Category: Monthly Review Press /

Save Our Unions reviewed by LSE Review of Books

February 20, 2024

Steve Early is a well-known commentator on the complex world of US trade unionism. His analyses are often provocative and always well-informed as he has worked in and around the US labour movement for more than 40 years. This is his third book since he retired from the Communication Workers of America (CWA) union. Evidently he is a man who intends to use the freedom of retirement to stir up debate... Early is passionate about working people having the opportunity not only to have a say in their working lives, but to act as a countervailing power to corporate America.

Save Our Unions reviewed by the Association for Union Democracy

February 20, 2024

Does Steve Early exist? Or is his the brand name for a syndicate of crack labor journalists who in James Thurber's words "get the story and write the story," but write it from the perspective of working people. That's a talent that often unappreciated, even by many unions. And, yes, he exists.

Save Our Unions reviewed in Jacobin

February 20, 2024

It has been Steve Early's fate to chronicle in excruciating detail the decline of the labor empires that grew up in the flush years that followed the World War II — a task he takes up in his new book Save Our Unions: Dispatches From a Movement in Distress.... Union activists concerned with these questions should read Early's book for essential background on this ongoing crisis of the US labor movement.

Capital Accumulation and Women’s Labour in Asian Economies reviewed in Rethinking Marxism

February 20, 2024

In the context of rapid industrialization and globalization in Asia's dynamic economies, Peter Custers's book highlights the continuing relevance of Marxian theory to understanding the exploitation of women's productive and reproductive work. At the same time, it critiques the silences in Marx's work regarding the key role of women's labor in the perpetuation of capitalism...In tracing the coevolution of capitalism and patriarchy and the different ways in which women are impacted by capitalist accumulation processes, Custers makes a noteworthy contribution to the causes of both Marxism and feminism. This book, with its rethinking of Marxist analysis to incorporate insights from feminist theories, would be a very worthy addition to the library of academics, researchers, and students of development alike.

Lettuce Wars reviewed in the Huffington Post

February 20, 2024

The author of Lettuce Wars has produced a most compelling work. It will be of particular interest to other former "colonizers" who got active in the labor movement in the 1970s as members of various left-wing groups, including the RCP. Lettuce Wars should be also be read by their younger, union-backed counterparts, who are now "salting" non-union hotels, warehouses, and fast food joints in the pursuit of goals more modest than world revolution.

The Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism reviewed by Systemic Disorder

February 20, 2024

...[A]n international movement that brings together the peoples of the global North and the global South, with a common goal of nationalizing the monopolies that currently have a stranglehold on the world's economy and a commitment to "de-financialization" (a "world without Wall Street") is not only possible but indispensable, argues Samir Amin in his latest book, The Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism. These would not be ends unto themselves, but rather the first necessary steps on a long road toward a sustainable and equitable future.

"Bold New Era or Hard Times for Organized Labor?" Seattle MRP event w/ Steve Early and Arun Gupta

February 20, 2024

Is this a Bold New Era or Hard Times for Organized Labor? Find out at a Monthly Review Press book event and discussion of workers' movements in the U.S. and abroad, on Monday, May 5, 7 P.M., at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle! Meet former CWA organizer Steve Early, author of Save Our Unions, and Arun Gupta, contributor to In These Times and Registering Class, the 2014 edition of Socialist Register. Singers from the Seattle Labor Chorus will perform!

Read an Excerpt from Silvertown in LINKS: International Journal of Socialist Renewal

February 20, 2024

Read an exclusive excerpt from historian John Tully's new book, Silvertown: The Lost Story of a Strike that Shook London and Helped Launch the Modern Labor Movement, in which Tully describes living and working conditions in the Silvetown district of London leading up to a massive strike in 1889.

NEW! Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement by Ralf Dose

February 20, 2024

Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) was one of the first great pioneers of the gay liberation movement. This biography, first published to acclaim in Germany, follows Hirschfeld from his birth in the Prussian province of Pomerania to the heights of his career during the Weimar Republic and the rise of German fascism. Ralf Dose illuminates Hirschfeld's ground-breaking role in the gay liberation movement and explains some of his major theoretical concepts, which continue to influence our understanding of human sexuality and social justice today.

NEW! Silvertown: The Lost Story of a Strike that Shook London and Helped Launch the Modern Labor Movement by John Tully

February 20, 2024

In 1889, Samuel Winkworth Silver's rubber and electrical factory was the site of a massive worker revolt that upended the London industrial district which bore his name: Silvertown. Once referred to as the "Abyss" by Jack London, Silvertown was notorious for oppressive working conditions and the relentless grind of production suffered by its largely unorganized, unskilled workers. These workers, fed-up with their lot and long ignored by traditional craft unions, aligned themselves with the socialist-led "New Unionism" movement. Their ensuing strike paralyzed Silvertown for three months. Historian and novelist John Tully tells the story of the Silvertown strike in vivid prose. He rescues the uprising—overshadowed by other strikes during this period—from relative obscurity and argues for its significance to both the labor and socialist movements.