The union makes us strong

by David T. Wellman

Based on three years of ethnographic research, this book takes a close look at one of the CIO unions that did not move from craft to business unionism: the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union's (ILWU) major longshore local (Local 10, San Francisco). American unionism looks quite different than conventional scholarly wisdom suggests when actual union practices are observed. One finds that in the ILWU, resistance to management's authority is collectively legitimated behavior, and explicitly acknowledged as good trade unionism. This case study suggests that American labor's trajectory is neither inevitable nor determined; that militant, democratic forms of unionism are possible in the United States; and that collective bargaining need not eliminate contests for control over the workplace. Under certain conditions, the contract is a bargain that reflects and reproduces fundamental disagreement; it is a document that states how production and conflict will proceed.