"Negro and White, Unite and Fight!": A Social History of Industrial Unionism in Meatpacking, 1930-90

      This pathbreaking study traces the rise--and subsequent fall--of the         United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA). Roger Horowitz emphasizes         local leaders and meatpacking workers in Chicago, Kansas City, Sioux City,         and Austin, Minnesota, and closely examines the unionizing of the workplace         and the prominent role of black workers and women in UPWA.       In clear, anecdotal style, Horowitz shows how three major firms in U.S.         meat production and distribution became dominant by virtually eliminating         union power. The union's decline, he argues, reflected massive pressure         by capital for lower labor costs and greater control over the work process.         In the end, the victorious firms were those that had been most successful         at increasing the rate of exploitation of their workers, who now labor         in conditions as bad as those of a century ago.       "The definitive study of unionism in the meatpacking industry for         the period since the 1920's." -- James R. Barrett, author of Work         and Community in the Jungle: Chicago's Packinghouse Workers, 1894-1922       A volume in the series The Working Class in American History, edited         by David Brody, Alice Kessler-Harris, David Montgomery, and Sean Wilentz       Supported by the Illinois Labor History Society