Labor in America: A History

This book, designed to give a survey history of American labor from colonial times to the present, is uniquely well suited to speak to the concerns of today’s teachers and students. As issues of growing inequality, stagnating incomes, declining unionization, and exacerbated job insecurity have increasingly come to define working life over the last 20 years, a new generation of students and teachers is beginning to seek to understand labor and its place and ponder seriously its future in American life. Like its predecessors, this ninth edition of our classic survey of American labor is designed to introduce readers to the subject in an engaging, accessible way.

Keywords:

American Federation of Labor; Congress of Industrial Organizations; AFL-CIO; Labor; strikes; working class; labor-management relations; unions; organized labor; AFL; CIO; Teamsters; United Autoworkers; United Mine Workers; John L. Lewis; George Meany; New Deal; James Hoffa; unionism; industrialization; trade unions; craftsmen; skilled labor; unskilled labor; National Labor Union; Great Railroad Strike; Haymarket Riot; Great Depression; Colonial Labor; Knights of Labor; Business Unionism; Samuel Gompers; socialism; Industrial Workers of the World; Wobblies; Communist Party of America; Richard Trumka; alt-labor; worker centers; immigration; John Sweeney; Service Employees; working women; slavery; public sector unions; African American labor