Strike Back: Using the Militant Tactics of Labor's Past to Reignite Public Sector Unionism Today

by Joe Burns

During the 1960s and 1970s, teachers, sanitation workers and many other public employees rose up to demand collective bargaining rights in one of the greatest upsurges in labor history. These workers were able to transform the nature of public employment, winning union recognition for millions and ultimately forcing reluctant politicians to pass laws allowing for collective bargaining and even the right to strike. Strike Back uncovers this history of militancy to provide tactics for a new generation of public employees facing unprecedented attacks on their labor rights.

Genres: Labor, Nonfiction, History

188 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 17, 2014

Reviews

[Joe Iosbaker]

Like his first book, Joe Burns makes a convincing argument that only the strike can bring back the power of organized labor in the public sector. In recent weeks, the actions by non-unionized teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and elsewhere are helping make his case.

[Lauren]

originally read: dec 29, 2022
reread: feb 13, 2024

[Brock]

"In a remarkable shifting of blame, public employees have been targeted as the cause of the nation's fiscal problems, rather than the Wall Street profiteers who plunged the US into the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s... In this hostile environment, understanding the incredible history of public employee militancy is a matter of survival for today's public sector unions." (p. 13)

[Owen Frassetto]

The main thing I learned from this book was that public sector strikes are primarily political matters and must use political leverage, while private sector strikes are primarily economic and must use economic leverage. Learning about police strikes was interesting, but I think the author failed to thoroughly explain the difference in class position and class interests between cops and workers in Capitalist society. This read to me as a liberal error from an author who I had previously appreciated for not shying away from Marxism.