Strike! Paperback – June 1, 2014

As a 28 year and still active union member I really appreciate this books' educational material, the history of the Labor Union Movement is in this book, when it comes to this book I feel like a kid in a candy store I wish I could include everything in this book review that I've marked off but that would be impossible so I'll have to settle for a few tasty morsels of Labor Union Power, lets start with page 51 "The eight-hour movement was launched in New York with a rally of 20,000 in Union Square under a heavy police guard: "About 600 police officers were visible to the naked eye and over 100 more were hidden from view in the buildings surrounding the square. Not many blocks away 200 or 300 more officers might have been quickly called." Nearly 4,000 furniture workers established shorter hours simply by reporting for work at 8 and leaving at 5. One thousand piano workers, 750 furriers, 500 carriage and wagon-makers, and 250 marble workers, to select a few examples, struck for shorter hours. Those winning their demands included: if you want to know who won their demands buy this book and turn to page 52. Also on page 54 "The heart of the eight-hour movement was in Chicago. Local Knights of Labor, trade unionists, and anarchists-reversing their previous opposition-all supported the Eight-Hour Association, which agitated for the strike. Through April, a series of huge mass demonstrations drew more than 25,000 people each. "Nearly everyone was certain that with this display of spirit and the excellent organization of the Chicago workers, the movement would succeed."I've often wondered about the armory I've passed by in New York City, why was it built, what was it built for, well on page 11 a partial answer is given "In the centers of many American cities are positioned huge armories, grim nineteenth-century edifices of brick or stone. They are fortresses, complete with massive walls and loopholes for guns. You may have wondered why they are there, but it has probably never occurred to you that they were built to protect America against popular revolt at home. Their erection was a monument to the Great Upheaval of 1877." If you want to know more about the Great Upheaval of 1877 buy this book and read the rest of page 11. I love this book I've already read this book 3 times my goal is to reach the number 10 on a scale of 1-10 this book is a 10 and one-half, this is one of the few books in my home library that excites me and gets my blood flowing, I hope you will buy this book and see for yourself why I love it.

I read the chapter about WW II on a website and thought that it had to be critical of all the actions taken by workers while soldiers were fighting. So I got the book to learn about others and quickly found that the author was not being critical but is a champion of those and other actions . So while this a very detailed history it gives a whole different picture of some members of The Greatest Generation and other times, the opposite of heroic to me.

Jeremy Brecher's "Strike!" is a history of the mass strike. Starting with the "Great Upheaval" general strike of 1877, it moves quickly through other mass actions of labor history, ending with the labor upheaval of the Vietnam era, with a piece on the significance of the mass strike at the end, as well as a long afterword by the author on changing labor tactics in an increasingly globalised world.Getting this book more or less on a whim, I didn't know what to expect. It turns out that this is a pretty good overview of the history of US labor, or at least one important aspect of it. I'd read a bit about labor struggle in the United States before, but it still doesn't fail to amaze when one reads about the scope of some of these struggles: from mini-wars of the mining industry in the early 20th century and the Great Upheaval strike to the pitched street battles in the San Francisco longshoreman's strike and the Minneapolis general strike, one gets the feeling that strikes were serious, serious business. Some times labor would win the day; more often it seems that the immediate interests of state and its "counselors" (in the words of Adam Smith), the employers. Many times, as the author states in the introduction, workers had to fight their own unions almost as much as they had to battle their employers, sometimes having to organize their own actions organically. Reading about the Seattle General Strike gives one a good sense of just how impressive some of these spontaneous organizations could be, with strikers essentially supplying goods and services for an entire city. Again and again it is affirmed in the book that more often than not, workers took it upon themselves to institute changes, independent of those who wished to control them, and although elements of the socialist movement (Communists, Trotskyists, anarchists, etc.) of the time influenced certain segments, and are briefly mentioned in the book, more often than not said elements were just as suprised as the employers and the unions at some of the actions contained in this writing.The biggest flaw with the book is probably the fact that Brecher doesn't really address a lot of the social undercurrents involved in the strikes he covers (although, that would probably take up another book in and of itself, at the very least.) And, as one reviewer stated earlier, he doesn't mention mass strikes elsewhere that were influencial (such as the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, the same year as the Seattle General Strike). On the good side, as I've said before, if you're looking for a fairly good overview of mass strikes, you could do a lot worse. The afterward is particularly interesting. Brecher mentions that not only has the mass strike of old become increasingly impractical in the wake of globalisation and the changing nature of business, but that (in the United States, anyway) "irresponsible" actions by workers are prohibited by legislation such as Taft-Hartley and the Wagner Act. Being that this is the case, working people have sought different ways to increase their bargaining power through various methods. Looked at in this manner, it's no mystery at all why he chose to close the book with the successful UPS strike.Anyway, if you're at all interested in this sort of thing, I'd give it a look.

I first read this book in about 1973, when I lived in Cambridge Mass. I was extremely impressed at the time because I had never heard of some of these events. Some I had, believe it or not, in Catholic elementary school in Pennsylvania in the fifties, but only two if memory serves. That edition was more like a college thesis. This edition is a much more far ranging, informative history of the American Labor Movement and should be required reading for every High School student in this country. It's no wonder Howard Zinn refers to it as often as he does. This book will be a source of inspiration, should the Occupy Movement ever get back together and lead us to an American Spring.

One of the most accessible labor history books. Reads like a novel.

This book is inspirational. It sent me to several other books listed in its bibliography. Brecher quotes often from The Reign of the Rabble, which is a fascinating history of the St. Louis General Strike of 1877; the first Occupy Wall Street!

Two thumbs up. Great primer on labor history.

Progressive liberal point of view only - very biased.

Glad that this is a revised version. Big improvement and worth the read.