About
During the 1960s and 1970s, teachers, sanitation workers and many other public employees rose up to demand collective bargaining rights in one of the greatest upsurges in labor history. These workers were able to transform the nature of public employment, winning union recognition for millions and ultimately forcing reluctant politicians to pass laws allowing for collective bargaining and even the right to strike. Strike Back uncovers this history of militancy to provide tactics for a new generation of public employees facing unprecedented attacks on their labor rights.
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Reviews
"Joe Burns shows us that labor unions searching for new strategies and tactics to reverse this escalating trend need look no further than the all-but-forgotten labor history of the 1960s and '70s. This book provides a thought provoking historical look back at how public employee unions took an aggressive and fresh approach to fight back and build support during that tumultuous era."
Larry Hanley, International President, Amalgamated Transit Union, AFL-CIO/CLC
"Joe Burns' account of the public sector labor breakthroughs in the 1960s and '70s provides a timely reminder of what it will take to defend and extend past union gains that are now greatly endangered. Too many public employee unions have forgotten their own history and/or kept their own members in the dark about it. Strike Back is the perfect cure for such organizational memory loss!"
Steve Early
"Nobody better understands the vital role of the strike or the injustice of anti-strike laws than Joe Burns. If you think that economic inequality is a problem in the United States, read this book."
James Gray Pope, Professor of Law & Sidney Reitman Scholar, Rutgers University