Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits : A Century of Building Trades History / Grace Palladino.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Palladino, Grace, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

AFL-CIO. Building and Construction Trades Department--History.

AFL-CIO.

Construction workers--Labor unions--United States--History.

Construction workers.

Building trades--Employees--Labor unions--United States--History.

Building trades.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 274 p., [8] p. of plates :) ill., ports. ;

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits follows the history of the Building and Construction Trades Department from the emergence of building trades councils in the age of the skyscraper; through treacherous fights over jurisdiction as new building materials and methods of work evolved; and through numerous Department campaigns to improve safety standards, work with contractors to promote unionized construction, and forge a sense of industrial unity among its fifteen (and at times nineteen) autonomous and highly diverse affiliates. Arranged chronologically, Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits is based on archival research in Department, AFL-CIO, and U.S. government records as well as numerous union journals, the local and national press, and interviews with former Department officers. Grace Palladino makes the history of the building trades come alive. By investigating the sources of conflict and unity within the Building and Construction Trades Department over time, and demonstrating how building trades unions dealt with problems and opportunities in the past, she provides a historical context for the current generation of workers and leaders as they devise new strategies to suit their current situation.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Affiliates of the Building and Construction Trades Department, 2004

Introduction: The Ties That Bind

PART ONE. Erecting the Structure

1. Skyscrapers, Building Trades Councils, and the Rise of the Structural Building Trades Alliance

2. The Founding Brothers: From the Structural Building Trades Alliance to the Building Trades Department

3. "Sticking Apart": Work, Jurisdiction, and Solidarity

4. The High Price of Unity: Conflict, Crisis, and Coming Together

PART TWO. Government Matters

5. A New Deal for Labor: Depression, Recovery, and Government- Labor Relations

6. From Pearl Harbor to Denver: The Building Trades in War and Peace

7. The Economic Power of Skill: Mechanics, Contractors, and Civil Rights

PART THREE. Reorganizing the Future

8. From Boom to Bust: Wage Spirals, the Business Roundtable, and Open-Shop Construction

9. Back to Basics: The COMET Program, Internal Tensions, and the Las Vegas Campaign

Epilogue: Challenge and Change

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-264) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Sep 2019)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781501729300

1501729306

OCLC:

1036871254