It's always nice when a box of books with your name on them arrives in the mail. From organizing a book store to mounting a general strike, this book tells you the how and why. $28 from Yale.
Nelson Lichtenstein
@nelsonlichtenstein.bsky.social
Historian, sometime journalist, retired actually
From Nelson Lichtenstein: Jews in the American Labor Movement: The Bundist Legacy www.derspekter.org/jews-in-the-...
Jews in the American Labor Movement: The Bundist Legacy
What Bundist influence on American labor history can teach a new generation of Jewish workers
derspekter.org
Here is a deep dive into UAW internal politics on the eve of its June convention: jacobin.com/2026/05/uaw-...
The UAW’s Reform Process Is Being Put to the Test
When Shawn Fain was elected UAW president in 2023, hopes were high that he could reshape America’s most important industrial union. His successes have been undeniable, but they haven’t come without in...
jacobin.com
Here is a Haymarket video in which I interview Andrew Stone Higgins, editor of From the Free Speech Movement to the Factory Floor: A Collective History of the International Socialists. Twenty-six contributors were active in the 1960s and 1970s. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf2R...
From the Free Speech Movement to the Factory Floor
YouTube video by Haymarket Books
youtube.com
Here is a discussion, with Martin Di Caro, of what neoliberalism still means and what is coming after. historyasithappens.supercast.com/subscriber_v...
History As It Happens – Neoliberalism, Revisited
historyasithappens.supercast.com
Here is another Julian Zelizer interview with a member of what he calls "Their Generation:" ie old historians from the 1960s and 1970s. In this case it is me, Nelson Lichtenstein. open.substack.com/pub/julianze...
Their Generation
Nelson Lichtenstein
open.substack.com
Here's a provocative book on how to organize a union: www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Organized Labor at a Crossroads
How can unions adapt to a new landscape of work?
thenation.com
LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History@laborlawchajournal.bsky.social · last yr.What shaped Mike Davis’s fierce critique of American capitalism? In a powerful tribute, Nelson Lichtenstein @nelsonlichtenstein.bsky.social maps Davis’s journey from New Left Review to City of Quartz and beyond. Read in LABOR: doi.org/10.1215/1547...
What shaped Mike Davis’s fierce critique of American capitalism? In a powerful tribute, Nelson Lichtenstein @nelsonlichtenstein.bsky.social maps Davis’s journey from New Left Review to City of Quartz and beyond. Read in LABOR: doi.org/10.1215/1547...
If you are interested in the fascinating and provocative career of Mike Davis you might find this retrospective on his work of interest. read.dukeupress.edu/labor/articl...
Mike Davis: The Road to City of Quartz and Beyond
Abstract. This essay explores the historiographic ideas and political experiences that influenced the work of Mike Davis, the prolific Marxist historian who died in 2022. His first two books, Prisoner...
read.dukeupress.edu
Leftists are now using the word "siblings" rather than "brothers and sisters" when addressing fellow unionists, activists, and movement people. I can see the gender logic, but siblings has little punch. How about "comrades?" That links speaker, writer, and audience in a common, fighting endeavor.
Why did corporatism take root in postwar Germany but not in the U.S.? In the first article of this special issue, @nelsonlichtenstein.bsky.social explores how both countries shared surprising similarities in the 1940s–50s—before diverging sharply in labor relations models. doi.org/10.1215/1547...
Here's an article I just published in LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History. A bit relevant to contemporary labor and left discussions over "sectoral bargaining." read.dukeupress.edu/labor/articl...
Why No Corporatism in the United States? American Versus German Models of Industrial Relations in the Early Postwar Era | Labor | Duke University Press
read.dukeupress.edu
Samir Sonti and I have just edited a collection of essays on the labor movement derived from Dissent Magazine's 70 year archive. Here are some thoughts on how we can use that history today. thenewpress.com/blog/author-...
70 Years On: How We’ve Thought About the Unions | The New Press
By Nelson Lichtenstein, co-author of Labor’s Partisans: Essential Writings on the Union Movement from the 1950s to Today Labor’s Partisans is a retrospective on the evolution of the labor movement, as...
thenewpress.com
I am not one to find hopeful straws in the wind, but the Bernie/AOC set of rallies do seem to portend a tide of popular opposition to Trumpism. The Denver rally was his largest, ever. Notable has been his anti-oligarchy theme, which can be mobilized against a faction inside the Democratic Party.
My take on the how and why of a new union movement, even in these times. jacobin.com/2025/02/unio...
Unionizing the “Cultural Apparatus”
Don’t mourn the professional-managerial class — organize it.
jacobin.com
Trump is showing us who's on our side. Pretty much everyone. “They have built our coalition for us by virtue of the wide range of attacks by race, class, gender, legal status and more." From @lfelizleon.bsky.social @inthesetimesmag.bsky.social inthesetimes.com/article/labo...
It’s Time for a United Front to Take on Billionaire Rule
The super rich are in command, as Donald Trump and Elon Musk run a rampage on the working class. To stop them, the labor movement needs to lead.
inthesetimes.com
Can we reconstruct a socialist educational experience? History may offer some guidance jacobin.com/2025/02/soci...
The Left Needs Its “Schools of Enlightenment and Revolution”
Throughout the entire history of left-wing and working-class organizing in the United States, the participation in and building of institutions of political education has been key.
jacobin.com
“What’s past is prologue.” – Roger Stone To understand 2025, go back to the #Nineties. Read my review of @lioneltrolling.bsky.social’s “When the Clock Broke” and @nelsonlichtenstein.bsky.social and Judith Stein’s “A Fabulous Failure” to learn why. #USPolitics www.phenomenalworld.org/reviews/back...
Back to the ‘90s | Henry Tonks
On Ganz’s “When the Clock Broke” and Lichtenstein and Stein’s “A Fabulous Failure”
phenomenalworld.org
Here is the latest Labor and Working-Class History Newsletter. It is a post-mortem on the November elections. Many good interventions, including one that I put together on why the Biden Industrial policy initiatives had so little political impact. mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#in...
News reports say that tennis champion Novak Djokovic supports student protesters in his native Serbia. For years he has been or allowed himself to be identified with the nationalist and undemocratic ruling regime. Now I might cheer for him at the next match.
the venerable @nelsonlichtenstein.bsky.social identified this anti competitive behavior in his study of Walmart so many years ago.. glad to see the FTC is finally taking action
Stacy Mitchell@stacyfmitchell.bsky.social · 2y ago1. Big news! The FTC took action today to end Walmart’s stranglehold on the grocery market. The agency filed suit against Pepsi for giving illegal and unfair price advantages to Walmart while charging competing grocery retailers higher prices.
Why was this post not filled 50 years ago? And should not all NR reporters be “class” reporters?
Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 2y agoThe New Republic is hiring a Class Politics reporter
This is excellent! Either Be a Determined Opposition or Be a Loser portside.org/2024-12-20/e...
Either Be a Determined Opposition or Be a Loser
Democrats may be in the minority, but they are not yet an opposition. What’s the difference?
portside.org
Our Fragile Juggernaut episode on labor in World War II is here, with the legendary @nelsonlichtenstein.bsky.social. What happens when you get full employment, price controls, mass migration to cities, and the integration of labor into the total war mobilization? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
War
Podcast Episode · Haymarket Originals: Fragile Juggernaut · S1 E17 · 1h 57m
podcasts.apple.com
Our collection will not be officially out until February 2025 but Publisher's Weekly seems to like it: www.publishersweekly.com/9781620978818
Labor’s Partisans: Essential Writings on the Union Movement from the 1950s to Today by
Seventy years of reporting capture the ebb and flow of American labor power in this robust collection of articles from Dissent, ...
publishersweekly.com