Teamster Rank and File

Explaining why social movements and labor activists run into obstacles, and how these can be overcome, this book draws valuable sociological and strategic lessons from the drivers' ten-week wildcat strike that helped that lay the basis for organizing Teamsters for a Democratic Union.

Samuel R. Friedman has worked as a sociologist and AIDS and public researcher since 1968. In the 1970s and recently, he has worked with Teamster and other activists to organize rank-and-file movements. He organized a union where he worked in the later 1980s. He is a socialist and a poet. He currently is employed as Research Professor at a major medical school.

Foreword to the 1982 Edition by Doug Allan and Peter J. Camarata, Introduction to the First Edition, Introduction to the New Edition: TDU, the Rank and File, and Socialism From Below, 1. Bureaucratic Unionism, 2. Teamsters Local 208, 3. Drivers and Driving, 4. Rank-and-File Rebellion in the Late Fifties, 5. Rank and Filers in Office, 6. Changes in the Trucking Industry and the Teamsters Union, 7. Apolitical Activism Ambushed: The 1970s Wildcat, 8. Trusteeship, 9. Militants Enchained, 10. Teamsters Rank-and-File Organize Nationwide, 11. Conclusion: The Many Meanings of Local 208, Appendix 1: Dates in Local 208 History, Appendix 2: What Might Socialism Look Like?, Appendix 3: Creating a Socialism That Meets Needs