by Jeremy Brecher
PM Press
6/1/2020, paperback
SKU: 9781629638003
Jeremy Brecher’s Strike! narrates the dramatic story of repeated, massive, and sometimes violent revolts by ordinary working people in America. Involving nationwide general strikes, the seizure of vast industrial establishments, nonviolent direct action on a massive scale, and armed battles with artillery and tanks, this exciting hidden history is told from the point of view of the rank-and-file workers who lived it. Encompassing the repeated repression of workers’ rebellions by company-sponsored violence, local police, state militias, and the U.S. Army and National Guard, it reveals a dimension of American history rarely found in the usual high school or college history course.
Since its original publication in 1972, no book has done as much as Strike! to bring U.S. labor history to a wide audience. Now this fiftieth anniversary edition brings the story up to date with chapters covering the “mini-revolts of the twenty-first century,” including Occupy Wall Street and the Fight for Fifteen. The new edition contains over a hundred pages of new materials and concludes by examining a wide range of current struggles, ranging from #BlackLivesMatter, to the great wave of teachers' strikes “for the soul of public education,” to the global “Student Strike for Climate” that may be harbingers of mass strikes to come.
Reviews:
“Splendid . . . clearly the best single-volume summary yet published of American general strikes.” — Washington Post
“A magnificent book. I hope it will take its place as the standard history of American labor.” — Staughton Lynd, author of Solidarity Unionism and coauthor of Labor Law for the Rank and Filer
About the Contributors:
Jeremy Brecher has participated in movements for nuclear disarmament, civil rights, peace, international labor rights, global economic justice, accountability for war crimes, climate protection, and many others. He is the author of fifteen books on labor and social movements, including the national best seller Strike!. He has received five regional Emmy awards for his documentary film work. He is currently policy and research director for the Labor Network for Sustainability.
Sara Nelson is international president of the Association of Flight Attendants–CWA, AFL-CIO. During the 2019 government shutdown, her call for a general strike helped showcase the power aviation employees can wield by withholding service and helped lead to the reopening of the government.
Kim Kelly is the labor columnist for Teen Vogue. Her writings on labor, politics, and culture have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, Pacific Standard, and many others. She is a proud member of the Writers Guild of America, East, and has been active in multiple organizing and contract campaigns since 2015