A riveting account of labor's bottom-up resurgence, providing a roadmap for workers, unions, and social movements to win widely.
After decades of union decline and rising inequality, an inspiring wave of workplace organizing—from Starbucks stores to Amazon warehouses to southern auto factories—has thrust unionization into the national spotlight. By analyzing this surge and telling the stories of the courageous workers driving it forward, We Are the Union makes a case for how to overcome business as usual in both corporate America and organized labor.
Eric Blanc shows that recent struggles have developed a new organizing model, worker-to-worker unionism, which builds scalable power by giving rank-and-filers an unprecedented degree of leadership. Through digital tools and ambitious campaigns, young worker leaders are turning the labor movement back into a movement—and they're winning. Rigorously researched and compellingly written, We Are the Union illustrates how this new grassroots approach can exponentially grow the power of working people to overcome economic exploitation, racial injustice, and authoritarianism at work and beyond.
Eric Blanc is Assistant Professor of Labor Studies at Rutgers University, an organizer trainer in the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers' Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics, and director of the Worker to Worker Collaborative.
"We Are the Union is an urgently needed blueprint for how we beat the billionaire class. Every worker should read this book."—Shawn Fain, President of the United Auto Workers
"To overcome MAGA extremism and corporate rule, Eric Blanc shows how unions can fully harness the power of rank-and-file leadership. This book should transform the labor movement—and the fight for democracy at home and abroad."—Sara Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants–CWA
"Though Blanc's emphasis is on how to organize on the scale necessary to qualitatively build worker power, this book is really about taking a cold look at the challenges workers face in the twenty-first century in organizing. Blanc does not avoid the hard questions and issues, but takes them straight on. Reading this book immediately catalyzed ideas and scenarios for me in thinking about new organizing. Bravo!"—Bill Fletcher Jr., trade unionist and coauthor of Solidarity Divided
"A timely, powerful, and optimistic assessment of the recent labor uptick. Based on extensive new research, Blanc shows that young workers have forged a new model of union organizing, facilitated by social media, that offers a promising path forward for the beleaguered US labor movement."—Ruth Milkman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, City University of New York
"In this extraordinary moment of possibility for the labor movement, Blanc has penned an essential roadmap for how workers can go from possibility to revolutionary power."—Krystal Ball, cohost of Breaking Points
336 pp.6 x 9Illus: 22 b/w illustrations, 7 tables
9780520394919$24.95|£21.00Paper
Feb 2025