TEAMSTER POWER

by Farrell Dobbs ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 1973

The second of three recollections by Farrell Dobbs, the '30's fireball Trotskyite Teamster organizer from Minneapolis Local 574, covering the early radical history before Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa got their voracious paws on the union and turned it into something sinister. Dobbs, whose first book, Teamster Rebellion (1972)-- a partisan account of the 1934 Minneapolis strikes which bucked the power of Daniel Tobin (then president of the International Brotherhood) -- here takes his personal story up to 1938 and the efforts to organize drivers in the Midwest -- the next great advance in establishing the Teamsters as a national labor power. Dobbs, as before, flails capitalists of all stripes (owners, ""class collaborationist"" union leaders, the government -- for instance, the Wagner Act was merely an attempt ""to keep the workers suckered into reliance on the capitalist government as a substitute for use of union power against the bosses""). Sort of like reading old -- very old -- Harry Bridges speeches. But it's a point of view. And we do know, as Dobbs vividly reports, that ""reds"" in the labor movement were harassed, framed, etc. For special collections (historical and objective) and special labor persuasions (current and subjective).

Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1973

ISBN: 0873489993

Page Count: -

Publisher: Pathfinder Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION