Ravenswood

by Tom Juravich and Kate Bronfenbrenner

Book Overview

Over the past two decades, Americans have seen their workplaces downsized and streamlined, their jobs out-sourced, sped up, and, all too often, eliminated. Unions have seemed powerless to defend their members, with big defeats in the strikes at PATCO, Eastern Airlines, International Paper, and Hormel. Ravenswood recounts how the United Steelworkers of America, in a battle waged over an aluminum plant in West Virginia, proved that organized labor...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801486661
• ISBN13: 9780801486661
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: ILR Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

top notch

The writers provide excellent research and history on RAVENSWOOD, detailing convincingly how workers' battled back against rapacious employers. This is a timeless book, relevant for all times. Bronfenbrenner and Juravich, as usual, provide excellent research and analysis of one of the many struggles to save the steel industry in the U.S. Bravo.

Thank God for the Truth

As the daughter of a 5668 lockedout employee, who was really too young to fully understand the total impact of the lockout, I looked forward to this book. It has allowed me to have a better grasp of what it was really like for my parents and all of the other Steelworkers and their families. I have come to appreciate what it is to be UNION! This book gave me some suprises that I did not anticipate (PIC!! You know who you are!!!) It also brought me to tears on a numer of occasions. I know the fear, depression, hopelessness that all of these members felt. Bless our union! You truly held "ONE DAY LONGER" than that "Boyle on your Back" and prevailed!! BTW my dad did not make it through the 1st chapter before putting it down in tears, and never picked it up again, because it hits home that hard. Truly a must for anyone involved with this dispute or anyone involved in one of their own. Congratulations 5668

Union Until I Die!

True-life tale of the Steelworkers victory in Ravenswood West Virginia. I lived through this event growing up, my father one of the proud members of Local 5668. This book is an excellent read, informative and entertaining. Excellent text for US History courses. I also recommend the film "Matewan."

A must read for those interested in Labor's struggles...

This is a book about a strike against an aluminum plant in West Virginia by the United Steelworkers labor union in the early nineties. First, this is a genuinely good read (just based on the story....) with characters (all be they real...) that you root for and others that you shy away from (Emmitt Boyle and Marc Rich are drawn as evil incarnate....) Aside from this, this book serves as a record of a number of things: 1) a model for how a small-town labor struggle could be conducted on a broad-based front; 2) the ways in which capital does not exist in a locality so much as scattered throughout the world; and 3) an illustration of how labor stoppages in small towns have evolved from the days of Pinkerton thugs and picket lines to something more conplex and... well, modern....I'd really recommend this book to about anyone but, well, honestly, only people really into labor are ever going to read this. This is a really good book....

Hope for Labor

During the Reagan era of the National Labor Relations Board, the labor climate in America was decidedly pro-employer. Yet even against that bias, the workers at the Ravenswood Aluminum Company were able to prevail against Emmett Boyle and his cohorts. This victory resulted from a combination of the egregious conduct of Boyle et al and the tenacious protests of the Steelworkers. Juravich and Bronfenbrenner detail how the workers built a successful campaign which capitalized on the gaffes committed by RAC and exposed the criminality of ownership's conduct. The authors follow this campaign as it progressed in the United States and abroad. The narrative is extremely readable, with character insights into the leading forces on both sides of the issue. The narrative bogs down a little when detailing the trek across Europe, but it does not become slow enough to make one set the book aside.In an era when the grandchildren of union workers question the need for unions, and at times even lay blame at the feet of unions, this book is a reminder of the evils which would otherwise be unchecked, were it not for effective labor organizations. If not unions, what would be the check on the conduct of management? Will quarterly reports to shareholders, who are only concerned with profits, insure worker safety? Will often unenforced criminal laws mold the conduct of people like Emmett Boyle? Will OSHA regulations insure fairness? Is it possible that our tort system will protect the economically disadvantaged workers in battles against the deep pockets of management? Only an effective organized labor movement can adequately protect today's workers from abuses inherent in the system. Without being obnoxiously ideological, the authors powerfully convey this sentiment.