Unions in Action

...This search for what was and what is, rather than theory about what ought to be, is the most enduring contribution of the Commons' school, overshadowing any single major theory that may, in subsequent years, have been advanced by the individual "associates...

...Labor's problems—in relation to industrialist, society, and self—are not glossed over...

...While conscientiously trying to describe the unions as they are, Barbash inserts enough material to indicate that just because certain practices and institutions exist, it does not follow that what exists is ipso facto good...

...His book provides insights into the labor movement by shifting its focus from the genus labor to the trade unions and their leaders as human elements...

...In a wise choice of selections, Barbash gives as much space to an organizer and to a business agent as to Walter Reuther or David Dubinsky...

...These giants among the labor historians, together with George Brooks, J. B. S. Hardman, Daniel Bell, and Kenneth E. Boulding, bring up to date the evolution of labor in the past few decades, describing new formations arising far less from the ideologies of individual leaders than from the environmental pressures of American civilization...

...The fourth section of the book deals with "conflict situations," and the fifth with "some special union problems," such as politics, automation, technology, racketeering, and segregation...

...In selecting these readings, Barbash has been guided by his own vast experience as practitioner and scholar...

...The tie with the Commons' school is established in the first three essays written by Selig Perlman, Philip Taft, and David J. Saposs, all three of whom were "associates" in the preparation of the original Wisconsin classic...

...The third section—the hard core of the book—covers typical, though varied, situations: steel, rubber, clothing, printers, municipal employees, office workers, building trades, packing house, railroads, maritime, mines, and the Marathon Corporation with its seven different unions...

...To read it in full would have taken several solid weeks, a mighty filibuster but hardly a weighty argument to what would have been an empty house...

...Reviewed by Gus Tyler When the opponents of the Lan-drum-Griffin bill were making their last futile stand in Congress, Senator Wayne Morse threatened to read a three-volume history of the American labor movement to the Senate...

...Through this device, the labor unions are revealed as multi-rooted, multi-hued, multi-faceted organisms...

...It is this mature quality that makes the book neither an assault nor an apologia, and more than justifies its subtitle, the "human meaning...

...Should the same or similar situation recur, however, some worthy benefactor might render a national service by providing each member of Congress with a copy of Unions and Union Leadership, a collection of articles selected and edited by Jack Barbash, a seasoned student of labor now on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin...

...What distinguished the Wisconsin School was the attempt of a group of high-minded intellectuals not to devise but to divine a labor movement, not to oversee but to understand the unions, not to invent preachments but to investigate practices...

...Savants speculated that he had the classic study by John R. Commons in mind...

...This remarkable collection of mature insights into the American trade unions solves no problems and proposes no answers, but it does provide the necessary approaches to all those who seek solutions and proposals that would strengthen labor as a pillar of American life...

...While the human touch is present in all seven of these fast-flowing pieces, out of each profile issues a concept of unionism, always an amalgam of personality traits, social ideals or lack thereof, and stark necessity...

...The Wisconsin group employed the known instruments of social research to present an objective and comprehensive analysis of the origins, developments, and purposes of the American trade unions...

...The second section presents leadership types from George Meany, an "honest plumber," down to Johnny Dio, "no ordinary hoodlum...

...Morse abandoned the idea...

...Barbash continues the tradition...

...In each of these cases, the union format—contract, structure, stance—is as varied as the industry...

...These problems are not only stated frankly but presented maturely as the problems of human organisms, composed of average men dogged by sin and fallibility, trying to survive and succeed in a baffling and frustrating environment...

...For the Barbash book continues the great tradition of the Wisconsin School established by Commons and his associates—a tradition that has dedicated itself to understanding American labor unions and articulating their unspoken philosophy...