A History of America in Ten Strikes

This was fascinating and I'm embarrassed by just how little of it I knew beforehand, though in my defense it's been just about 20 years since I took AP US History. Anyway. I enjoyed this and learned a lot from it, and I appreciate how straightforward and clear-eyed Loomis is about organized labor - while he's clearly on the side of workers throughout, he's also definitely willing to point out where racism or sexism or just flat-out terrible leadership undermined the movement's ability to succeed. (Especially in the early chapters, I was continually amused by the clear disdain for the AFL/Samuel Gompers.)

I especially appreciated the chapter about slave resistance and rebellion before and during the Civil War, and the last two chapters about the PATCO strike and the rise of the SEIU and public sector unions. I would've liked a little more about things like the current wave of unionization among online workers and/or attempts to unionize gig workers like Uber drivers, but those may be too recent to have made this edition.

This book serves as a history of class warfare.

The state has always served at the behest of capital over the interests of the working class. Every inch of dignity won over the decades, centuries has been won with worker blood and sweat. Capitalists leverage the state's monopoly on violence as a literal bludgeon against workers fighting for a better life.

The greatest economic boom in this country coincided with the only 30 year period in US history where rising wages trended alongside productivity (1948-1979). What went wrong? The Red Scares nuked the real organizers and those still in charge became fat & happy without focusing on what their jobs actually were: To make sure workers have a seat at the table in deciding how the work gets done.

Then what happened? Ronald Reagan, NAFTA, outsourcing, deindustrialization, and the hollowing out of the working class. Now we have a larger wealth gap than before the Great Depression.

The most powerful tool the working class has to make change is revoking their labor. Those who seek to sabotage such efforts are not allies of the working class.

“Intersectionality without class consciousness is just Identity politics. Class consciousness without intersectionality is class reductionism. We need both. We have the same enemy.”

This isn't a review, this is a rant. Anyway, great book! Highly recommended.