About this item
Highlights
- 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.
- About the Author: Grace Palladino is the Codirector of The Samuel Gompers Papers at the University of Maryland, College Park.
- 304 Pages
- Political Science, Labor & Industrial Relations
Description
About the Book
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...
Book Synopsis
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.
Review Quotes
Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits gives us a valuable institutional look at the strengths and limitations of craft union autonomy. From a contemporary perspective it is a look at the real problems inherent in 'changing to organize, ' a slogan clearly identified with the current debate over labor's future. For this reason it is an important book.
-- "Labor Studies Journal"Throughout its history, various unions have left the BCTD [Building & Construction Trades Department] over jurisdictional and other disputes.... Institutional histories are difficult to write; it's easy to get caught up in personalities or the spider web of intrigue and behind the scenes details. Pallidino, however, handles this with grace and an over-arching view of the story. Anyone who has spent time on a construction site or a newly elected local trades officer would learn much from this very readable volume.
-- "Grand Prairie Union News"About the Author
Grace Palladino is the Codirector of The Samuel Gompers Papers at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the author of Teenagers: An American History; Dreams of Dignity, Workers of Vision: A History of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and Another Civil War: Labor, Capital, and the State in the Anthracite Regions of Pennsylvania.