Ben Waber reviewed Labor's Time by Jonathan Cutler
An Engaging, Focused History
4 stars
This book zooms in on one of the UAW's most important decades, focusing on the internal jockeying to focus union demands on a 30 hour work week in the 1950s. Cutler shows the important influence of the US political environment, the Communist party, and most crucially how self-interested nature of union leaders on both sides of the issue ultimately doomed this push. It reads as a lost opportunity when unions were arguably at the height of their power, although there's not quite enough of a broader perspective to understand the connections between this UAW infighting and US labor more broadly. Highly recommend
This book zooms in on one of the UAW's most important decades, focusing on the internal jockeying to focus union demands on a 30 hour work week in the 1950s. Cutler shows the important influence of the US political environment, the Communist party, and most crucially how self-interested nature of union leaders on both sides of the issue ultimately doomed this push. It reads as a lost opportunity when unions were arguably at the height of their power, although there's not quite enough of a broader perspective to understand the connections between this UAW infighting and US labor more broadly. Highly recommend