Read Recently: “A Country that Works: Getting America Back on Track” by Andy Stern
Title: “A Country That Works”
Author: Andrew Stern.
Synopsis: Andy Stern is president of Service Employees International Union, which represents hospital and home care workers, janitors and security guards. SEIU is the fastest growing union in America. This book is his prognosis for how organized labor and corporations can work together to create a stronger, wealthier nation where “working people aren’t always getting the squeeze.”
Backstory: I heard Mr. Stern interviewed on Fresh Air and was impressed enough to buy his book.
Notes: A quick read, short, forceful, a few too many anecdotes. Mostly reads like a book-length Op-Ed piece.
Verdict: It’s clear Mr. Stern is good at what he does and the new 21st Century directions he seeks for labor (management-employee cooperation, international organizing, merit based internal advancement) are sorely overdue. But he never answers the fundamental question that hangs over this book like a downsizing: If corporations don’t play along, does any of it matter? What leverage do SEIU and its members really have over the employers? Striking and public embarassment have been around for a century and yet, according to Mr. Stern, the future for working people has gotten darker, not brighter. If his methods are the way forward, his refusal to acknowledge their conditional effectiveness is either arrogance or wishful thinking. I’m hoping for a third answer I haven’t thought of.
This is a fine book if you are interested in labor and the state of the American workplace. But you’ll probably finish it wishing there were more.