Collected for the first time, the essays that comprise Embedded With Organized Labor present a unique and informed perspective on the class war at home from a longtime organizer and "participatory labor journalist." Steve Early tackles the most pressing issues facing unions today and describes how workers have organized successfully, on the job and in the community, in the face of employer opposition now and in the past. This wide-ranging collection deals with the dilemmas of union radicalism, the obstacles to institutional change within organized labor, and strategies for securing workers' rights in the new global economy. It also addresses questions hotly debated among union activists and friends of labor, including workers' rights as human rights, new forms of worker organization such as worker centers, union democracy, cross-border solidarity, race, gender, and ethnic divisions in the working class, and the lessons of labor history.
Steve Early has been an organizer, strike strategist, labor educator, and lawyer. He recently retired from his job as national staff member of the Communications Workers of America. Early's articles, reviews, and op-ed pieces have appeared in The Nation, New Politics, CounterPunch, The Progressive, American Prospect, Working USA, New Labor Forum, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and many other publications. He is currently completing a book on the role of 1960s activists in American unions.
"Early says things other people in the labor movement would like to say but don't, because of protocol, fear of firing, or, if truth be told, fear of afflicting the comfortable. This collection shows the consistency, over the years, of Early's insistence on a worker's-eye view of the big picture, as he uses his acid pen to call out our ersatz reformers and self-appointed spokesmen."--Jane Slaughter "Labor Notes " "For three decades, Steve Early has been in the forefront of the fight for worker power and union democracy. His experience as an organizer gives him rare insight into the problems that unions face."--Sal Rosselli, ex-President, SEIU/UnitedHealth Care Workers-West "Steve Early has long been a voice of distinctive clarity, honesty and intellectual seriousness in and about the labor movement. This collection performs a valuable service in bringing together a broad sample of his writing on class, politics, the trade union movement, its status and prospects. As always with Early's work, these essays are grounded in concrete history and problems. To that extent, they also provide a unique window onto the last several decades of evolving American political history. At a time like this it is all the more important to have the benefit of a voice like his."--Adolph Reed Jr., Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania "This is an exciting collection not only for the ideas presented, but for its potential contribution to developing a working class readership base that could dramatically widen the discussions and debates so desperately needed."--Sam Gindin, York University and Former Research Director, Canadian Auto Workers
