Worker Centered

A powerful insider's account of a failed unionization effort that beautifully exposes the contradictions and dilemmas facing progressives committed to worker-led organizing. * Ruth Milkman, City University of New York Graduate Center * This book provides a rare but vital glimpse of the way organizers negotiate values, relationships, and power in their work. By offering an honest analysis of the challenges of allyship and power-building in organizing, Worker Centered provides one of the greatest gifts scholars can provide to practice--a loving critique designed to bring us all closer to a vision of a just world * Hahrie Han, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University * There's a principle within social justice movements and organizations that they should be led by those most impacted by the injustices. In Worker Centered, Biko Koenig examines the dynamics of how staff, who tend to come from more comfortable and educated backgrounds, often obfuscate the leadership roles they are actually playing, in order to emphasize worker leadership. But this keeps the day-to-day operation of power and leadership invisible, and does not result in the development of worker leaders. Koenig argues compellingly that developing effective worker-centered organizations requires a clear-eyed and systematic approach that fully appreciates the challenges, complexity, and hard work entailed in leadership development. * Jonathan Smucker, Author of Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals *