Embedded With Organized Labor:
Journalistic Reflections on the Class War
at Home
by Steve Early
ISBN: 978-1-58367-188-7
$17.95 paperback
288 pp.
Category: Labor
Join author Steve Early for a talk on the most pressing issues facing the U.S. labor movement today. Click here for a list of dates and locations.
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“Steve Early has long been a voice of distinctive clarity, honesty and intellectual seriousness in and about the labor movement. This collection performs a valuable service in bringing together a broad sample of his writing on class, politics, the trade union movement, its status and prospects. As always with Early’s work, these essays are grounded in concrete history and problems. To that extent, they also provide a unique window onto the last several decades of evolving American political history. At a time like this it is all the more important to have the benefit of a voice like his.”
—Adolph Reed Jr.
Professor of Political Science,
University of Pennsylvania
“Steve Early says things other people in the labor movement would like to say but don’t, because of protocol, fear of firing, or, if truth be told, fear of afflicting the comfortable.”
—Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes
“This is an exciting collection that respects workers enough to engage them in desperately needed discussions about union strategy. It presents a radical defense of the working class and an uncompromising critique of the labor movement as it exists today.”
—Sam Gindin, York University
Former Research Director,
Canadian Auto Workers
“For three decades, Steve Early has been in the forefront of the fight for worker power and union democracy. His experience as an organizer gives him rare insight into the problems that unions face.”
—Sal Rosselli
ex-President, SEIU/United
Health Care Workers-West
Embedded With Organized Labor describes how union members have organized successfully, on the job and in the community, in the face of employer opposition now and in the past. The author has produced a provocative series of essays—an unusual exercise in “participatory labor journalism” useful to any reader concerned about social and economic justice. As workers struggle to survive and the labor movement tries to revive during the current economic crisis, this book provides ideas and inspiration for union activists and friends of labor alike.
Steve Early has been an organizer, strike strategist, labor educator, and lawyer. He recently retired from his job as national staff member of the Communications Workers of America. Early’s articles, reviews, and op-ed pieces have appeared in The Nation, New Politics, CounterPunch, The Progressive, American Prospect, WorkingUSA, New Labor Forum, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and many other publications. He is currently completing a book on the role of 1960s activists in American unions.
More Praise for Steve Early and Embedded With Organized Labor:
“Embedded With Organized Labor is a compendium of some of the savviest writing on working men and women and the politics of labor vs capital produced during the last 20 years. In breadth, it ranks with C. Wright Mills’ The New Men of Power.”
—Michael Hirsch
in Democratic Left, Fall 2009
“This book collects recent work by the most well-networked and best-informed reporter on the current troubled state of the American labor movement.”
—Working Class Studies Association
Book Notes, Fall 2009
“Early analyzes the leaders, strategies, defeats and victories of American labor recently from a perspective very close to that of UE. The qualities he values in unions are the ones we value: democracy, accountability, inclusiveness and genuine empowerment of members to conduct their own battles.”
—Al Hart
in The UE News
United Electrical Workers, Winter 2009
“Early’s thoughtful, critical, and yes, often controversial analysis of the labor movement is likely unmatched in any other single volume. Whether you share his conclusions or not, Early has given labor activists a wealth of material to discuss and debate.”
—Randy Shaw
author of Beyond The Fields
in The Industrial Worker, October 2009
“Unlike the slog one may find with many books about unions these days, Early’s articles and essays are both eye-opening and fun to read.”
—Chris Kutalik
in Labor Notes, 11/26/09
“You should read Early’s fine book to be reminded that unionism and union reform should be organized from below and not await bureaucrats above.”
—Herman Benson
in Union Democracy Review, July/August 2009
“Early is a wicked partisan of rank-and-file democracy and bottom up strategies for revitalizing unions. This puts him at odds with many of the recent re-invention projects of organized labor.”
—Howard Kling
in Workday Minnesota, 11/18/09
“Steve Early’s collection of essays arrives at a low-point for labor. A longtime activist, the author looks back on the union movement’s successes and shortcomings. Drawing on the lessons of labor history, he suggests strategies for restoring union clout and issues a spirited call for more writing about workers’ lives.”
—Jan Gardner
in The Boston Globe, 9/6/09
“Some writers who spent their careers as union reps are just about as independent as the media who were embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq. However, there is no danger of that in Steve Early’s clear-headed new book, which is useful for anyone interested in labor’s future as well as its history.”
—Ken Paff
in Social Policy, Summer 2009
“In Embedded with Organized Labor, the author points out the roads not taken by American unions. He brings to the table both historical context and a critical intellect. The result is a very readable mix.”
—Seth Sandrosky
in Truthout Book Review
“It sometimes seems that Steve Early’s new collection encompasses every person, place or corporation of significance to the labor movement over the last four decades. He is currently writing a history of Sixties radicals in labor. But Embedded With Organized Labor will give you plenty to chew on in the meantime.”
—Tom Gallagher
in Democracy.com, 6/10/09
“Steve Early’s essays offers a comprehensive look at the past and current state of U.S. labor. He spends most of the book fiercely defending union democracy and the need for a worker-run and bottom-up movement.”
—Bennett Baumer
The Indypendent, 10/12,09
“Whether you’re a reader or a writer (and Steve Early is both), his book is a great introduction to what’s what in U.S. labor.”
—Peter Hall-Jones
New Unionism Blog 1/4/10
“I just finished reading Embedded with Organized Labor. It’s terrific!”
—Eric Lee
founder of LabourStart
“Steve Early is journalist, an activist, and a synthesizer of lessons from the past and present. All of that makes Embedded With Organized Labor an extremely valuable resource…”
—David Swanson
former media coordinator, International Labor Communications Association; author of Daybreak: Undoing The Imperial Presidency
“Ultimately, this book reminds us that unions will not find salvation from Democrats or any boisterous table-pounding leader…Our first and last hope are workers themselves.”
—LeShane Lindsey
in The Unionist, AFSCME Local 371, December 2009
“Steve Early’s collected works is a real treasure trove. The author’s astute analysis of labor’s historic struggles, its achievements and shortcomings, is spiced by a lively writing style and enriched by years of personal involvement in unions. This is a book that every labor activist should read and think about.”
—Harry Kelber
Editor, The Labor Educator
“For those of us who continue to believe that a revitalized labor movement remains the last best hope for social change in America, Early’s reporting is simply irreplaceable.”
—Rose Ann DeMoro
Executive Director,
California Nurses Association/NNOC
“There aren’t many people who could pull off Early’s hat trick. Here’s a full–time union representative with an academician’s smarts and education—and he can write. The result is a volume that will have long–time labor activists nodding their heads in recognition, union observers scribbling footnotes, and working people gaining a better appreciation of why unions are the way they are, for better and worse.”
—Andy Zipser
Editor, The Guild Reporter,
The Newspaper Guild/CWA
“Embedded With Organized Labor contains some very timely reflections on labor law reform and enforcement. As American unions try once again to seek changes in the National Labor Relations Act, they’d be well advised to consult this author’s account of how and why similar campaigns have failed in the past.”
—Lee Adler
Attorney and Labor Law Instructor,
Cornell ILR School and Labor Extension Program
“If organized labor is ever going to regain its clout in the era of globalization, it must, as this collection argues, embrace real cross–border solidarity and bottom–up organizing.”
—Ellen David-Friedman
Research Associate,
Harvard Labor & Worklife Program
Former Organizing Director, Vermont–NEA
“Steve Early has never left the front lines of labor. He challenges unions to trust in the members and their right to be heard. He’s relentless about the importance of workers’ power on the job and in the community.”
—Hetty Rosenstein
New Jersey Area Director,
Communications Workers of America
“This collection demonstrates Steve Early’s status as one of the leading organic intellectuals in labor. Early’s attention to what workers read, think, say, and do places them at the center of his work as the active agents of their own lives and futures.”
—Peter Rachleff
Professor of History, Macalester College,
and Minnesota labor activist
“Early combines a realistic understanding of union functioning with the passionate outrage of a union reformer.”
—Mike Parker
coauthor, Democracy is Power: Rebuilding
Unions from the Bottom
“Steve Early aided organizing drives, contract campaigns, bargaining sessions, and strikes involving CWA members for more than 25 years. His book gives us the benefit of his own experience and that of the many other authors and activists whose work is vividly described in this collection.”
—Peter Kellman
President, Southern Maine
Labor Council, AFL–CIO
“Steve Early is more than just a keen observer of labor and grassroots movements to revitalize it. He’s been an activist deeply engaged at the rank–and–file level, which gives his journalism special urgency and relevance.”
—Ken Paff
National Organizer,
Teamsters for a Democratic Union
“Telling truth to power is seldom easy. Embedded With Organized Labor describes unionism as it should be, not as it sometimes is. The author’s insistence on union democracy is a singular feature of his work.”
—Jerry Tucker
former United Auto Workers Regional Director,
IEB Member
“Steve Early’s own background in the labor movement makes this collection particularly insightful and worthwhile. He argues that unions must have a profoundly democratic vision if they want to be more effective as a force for progressive change.”
—Frank Emspak
Executive Producer, Workers Independent News
Emeritus Professor, University of Wisconsin School for Workers
“Steve Early’s book displays a balanced, clear–thinking approach to a wide range of working class issues, reflecting the author’s knowledge of labor history, his writing skill, and his unusual ability to connect with a broad audience of labor activists and intellectuals.”
—Marty Fishgold
Past President, International
Labor Communications Association
“I’m always eager to read Steve Early’s latest article, and now this book brings together many fine pieces about key issues facing the workers’ movement as well as past struggles that have lessons for us today. Highly recommended for activists and anyone who wants to understand U.S. labor.”
—David Camfield
Labour Studies, University of Manitoba
“I shudder to think what the labor movement would be like without Steve Early around to help us seek some accountability from those currently in charge.”
—Tom Leedham
Secretary–Treasurer, Teamsters Local 206
former IBT Warehouse Division, Director
