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ROCHESTER CLC SESQUICENTENNIAL
COMMEMORATIVE PUBLICATION
Cover text:
“Just as the American labor movement faces both external and internal
challenges that call our very existence into question, along comes "All
These Years of Effort" to remind us that our future, like our past, lies
in the grassroots solidarity and activism that has always been the
foundation of our nation's central labor bodies. Here's hoping this
history of one such labor council sparks similar celebrations of the
lost or forgotten stories of worker resistance, struggle and victories
across America.”
—Joslyn N. Williams President,
Metropolitan Washington (DC) Council, AFL-CIO
“Even before the first national labor federations, workers in many American
communities formed central labor bodies that brought together workers across
the boundaries between unions, industries, and trades. Workers have
maintained those institutions into the twenty-first century. Yet their
history is too little known either to scholars or to the communities of
which they are a part.
“Thanks to the authors’ hard work and their discovery of rich sources of
documentation, All These Years of Effort: 150 Years of Rochesterís Central
Labor Unions provides a fascinating and unique account of one cityís central
labor bodies. It deserves the attention of labor historians, local
historians, and members of the Rochester labor community alike.
“All These Years of Effort reveals above all a “culture
of solidarity” that
goes beyond individuals unions, crafts, and industries. This culture was
manifested in labor newspapers and radio shows; promotion of union labels
and boycotts of non-union products; labor education programs; fights for
jobs, health, housing, and social justice; political action; and union
organizing. When the local Community Chest excluded organized labor from
its governing bodies during World War II, Rochester’s labor councils
protested “donation without representation” and organized their own United
Labor Chest—demanding respect from the wider community and eventually
winning a seat at the table. When the Rochester city government fired
workers who were trying to organize a union, the rival AFL and CIO labor
councils joined together in a general strike that saved them their jobs.
“Today, individual unions often lack the strength to
defend their members’ needs by themselves. The growing numbers of workers
who donít have unions
find they are almost powerless in the face of giant global corporations.
And the problems workers face often involve not just their immediate
employer but the community and government as well. Workers in different
unions and sectors need each other’s support just to address the problems
of daily life. This book tells how working people have built and rebuilt their
culture of solidarity over a century-and-a-half—and thereby provides
insight and inspiration for today and tomorrow.
—Jeremy Brecher, Author of Strike! and History
From Below;
co-author and
editor of many books on globalization,
union-community coalitions, and labor
history.”
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