American Workers, American Unions

When published in 1986, "American Workers, American Unions" traced the contentious relationships among workers, unions, business and the state from World War I through the mid-1980s. In this revised edition Robert Zieger makes use of recent scholarship and bibliographical material to provide a detailed examination of the key issues of the 1980s and 1990s. Zieger shows how economic change, the unions unresponsiveness, and anti-union public and corporate policies have combined to erode workers standards and labour's influence. From the PATCO strike of 1981 through the bitter 1993 debate over NAFTA, unionists have struggled unsuccessfully to halt declining membership and assert labour's influence in the political arena. Zieger reviews popular notions of "alternatives as means of achieving fair work place representation, but he concludes that strong unions remain essential in a democratic society. He proposes that labour's responsiveness to the concerns of women, African Americans, and low-wage workers offers hope for the embattled labour movement.