A review of Breaking the War Habit: The Debate Over Militarism in American Education, by Seth Kershner, Scott Harding, and Charles Howlett.
Author: Steve Early
STEVE EARLY is a labor journalist, lawyer, organizer, or union representative active since since 1972. For 27 years, Early was a Boston-based staff member of the Communications Workers of America. He finished his CWA career in 2007, after serving as administrative assistant to the vice-president of CWA District 1, which represents more than 160,000 workers in New York, New England, and New Jersey.
Two Sixties’ Radicals Recall Fighting Times in U.S. Labor
A review of Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War (PM Press, 2022) by Jon Melrod and Troublemaker: Saying No to Power by Frank Emspak (available at Amazon books).
U.K. War Resister Reflects On Troubled State of “Veteranhood”
Military service in the U.S. and the U.K. promised more than it ever delivered for many post-9/11 volunteers.
Three Authors Look at Work's Devastation of Life
How Work Is Killing Us
Three authors—Jamie McCallum, Sarah Jaffe, and Eyal Press– have published important books that examine work and its discontents, in pre-pandemic form.
On Remembering Stanley Aronowitz
Brother Stanley Aronowitz was always ahead of the curve, with his criticism of the shortcomings of old labor and his envisioning of “a new workers movement” that might replace it.
How Contingent Faculty Organizing Can Succeed in Higher Education
Power Despite Precarity is not just a solid guide to best practices in day-to-day trade union work within higher education. It’s also a rousing call for the contingent faculty movement to embrace grassroots, rather than top-down, organizing.
A Mon Valley Memoir: Lessons From The Last Stand Of Steelworkers in Homestead
In his lively new memoir, Stout argues that younger activists still have much to learn from past rank-and-file struggles in blue-collar industries even if they are now entering workplaces in “a neo-liberal world.”
VoteVets for Buttigieg: Who’s Really Keeping Us in The Dark About Campaign Funding?
In a Democratic primary field that once featured four military veterans, only two are still marching toward the White House.
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s “anti-war” candidacy has sunk nearly out of sight, but Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, became . . .
How General Strike Rhetoric Became A City-Wide Reality
A review of Radical Seattle: The General Strike of 1919 by Cal Winslow (Monthly Review Press, 2020).
Rank-and-File Journalist Wins Presidency of NewsGuild/CWA in Re-Run Election
After a much contested election process, the largest union of journalists in North America has chosen a 32-year old reporter at the Los Angeles Times to be its new leader, in the U.S. and Canada.
Jon Schleuss helped win union recognition and a . . .
‘Other Than Honorable’? Veterans with ‘Bad Paper’ Seek Long Overdue Benefits
On Veterans Day this year, in a nation now reflexively thankful for military service of all kinds, nearly 500,000 former service members are not included in our official expressions of gratitude.
These forgotten men and women had the misfortune to leave . . .
The Irishman Cometh: Teamster History Hits the Big Screen (Again)
When I was working with the Teamster reform movement forty years ago, truck drivers concerned about union corruption had to proceed warily.
In the late 1970s, too many affiliates of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) were run by grifters or . . .
One Member/One Vote: CA Health Care Workers Show How To Endorse, Democratically
At the national, state, and even local level, union political endorsements are often made with insufficient membership involvement.
Union leaders and legislative/political directors like to get their favorite candidates endorsed, without too much debate or discussion.
Instead of giving every member a . . .
A GI Rebellion: When Soldiers Said No to War
Fifty years ago this fall, a campus upsurge turned opposition to the Vietnam War into a genuine mass movement.
On October 15, 1969, several million students, along with community-based activists, participated in anti-war events under the banner of the “Vietnam Moratorium.” . . .
A Plant Closing War, Viewed From Inside
Last winter, protesters wearing yellow vests commanded center stage in France. Their grassroots challenge to the neoliberal regime of President Emmanuel Macron drew on a long tradition of labor militancy, including factory closing fights. When these protesters still had blue . . .
Can the Military Be Reformed?
Six Unusual Veterans Ponder Active Duty and Its Aftermath
It happens all the time in small towns and big cities across the country. A young person from a poor or working-class family can’t find a good job or afford to pay for higher education. Other family members, a teacher, . . .
An Election Challenge: Time for Change at NewsGuild?
The 21,000-member NewsGuild, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), is a rarity in organized labor. It’s one of the few national unions that lets all members vote for its top officers, instead of choosing them at a convention . . .
A Trusteeship Diaspora: How SEIU’s Self-Inflicted Loss Became Labor’s Gain
Ten years ago this month, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) shot itself in the foot, big time.
The Housing Affordability Crisis and What Millennials Can do About It
Randy Shaw, Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. University of California Press, 2018. 304 pp.
When millennials head home for the holidays this month, many who are city dwellers will be hosted by parents or grand-parents whose housing is far more spacious and financially secure than their own. Even guests with well-paid jobs in relatively stable rental markets will cast an envious eye at the benefits of baby boomer house buying decades ago.
"They Count on You Not Knowing"
East Bay DSA Blows The Whistle On Corporate Dem Donor Class
Wealthy Bay Area investor David Crane is a leading promoter of the neoliberal agenda within the California Democratic Party. A former advisor to Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Crane is a widely-published critic of state and local tax initiatives, publicly-funded health care, public education, public employees and their pensions. He raises lots of money for “courageous” candidates willing to put “citizen interests” ahead of such “special interest” causes.
A Call Center Coup: Ex-Teamster Boots Riley Tackles Telemarketing And its Discontents
When I was a union rep, one of my most challenging assignments was assisting a Communications Workers of America (CWA) bargaining unit at a Boston-area telemarketing firm. Most CWA members in New England had call center jobs at the phone company, with good pensions, health insurance, and full-time salaries. As service reps, they fielded in-coming calls from customers with problems, questions, or new orders to place. In contrast, the telemarketing staff only interacted with the public, on behalf of various clients, via out-bound calling. Like the workers depicted in Boots Riley’s hilarious new film, Sorry to Bother You, they made cold calls to people who did not want to bothered, at dinner time or anytime, with a pitch for a new product, service, or donation to a political cause.
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