We Always Had a Union: The New York Hotel Workers' Union, 1912-1953 (Working Class in American History)

By: Shaun Richman

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Synopsis: One of New York City’s most powerful unions, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, AFL-CIO, represents almost 40,000 workers. Shaun Richman’s history places the labor organization within the context of American industrial and craft unionism and reveals how it came to influence politics and economic development in the city and beyond. From the start, New York’s organized hotel workers experimented with and adapted how they organized and governed members and related to other labor unions. Richman follows union fortunes from early IWW activity through the Communist-led affiliates of the American Federation of Labor in the 1920s and 1930s, the shaping of breakthrough negotiating strategies, and the postwar era. As Richman shows, workers adopted a radicalism and militancy seldom associated with an AFL organization while openly negotiating the Communist Party’s power and influence within the union, until the Party’s eclipse in the 1950s. An inspiring story of action and perseverance, We Always Had a Union profiles a foundational American labor union and offers lessons for today’s workers and organizers.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9780252088537
Related ISBNs:: 9780252046445
Publisher:: University of Illinois Press
Date of Addition:: 04/08/25
Copyrighted By:: the Board of Trusteesof the University of Illinois
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: History, Nonfiction, Travel, Business and Finance, Politics and Government
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.