State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence

[flaps] From steel workers, Teamsters, and coal miners to teachers, actors and civil servants, union members once accounted for more than one-third of the American workforce. At a mere twelve-percent, union membership today is a shadow of what it once was. What happened to organized labor in America and what can be done to restore it to its role of the defender of middle-class values and economic wellbeing? Award-winning investigative reporter Philip Dine takes us on a riveting journey through America's cities and back roads, its factories and union halls, to answer those questions. From the health care crisis to massive job flight overseas, from rampant home foreclosures to illegal immigration, he clearly shows how virtually every major economic, political and social trend impacting our way of life is tied to the state of America's unions. Combining a journalist's eye for human detail with expert analysis, Dine offers first-hand accounts of the union members striving to make their voices heard in a political landscape increasingly shaped by corporate interests, including how: _The women of Delta Pride-a major player in the multi-billion-dollar catfish industry-went up against generations of racial and economic prejudice _Iowa's firefighters union flexed its collective muscle to score a major political victory in the 2004 caucus _The American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO played a key role in bringing down the Iron Curtain _The Teamsters enlisted community support to temporarily stop a move by Mr. Coffee to relocate to Mexico and saved nearly four hundred manufacturing jobs in the Cleveland area A reporter who has covered labor for two decades, Dine not only details where labor has gone wrong, but he offers sage advice on how it can adapt to a global economy to recover the ground it lost over the last quarter century. [back cover] ENDORSEMENTS TO COME. May need to delete all this copy. What happened to the American dream-and how can we get it back? Massive layoffs, the exporting of jobs overseas, the national health care crisis, wage stagnation, mounting home foreclosures, runaway personal debt...not since the Great Depression has it been harder for the average American to maintain a middle class existence. The American dream is in serious danger of fading out. And, as award-winning journalist Philip Dine illustrates in this powerful book, behind the waning of the dream is the grim reality of the unraveling of the labor movement in America. In State of the Unions, Dine offers a riveting account of the systematic dismantling of American unions and the monumental impact that has had on our economy, politics, health, and way of life. Drawing upon his twenty years of experience covering the labor beat in the US and abroad for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he brings you inside the lives of the people at the heart of the struggle to revive the labor movement in America and offers inspiring in-depth accounts of recent grass-roots union victories. He explains why and how labor must adapt to the new world order if it hopes to survive and offers valuable pointers on what it can do to better communicate its message and shape the political agenda.Dine, Philip M. is the author of 'State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence', published 2007 under ISBN 9780071488440 and ISBN 0071488448.