Fitch, Robert. Solidarity for Sale: How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America's Promise. New York: PublicAffairs, 2006. 412 pages.

A labor union member since age 15, Robert Fitch has taught at Cornell and New York University. His basic point in this book is that the history of the labor movement in the U.S. is one of thorough-going corruption. It's so bad that a 2005 Harris Poll showed that even most union households disapproved of American unions. Corruption is the reason. It's also the one thing that no one wants to talk about.

Fitch gets very specific. He looks at the AFL-CIO, the AFSCME, and the Teamsters, with particular attention to what goes on in certain local affiliates. Even apart from the Mafia and pension-fund pilfering, it seems that the various reform movements that occasionally spring up are powerless to change anything. In his concluding chapter Fitch offers ideas on how to restore the U.S. labor movement. What's needed is real democracy and the accountability of the leadership, within the unions themselves. Compared to unions in Europe, where workers can take longer vacations, get sick, and become pregnant without penalty, the American situation is dismal. As this review is written two years later, it's also beginning to look like the middle class in America is under serious pressure while the rich get richer, at the same time that Europe is becoming economically stronger.
ISBN 1-891620-72-X

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