Immanuel Ness is a political economist who specializes in labor unions and a professor of political science at City University of New York. He is the editor of WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society and author of numerous works including Guest Workers and Resistance to U.S. Corporate Despotism. He was a worker and union organizer in the food, maintenance, and publishing industries. He lives in New York City. Staughton Lynd taught American history at Spelman College and Yale University. He was director of Freedom Schools in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. He is the author or coauthor of From Here to There, Labor Law for the Rank & Filer, Lucasville, Solidarity Unionism at Starbucks, and Wobblies & Zapatistas. He lives in Youngstown, Ohio.
"As the U.S. labor movement conducts its latest, frantic search for
'new ideas, ' there is no better source of radical thinking on
improved modes of union functioning than the diverse contributors
to this timely collection. New Forms of Worker Organization vividly
describes what workers in Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe
have done to make their unions more effective. Let's hope that
these compelling case studies of rank-and-file struggle and bottom
up change lead to more of the same where it's needed the most,
among those of us 'born in the USA!'"
--Steve Early, former organizer for the Communications Workers of
America and author of Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement
in Distress This book is a crucial analytical and tactical handbook
for workers protesting against management. In most cases, protests,
strikes, and insurgencies are only measured through government
data. New Forms of Worker Organization provides independent
information on workers' protest, their reasons, and the nature in
which they are realized--essential for understanding the true shape
of the workers movements in countries throughout the world. This
research should be used by workers and labor unions as a tool to
reach their objectives and to protect and advance workers'
rights."
--Vadim Borisov, representative IndustriALL Global Union, CIS
Region, sociologist, and author of over 100 publications on
workers' movements in Russia, including Workers and the Transition
to Capitalism in Russia (Verso) "Working people everywhere are
feeling the pressure in a world where corporations increasingly
dominate our economic, political, and social lives. In country
after country, traditional unionism, advocacy, and policy reform
have been proven unfit for the task of restoring the dignity and
financial security of working families. The critical stories of
cutting-edge organizing found in New Forms of Worker Organization
demonstrate that workers themselves hold the key to creating a
world where work is honored and freedom of association is
absolute."
--Daniel Gross, executive director, Brandworkers, and cofounder,
IWW Starbucks Workers Union "This exciting collection provides
substantial evidence that collective action by workers themselves
is indispensable to advancing a strong labor movement. The book's
global scope demonstrates that workers in the U.S. and beyond can
learn much from the tactics, strategies, and historical struggles
in other countries."
--Kim Scipes, author of AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing
Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage? "Conventional unionism's
decline over recent decades and now capitalism's worst global
crisis since the 1930s are enabling and provoking unconventional
forms of workers' struggles. Some are new and others are new
versions of old forms with urgently renewed relevance today.
Received concepts and theories of class, class struggle, economic
democracy, workers' power, socialism and communism are being
reexamined and changed to meet the practical needs and conditions
of anticapitalist struggle now. Immanuel Ness's new volume
documents some dramatic new projects of self-conscious class
struggle around the world."
--Richard D. Wolff, DemocracyAtWork.info and the New School
University, New York
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