Poor Workers' Unions

Poor People's Unions explores the ongoing shift in labor activism from the shop floor to the community. Focusing on the activism of minorities, immigrants, women, and the otherwise disenfranchised workers who have long been pushed to the sidelines in labor unions, Tait advances the idea that workers are not only the employed and largely skilled laborers previously organized in unions, but also the unemployed, those in low-wage work, and those who have been forced to work for less than minimum wage through the workfare programs in every state. An insider to labor organizing and participant in the infamous Pacifica Radio labor battles, Tait argues that labor organizing doesn't have to stay stuck in the dead-end legalistic and bureaucratic methods traditional unions have commonly relied on. Workers can, she proclaims, build the labor movement from below, utilizing inclusive social movement principles. around a broad range of issues, many of which are community-based, such as progressive welfare and wage policies, equal employment, and affirmative action, job creation, health and housing, and even global economic justice.