The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on . Wellman<|

The Union Makes Us StrongRadical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront\nAuthor(s): David Wellman\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521629683, 978-0521629683\nSynopsis\nAmerican labour history is typically interpreted by scholars as a history of defeat. Hidden by this conventional wisdom are a handful of militant unions that did not follow the putative Congress of Industrial Organizations trajectory. Based on three years of ethnographic research, this book examines a union that organised itself to systematically challenge management's rule on the shopfloor: San Francisco's longshore union. American unionism looks quite different than conventional wisdom suggests when everyday union practices are observed. American labour's trajectory, this book argues, is neither inevitable nor determined; militant, democratic forms of unionism are possible in the United States; and collective bargaining does.