Power in Coalition: Strategies for Strong Unions and Social Change

Colleagues,

On my first hearing of this new book from Amanda Tattersall I thought that it was the first tract (of many to come no doubt) proselytising on the virtues of the ramshackle coalition that fronts itself as the current government.

Actually what we have instead is a first class comparative analysis (US, Canada, Australia) of what it takes to make the intersection of labour movement growth and the achievement of wider social goals possible.

I have to honestly admit a usual disinclination on my part to read material on strategies to renew/revitalise labour movements when the message is from any one of the 3 countries covered by the new book, with a slight exception for Canada, but I am happy to give this the thumbs up.

My interest in the book stems firstly from the fact that the author brings a significant labour movement pedigree to the literature on social movement unionism, and that the case studies provide a long-term root and branch analysis of workers in long-term struggle in healthcare for example.

I won't go on at length about the book other than to say that you can get it from the labourstart bookstore using the link below and that there is a really good blog that Amanda runs - see link on right.

http://ssl30.pair.com/unionist/ccp7/index.php?sid=8jk9z6i17h859vi3y8zco3j83wmi2l0w&app=ecom&ns=prodsearchp&ecom--prodsearch--string=power+in+coalition

Ian