by Jamie Sanderson
FreakOutNation.com
November 18th, 2012
Have
you ever felt your blood boil at work but lacked the tools to fight
back and win? Or have you acted together with your co-workers, made
progress, but wondered what to do next? If you are in a union, do you
find that the union operates top-down just like the boss and ignores the
will of its members?
Labor Law for the Rank and Filer: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law is a guerrilla legal handbook for workers in a precarious global economy.
Blending
cutting-edge legal strategies for winning justice at work with a theory
of dramatic social change from below, Staughton Lynd and Daniel Gross
deliver a practical guide for making work better while re-invigorating
the labor movement.
Labor Law for the Rank and Filer
demonstrates how a powerful model of organizing called “Solidarity
Unionism” can help workers avoid the pitfalls of the legal system and
utilize direct action to win. This new revised and expanded edition
includes new cases governing fundamental labor rights as well as an
added section on Practicing Solidarity Unionism. This new section
includes chapters discussing the hard-hitting tactic of working to rule;
organizing under the principle that no one is illegal, and building
grassroots solidarity across borders to challenge neoliberalism, among
several other new topics. Illustrative stories of workers’ struggles
make the legal principles come alive.
Praise:
“Workers’
rights are under attack on every front. Bosses break the law every day.
For 30 years Labor Law for the Rank and Filer has been arming workers
with an introduction to their legal rights (and the limited means to
enforce them) while reminding everyone that real power comes from
workers’ solidarity.” –Alexis Buss, former general secretary-treasurer
of the IWW
“As valuable to working persons as any hammer, drill,
stapler, or copy machine, Labor Law for the Rank and Filer is a damn
fine tool empowering workers who struggle to realize their basic dignity
in the workplace while living through an era of unchecked corporate
greed. Smart, tough, and optimistic, Staughton Lynd and Daniel Gross
provide nuts and bolts information to realize on-the-job rights while
showing us that another world is not only possible but
inevitable.” –John Philo, legal director, Maurice and Jane Sugar Law
Center for Economic and Social Justice
“Some things are too
important to leave to so called “experts”: our livelihoods, our dignity
and our rights. In this book, Staughton Lynd and Daniel Gross have
provided us with a very necessary, empowering, and accessible tool for
protecting our own rights as workers.” –Nicole Schulman,
co-editor Wobblies! A Graphic History and World War 3 Illustrated.
“Lynd
and Gross are to be commended for developing a useful resource not just
for shop stewards, but for every wage-earner engaged in the struggle to
improve the condition of working people.” —Gordon Simmons, UE Local 170
“For
those readers who want to strengthen workers rights and improve our
overall quality of life, or for those who may see labor organizing as
also a strategy to achieve not only the vision of a participatory
economy but a participatory society as well then this book should
definitely be in your arsenal.” —Michael McGehee, Z Magazine
“This
book is essential for beginning organizers and those who are
continually in the trenches. From the perspective of working people for
working people, this beautiful, fact-filled read is truly a hands-on
guide for gaining and protecting labor rights.” — Jamie Sanderson, FreakOutNation
About Staughton Lynd:
Staughton
Lynd taught American history at Spelman College and Yale University. He
was director of Freedom Schools in the 1964 Mississpppi Freedom Summer.
An early leader of the movement against the Vietnam War, he was
blacklisted and unable to continue as an academic. He then became a
lawyer, and in this capacity has assisted rank-and-file workers and
prisoners for the past thirty years. He has written, edited, or
co-edited with his wife Alice Lynd more than a dozen books.
About Daniel Gross:
Daniel
Gross is an organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World and a
co-founder of the first union in the United States at the Starbucks
Coffee Co. Mr. Gross is also the founding director of Brandworkers
International, a new non-profit organization protecting and advancing
the rights of retail and food employees across the supply chain. When
it comes to workers’ rights, the New York Times has called Mr. Gross,
“earnest, articulate, and dogmatic to a flaw.”
He has been
arrested for his activism and is currently involved in litigation
against the New York Police Department and other governmental defendants
for his unlawful arrest at a labor protest in front of the Starbucks
store where he was a barista. He is quoted frequently in major media
outlets including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and National
Public Radio and writes regularly for Counterpunch.org. Mr. Gross serves
on the steering committee of the
National Lawyers Guild Labor & Employment Committee.
Back to Staughton Lynd’s Author Page | Back to Daniel Gross’s Author Page
