book review

[Michael Yates <mikey+@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following review appears in this month's "Labor Notes." (subs to
this fine monthly paper are $20:  Labor Education & Research Project,
7435 Michigan Ave., Detroit, MI 48210; www.labornotes.org).

Michael Yates


        Book Review

A Short History of the U.S. Working Class: From Colonial Times to the
Twentieth-first Century.  By Paul Le Blanc. Humanity Books, 1999.  205
pp. $17.95 paper.  To order call 800/421-0351.

Reviewed by Michael Yates


        Teacher and long-time labor activist, Paul Le Blanc, has done something
quite remarkable in this exceptional book.  Not only has he digested and
understood more than 300 years of U.S. labor history and more than 100
years of labor history scholarship, he has also managed to write about
this in a manner and style that will engage the workers who actually
make the history.  That is, this is a book not just for scholars or even
for students but for the working class.  Such books are rare, and
therefore it is important to publicize them and encourage their use as
much as we can.

        In a mere 133 pages of narrative, Paul Le Blanc takes us from the
European conquest of the New World and the theft of the lands of the
native peoples to the introduction of slavery, the first revolution
against British colonialism, the beginnings of the working class, the
Civil War (or second American revolution as he calls it), the industrial
revolution, labor revolts, the rise of the  AFL, the formation of
radical labor organizations and political parties (the IWW, the
Socialist Party, various communist parties), the Great Depression and
the CIO, World War Two and its conservative effects upon the labor
movement, the Cold War, the postwar prosperity, economic stagnation and
the collapse of the AFL-CIO, the civil rights and women's movements, and
the recent attempts to reorganize and rebuild the labor movement.

        Throughout his book, Le Blanc weaves several cogent themes.  He
believes and he demonstrates that it is the working class majority that
actually makes our history.  Workers build our roads, mine our coal,
teach our children, heal our sick, and in doing so create our society.
Modern history, then, must begin with the workers.  When we start with
workers, we see right away that it is their struggle for a better world
that generates social change.  In the United States, for example, the
arduous and often dangerous efforts of ordinary working men and women
have given meaning and sometimes  reality to our hallowed notions of
freedom and democracy.  Without the fight of slaves and then of black
workers, we would have had no second American revolution and no civil
rights movements; without the heroism of workers, we would have no
unions and all of the good things they bring to us.  Workers have, of
course, often been divided in many ways, by religion, by race, by
gender, and by sexual orientation, but when they have managed to
overcome these, our society has come closest to realizing the ideals our
leaders are always talking about but seldom defending.

        The radical optimism Le Blanc displays throughout his book is rooted in
an understanding that the U.S. labor movement has had far more failures
than successes.  Therefore, it is necessary to examine these failures
for clues as to why certain paths were chosen by workers over
alternatives.  He finds that successes often could not be sustained
because of the unwillingness of white workers to support people of color
and men to show common cause with women, as well as the willingness of
labor's leaders to wage war on working class radicals, typically the
very people who were trying to build a radically democratic and
"rainbow" labor movement.  He implies that only such a broad movement
can challenge the seemingly unassailable power of capital.

        Today's labor movement is a far cry from the one Paul Le Blanc hopes
for; it is clotted with an entrenched, undemocratic, and occasionally
corrupt bureaucracy.  The author is hopeful that the new leaders in the
AFL-CIO, pushed and prodded by the ranks below, will at least open up
enough space for the rest of us to forge a "Third American Revolution,"
an upheaval aimed at "ending the power of wealthy corporations and
consolidating a radically democratic social order."

        In addition to his compact text, the author has included five valuable
resources for his readers: a fine bibliographic essay, including works
of fiction, art, and photography; an extensive annotated listing of
films and videos (some of which are referred to in the test); an
exceptionally useful and detailed glossary of terms; a time line of U.S.
history; and a chronology of U.S. labor history.

        One of the things I liked best about this book is the beautiful excerpt
from Carl Sandburg's poem, The People Yes.  Sandburg says, "Time is a
great teacher, Who can live without hope?"  Paul Le Blanc's book is also
a great teacher, and it, too, gives us hope.