The Era Was Lost: The Rise and Fall of New York City's Rank-and-File Rebels

Glenn Dyer

ISBN 10: 1469682060 / ISBN 13: 9781469682068

Published by The University of North Carolina Press, 2024

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # B9781469682068

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Era Was Lost: The Rise and Fall of New York City's Rank-and-File Rebels
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1469682060
• ISBN 13: 9781469682068
• Binding: Paperback / softback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 526 grams

About this title

Synopsis

An exciting yet relatively unknown episode in American labor history took place in New York City between 1965 and 1975. Rank-and-file members of numerous unions caught a “strike fever” as they challenged the entrenched power of some of the country’s most powerful politicians, employers, and union leaders in a wave of contract rejections, wildcat strikes, and electoral campaigns.
Workers in unions across New York wanted more than better contracts: they contested control of the work process, racism on the job, and workers' place in America’s socioeconomic hierarchy while implicitly and explicitly demanding greater democratic control of their representative organizations. Some initial challenges were effective and succeeded in delivering better contracts and unseating undemocratic leaders. However, those early successes were short-lived.

Glenn Dyer traces the way workers were met with employer recalcitrance and union attacks that proved too powerful to organize against. In the face of this resistance, workers retreated into a survivalist attitude of accommodation and resignation, contributing to the decline of social democratic New York and working-class power in the city. Ultimately, Dyer argues, the failures of the rank-and-file organizing efforts in New York City, which was the biggest center of organized labor in the country, shows how stunted workers' aspirations and numerous defeats not only uprooted the foundations of New York’s uniquely social democratic polity but also ushered in a national era of increased working-class subservience that has resonance today.

About the Author

Glenn Dyer is a lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy at Kennesaw State University.