Why did Ellen love this book?
I lived through some of the events that Lane Windham describes in her super-readable and super-informative account of how new types of workers challenged both their employers and the American labor movement to listen to them and improve their work lives.
Shipyard workers, department store workers, office workers – these groups figured out new ways to raise their voices and “knock on the door” to make themselves heard. The result was big changes in their own lives, in the workplace, and in America’s unions.
Today, we’re seeing a surge of labor organizing just as groundbreaking as the initiatives Lane Windham describes. This made the book especially relevant for me.
2 authors picked Knocking on Labor's Door as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
The power of unions in workers' lives and in the American political system has declined dramatically since the 1970s. In recent years, many have argued that the crisis took root when unions stopped reaching out to workers and workers turned away from unions. But here Lane Windham tells a different story. Highlighting the integral, often-overlooked contributions of women, people of color, young workers, and southerners, Windham reveals how in the 1970s workers combined old working-class tools--like unions and labor law--with legislative gains from the civil and women's rights movements to help shore up their prospects. Through close-up studies of workers'…