Unionizing the Ivory Tower
chronicles how a thousand
low-paid custodians, cooks, and gardeners succeeded in organizing a
union at Cornell University. Al Davidoff, the Cornell student leader
who became a custodian and the union's first president, tells the
extraordinary story of these ordinary workers with passion,
sensitivity, and wit.
His
memoir reveals how they took on the dominant power in the community,
built a strong organization, and waged multiple strikes and campaigns
for livable wages and their dignity. Their strategies and tactics
were creative and feisty, founded on worker participation and
ownership.
The
union's commitment to fairness, equity, and economic justice also
engaged these workers—mostly rural, white, and conservative—at
the intersections of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia.
Davidoff's story demonstrates how a fighting union can activate
today's working class to oppose antidemocratic and white supremacist
forces.
