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Overview
The Unfinished Struggle is one of the most concise, comprehensive, and accessible histories of the modern American labor movement ever written. Labor scholar and activist Steve Babson's dramatic narrative examines the numerous attempts to organize workers from the Great Uprising of 1877 to the 'sitdown' strikes of the 1930s to the present day. Babson illuminates the tumultuous past, evolving agenda, and continuing conflicts of the labor movement. He carefully identifies the causes of labor's decline in recent decades and explains union leaders' attempts to revive their organizations. Most important, Babson shows readers how the fortunes of organized labor are tied to larger trends in American history.
Synopsis
The Unfinished Struggle is one of the most concise, comprehensive, and accessible histories of the modern American labor movement ever written. Labor scholar and activist Steve Babson's dramatic narrative examines the numerous attempts to organize workers from the Great Uprising of 1877 to the _sitdown_ strikes of the 1930s to the present day. Babson illuminates the tumultuous past, evolving agenda, and continuing conflicts of the labor movement. He carefully identifies the causes of labor's decline in recent decades and explains union leaders' attempts to revive their organizations. Most important, Babson shows readers how the fortunes of organized labor are tied to larger trends in American history.
Editorials
CHOICE
An engaging narrative account of the fluctuating fortunes of the American labor movement up to the present day. . . . The book does a good job of setting events in their broader historical and economic context.— J. L. Rosenbloom, University of Kansas
Journal Of Economic History
An extremely readable book.— Robert Cherry, Brooklyn College
Journal of American History
For those searching for a short history of the American labor movement, Babson's The Unfinished Struggle is exceptional. Babson draws on the ever-expanding vibrant scholarship of the last thirty years on the interplay among issues of class, race, and gender in the American labor movement. And he does not shy away from laying bare the weaknesses, errors, racism, sexism, and internal conflicts within organized labor over the past century. It is by far the best discussion of the contemporary labor movement you will find, and it should be widely used in sociology, political science, American history, and labor studies course discussing contemporary labor-management relations and organized labor.— Steven K. Ashby, Indiana University
Industrial Relations Journal
Babson's account is refreshingly strong in documenting the struggle of black workers to organize against the hostility of the state, employers and craft unions. ...provided such rich and exciting detail in his highly readable and accessible text.Journal Of American History
For those searching for a short history of the American labor movement, Babson's The Unfinished Struggle is exceptional. Babson draws on the ever-expanding vibrant scholarship of the last thirty years on the interplay among issues of class, race, and gender in the American labor movement. And he does not shy away from laying bare the weaknesses, errors, racism, sexism, and internal conflicts within organized labor over the past century. It is by far the best discussion of the contemporary labor movement you will find, and it should be widely used in sociology, political science, American history, and labor studies course discussing contemporary labor-management relations and organized labor.— Steven K. Ashby
Choice
An engaging narrative account of the fluctuating fortunes of the American labor movement up to the present day. . . . The book does a good job of setting events in their broader historical and economic context.— J. L. Rosenbloom, University of Kansas
Journal of Economic History
An extremely readable book.— Robert Cherry, Brooklyn College