"We Are All Leaders"
The Alternative Unionism of the Early 1930s
Articulating a new vision of worker power
Paper – $25
978-0-252-06547-7
Publication Date
Paperback: 09/01/1996
About the Book
"We Are All Leaders" describes a kind of union qualitatively different from the bureaucratic business unions that make up the AFL-CIO today. From African American nutpickers in St. Louis, chemical and rubber workers in Akron, textile workers in the South, and bootleg miners in Pennsylvania to tenant farmers in the Mississippi Delta, packinghouse and garment workers in Minnesota, seamen in San Francisco, and labor party campaigns throughout the country, workers in the 1930s were experimenting with community-based unionism.Contributors draw on interviews with participants in the events described, first-person narratives, trade union documents, and other primary sources to tell what workers of the 1930s did. The alternative unionism of the 1930s was democratic, deeply rooted in mutual aid among workers in different crafts and work sites, and politically independent. The key to it was a value system based on egalitarianism. The cry, "We are all leaders!" resonated among rank-and-file activists. Their struggle, often ignored by historians, has much to teach us today about union organizing.
Contributors: Rosemary Feurer, Peter Rachleff, Janet Irons, Mark D. Naison, Eric Leif Davin, Elizabeth Faue, Michael Kozura, John Borsos, Stan Weir
About the Author
Staughton Lynd taught American history at Spelman College and Yale University. In 1964, he worked as director of Freedom Schools during Mississippi Freedom Summer and later became an attorney. His books include Doing History from the Bottom Up: On E.P. Thompson, Howard Zinn, and Rebuilding the Labor Movement from Below and Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism.Awards
• Winner, Bryant Spann Memorial Prize in Literature--AHA, 1997Related Titles
