read Womack – Jane McAlevey
Abandon the Banking Method – Melissa Shetler
32,000 Hogs and Not a Drop to Drink – Gene Bruskin
Reflections on Ten Comradely Responses to the Foundry Interviews – John Womack Jr.
Contributors

Acknowledgements

Editorial Reviews

In Our Revolution we shout, ‘‘When we Organize, We Win,” but organize who and win what? Labor Power and Strategy is a great collection of Womack and 10 organizers debating strategic workplace organizing vs associational or more general organizing at workplaces or in communities. Womack, in a long initial interview and in the conclusion, argues that without organizing workplace chokepoints, we are left with the spontaneous movements that come and go. Several of the 10 organizers essentially argue that the spontaneous can become conscious and long lasting. Grab the book and take up the debate.”
—Larry Cohen, board chair Our Revolution, past president, Communications Workers of America

"In this fascinating and insightful dialogue, the distinguished historian John Womack and a set of veteran labor activists probe the most fundamental of questions: How do we organize the 21 century working-class and give it the power to transform world capitalism? Are workers with vital skills and strategic leverage the key to a labor resurgence, or should organizers wager upon a mobilization of working people whose relationship to the economy’s commanding heights is more diffuse? Or can we arrive at some dialectical symbiosis? Whatever the answer, this is the kind of constructively radical conversation essential to the rebirth of working-class power in our time."
—Nelson Lichtenstein, historian and author of Capitalism Contested: The New Deal and Its Legacies

"Put this unique collection of strategic insights into the hands of the new generation of militants excited about revitalizing the US labor movement and 'working-class power' might once again become something other than an abstract slogan in this country. Couldn't be more timely."
—Max Elbaum, editor at Convergence Magazine and author of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che

“Labor Power and Strategy is essential reading for activists and organizers seeking to understand how in a constantly changing world of work workers can marshal power.
—Elaine Bernard, former executive director Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School

“The comprehensive campaigns model is essential to labor’s efforts to rebuild power. This book, focusing on workers' positional power in production and distribution, explores a key element of such an overall approach.”
—Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of Labor Education Research and a senior lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations

“Womack’s focus upon the essential ingredients of effective and strategic organizing resonates today, as elements in labor now attempt to bestir themselves in the midst of unrelenting decline. His view that workers must seek forward movement through their own initiatives, independent of law, political process and formal machinery represents an important clarion call, rooted in the practical historical experience of more than a century. Womack’s instructive views and observation warrant careful attention.”
—William B. Gould IV, author of For Labor to Build Upon: Wars, Depression and Pandemic

From the Publisher