Shaun Richman

@shaunrichman.org

3179 Followers 171 Following

Labor guy in higher ed. Author, "Tell The Bosses We're Coming" (Monthly Review, 2020) & "We Always Had a Union" (U. of Illinois, 2025). Contributing writer: In These Times, Jacobin, American Prospect.

We Always Had a Union recovers a period of radical unionism deeply inter- twined with the history of the left. By doing so Richman reminds us that the divide between factory and service work turns less on skill than it does on the latter’s proximity to customers, which has misled some observers to assume that the affective dimensions of service work translate to a lack of militancy.
Still, several other retired NYPD cops formulated a convoluted and contradictory defense that echoed their former employer’s official response: Giovansanti’s violations are not worth covering, and we don’t know if he was the one driving the truck, so it violates his due-process rights to assume he was driving. This was the main argument of John Macari, a former cop who now hosts the unofficial NYPD podcast, “New York’s Finest: Retired and Unfiltered,” which featured Streetsblog on Friday. “Having 547 speed or red light camera tickets does not mean you are ‘recklessly driving’ or a danger to the public,” he wrote on X. “If a cop has 5,444 camera tickets issued to his registered vehicle … as long as he or she is paying the fines, there is no legal or administrative issue.
Raskin didn’t limit his advice to editorials. According to venerable labor mediator Theodore Kheel, Raskin was privately advising Lindsay on how to negotiate with Quill. Similarly (and more shockingly), garment union leaders David Dubinsky and Alex Rose were also privately counseling Lindsay to take a hard line against the TWU. The Liberal party heads, whose enmity to Quill went back to his days as a Communist, were sure that the old Irishman was bluffing his strike threat. As mayor through December 31, Wagner could have settled the contract. “Before the negotiations [typically] started, the mayor would secretly call Quill and say, ‘Mike, I’ve got $3 million to give you and that’s it,’” Wagner press secretary Les Slote later candidly explained. “Then Quill could go out to the unions and say, ‘If that bum Wagner thinks he’s going to get the transit workers, he’s out of his mind…’ He’d rant and rave and then we’d meet at the Hotel Vanderbilt and Ted Kheel would be there, and the negotiations would go on. They’d stop the clock at midnight, then at two a.m. there’d be a settlement.” However, after being insulted throughout Lindsay’s campaign, Wagner had little patience for the self-styled reformer. When a Lindsay aide called the mayor’s office to discuss the TWU negotiations, he was told, “Wagner’s going to Mexico. You fuckers can deal with Quill.”
Armed with an enormous supply of sources, both personal and professional inspirations, and a long absence of appropriate attention to the subject, Richman (SUNY) composed a remarkable contribution to American labor history. He unwraps the intricacies of people working in the commercial food industry in New York City in a detailed but succinct narrative that enlivens the struggles of militant workers’ leaders and the millions who backed them in creating unions that could negotiate the means for a decent life at work and home. Richman’s account begins with hotel workers organizing themselves at the turn of the 19th and into the 20th century. Soon, the largely German and Irish hotel workers developed their own organizations, sometimes on industrial—not on craft—bases that the craft- organized American Federation of Labor tolerated. In the process, these workers also welcomed immigrants to join them, contrary to common labor behavior. Richman notes and explains these and other quirks, including a penchant for radical beliefs and behaviors among the hotel and food workers over the years of encountering the owners’ interests and practices of evading adherence to contracts. Richman’s afterword links this past to the present.
Your submission to American Communist History has been accepted External Inbox American Communist History <em@editorialmanager.com> 3:31 PM (32 minutes ago) to me Ref.: Ms. No. RACH-2025-0019R1 251195015 Amalgamated, Independent, United: Shoeworkers Unions as a Phantom Limb of Independent, Left-Wing Organizing of the 1920s American Communist History Dear Mr. Richman, I am pleased to tell you that your work has been accepted for publication in American Communist History.
From Victor Reuther’s book.