About THE BOOK
This is a book about leadership as seen in the biography of a leader, through his ability to sense the future, to inspire, to implement, and most importantly to educate and empower would-be activists.
His successor would call him his mentor. His predecessor would call him a “man of overflowing, instinctive talent.” And he would be challenged to use all of his abilities through one relenting crisis after another.
But it is also a book about a union in all its significant operations during an important transition period. It is a unique, crisis-by-crisis look at a union that lost half its members through the recession of the 1980s and saw nearly every company in the industry whose name it bears go bankrupt in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Yet it adapted, and rebuilt its strength to better serve its members.
It is also about manufacturing workers, male and female, black, brown and white, of every religious, ethnic, and political persuasion, in every part of the United States and Canada as well as the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, struggling to maintain their jobs, their pensions, health care, and their dignity. Their struggles took the form of strikes, picketing, appeals to consumers for support. Sometimes they faced Congressional legislation that would endanger the very existence of their jobs. They responded by writing letters, making phone calls, protesting in front of Congressional offices and using every imaginative means to fight for their jobs.
And the fighting empowered them.
QUoTATIONS
From George Becker and There’s a Tremendous Power in the Union:
QUoTE No. 1
“The choice is not jobs or the environment, it’s both or neither.”
–George Becker at the 1992 Steelworkers Convention, p. 63
QUOTE No. 2
“There’s a tremendous power in the union, brothers and sisters, an awesome power. We can touch hundreds of thousands of people throughout the United States on any issue.”
–George Becker at 1995 Steelworkers Legislative Conference, p. 116
QUOTE No. 3
“First, if we cannot bring the wages of Mexican workers up, eventually our jobs will disappear. Second, our union exists to fight injustice and exploitation suffered by workers. It would be morally and ethically wrong for us to ignore their plight. Certainly, the organization of effective unions is the best vehicle for Mexican workers to bring an end to this unconscionable exploitation.”
–George Becker on why American unions should help Mexican workers, p. 184
QUOTE No. 4
At a time when our trade deficit has climbed to astronomic proportions fueled in large measure by our soaring trade deficit with China, this agreement will serve to accelerate that deficit still further, shutting down even more plants, and robbing more industrial workers of their livelihoods.
–Becker reaction to Clinton trade agreement with China, p. 262
QUOTE No. 5
All of us were excited by the young people here—by their enthusiasm and their energy, but mostly by their dedication and their creativity. They were environmentalists, human rights activists and persons of conscience. They were as dedicated to non-violence as we.
–Becker on student activity in Seattle in 1997 p. 268