Reviews
Book jacket comments:
Clawson’s vision
of a new labor movement infused with the dynamic strategies and broad
agendas of the new social movements is not only persuasive, it is necessary
if we ever want to create a decent world for those who must work for a
living. A powerful book by one of labor’s smartest and most enthusiastic
champions.
-- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical
Imagination
Dan Clawson doesn't tell unions and other workers' organizations what
to do;
he looks at what they are doing and what seems to be working best. The
result
is not only an exciting read, but a powerful argument for a more feminist
and
ethnically aware approach to organizing.
-- Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting
By in America
This thoughtful and bracing book examines a host of new initiatives that
link labor organizing to communities, students, minorities, and women.
Clawson argues these experiments may show us the path to a new upsurge
from below in which a revived labor movement would play a central role.
We should all hope so, not only for the sake of a revived labor movement,
but for the sake of a revived American democracy.
-- Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York
C. Wright Mills once hoped that the agenda-setting contributions of "a
brace of labor intellectuals" would help the unions move "upstream
against the main drift." Dan Clawson is just that kind of activist-scholar,
whose commitment, insight and imaginative connectivity are all on wonderful
display in The Next Upsurge. His remarkable understanding of labor history,
management tactics, and social movement dynamics will advance the kind
of informed debate essential to the reconstruction of the American trade
unions and the fusion between those institutions and new forms of 21st
century social protest.
-- Nelson Lichtenstein, author of State of the Union: A Century of
American Labor
Relentlessly optimistic, yet judicious and rooted in careful research
on recent developments in labor and other progressive movements, Clawson's
highly readable book makes a compelling case for the potential resurgence
of unionism. A must read for anyone who cares about the future of labor
and social justice.
-- Ruth Milkman, UCLA, Director of the UC Institute for Labor and Employment