cover image Hard-Pressed in the Heartland: The Hormel Strike and the Future of the Labor Movement

Hard-Pressed in the Heartland: The Hormel Strike and the Future of the Labor Movement

Peter Rachleff. South End Press, $13 (144pp) ISBN 978-0-89608-450-6

In this brief book, Rachleff ( Black Labor in Richmond, 1865-1890 ), who chaired a committee supporting the 1985-1986 strike against the Hormel Co. in Austin, Minn., offers a partial corrective to Barbara Koppel's narrow account of the strike in her Academy Award-winning documentary American Dream. Rachleff begins with an analysis of labor's weakness in the 1980s and an overview of the history of the Austin union's militant predecessor of the 1930s. His history of the Hormel plant emphasizes the conflict not only over wages but also over dangerous working conditions. He explains how Hormel influenced numerous community institutions, including the local mental health clinic, newspaper and even schools, against the strikers. Even though the union's parent eventually settled the strike on Hormel's terms, Rachleff argues that the union campaign was successful in building organizing skills and a movement culture. He concludes with a somewhat scattershot analysis of how strategies used in the Hormel strike represent new tactics that might revitalize labor. His book might have been more effective had he more closely analyzed and rebutted Koppel's film. (Mar.)