| Other Reporting |
A New Book Worth Checking Out!
On Aug. 5, 2022, Duke University Press
published my new book, Our Veterans: Winners,Losers, Friends and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs.
Our Veterans draws on recent reporting
or commentary that my co-authors, Suzanne Gordon and Jasper Craven, and I have done for The American Prospect, Washington Monthly, New York Times, The Nation, The Hill, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Jacobin, and many other other publications.
To order the $24.95 paperback edition from the publisher’s website, click here.
For more details on Our Veterans including some advance praise from academics and journalists, labor activists, and advocates for veterans, click here. |
By: Steve Early on December 21, 2021
Portside
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By: Steve Early
September 09, 2021
Labor Notes
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Beyond Chron
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 Longshore Labor’s Real Worker-Intellectual
By Steve Early,
June 29, 2021,Beyond Chron
In the 1950s and 60s, the best-known member of the left-led
International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) was, oddly enough,
a conservative writer named Eric Hoffer, whose fans included Ronald Reagan….
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By Steve Early |
| CounterPunch
Why is AFL-CIO So Worried About Its Vermont Affiliate?
by Steve Early
Twitter Reddit Email |
jacobin magazine
May Day 1971 Was a Day Against War
By Steve Early
Fifty years ago this week, thousands of antiwar protesters descended on Washington, DC, to protest the Vietnam War. The ensuing three days of disruptive actions directly confronted the Nixon administration — and resulted in the largest civil disobedience–related detentions in US history... ·
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A Law Professor’s Prescription for Police Reform
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In Firefighters Election, Can a Veteran of the Wisconsin Uprising Come Out on Top?
By Steve Early
Labor Notes, February 23, 2021
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Will Biden’s Surprise VA Pick Halt the Slide Toward Privatization?
Denis McDonough has a choice: continue the outsourcing of the VA health system, or rebuild its in-house capacity.
by Suzanne Gordon, Steve Early
American Prospect, December 18, 2020
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Vets and VA Workers Are MIA From Biden Transition
by Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon
Joe Biden's Veterans Affairs transition team has no organizational representatives from VA unions or vet organizations. That may not bode well for reversing the incremental privatization of VA healthcare under the Trump and Obama Administrations more...
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by Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon
To give Trump a second term, the Republican Party has targeted the nation’s 20 million veterans as a key voting bloc. But among those trying to prevent the GOP from out-organizing the Democratic Party among veterans and military families are the Communications Workers (CWA). Last fall they unveiled a program called “Veterans for Social Change.” read more... |
jacobinmag.com
By Steve Early / Suzanne Gordon
How a Working-Class Soldier and Platoon Leader in Iraq Turned Against Our “Forever Wars”
American foreign policy is often relegated to the margins of political consciousness in the US. But some of the most powerful voices against US intervention are those who have come from inside the military — and turned vehemently against it. read more... |
laprogressive.com
Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon
Will Real-Life “Fighting Dems” Prove Irresistible?
Among Democrats, so many service candidates are vying for nominations this year that three ex-Marines all ended up on the same Congressional primary ballot in Virginia. read more... |
 solidarity-us.org
The GI Bill, Then and Now
Review of Grateful Nation: Student Veterans and the Rise of the Military-Friendly Campus and Soldiers to Citizens:
"Erasing college debt would be “a huge threat to the U.S. war machine,” Veterans for Peace activist Rory Fanning says, because “thousands of soldiers would lose their incentive to stay in the military.” more... |
portsideorg.
A Mon Valley Memoir
By Steve Early
May 16,2020
Many younger radicals today are trying to figure out how to relate, personally and collectively, to the labor movement. more... |
 JACOBIN MAGAZINE
Fifty Years Ago This Spring, Millions of Students Struck to End the War in Vietnam
By Steve EarlyApril 24,2020
In May 1970, 4 million students went on strike across the country, shutting down classes at hundreds of colleges, universities, and high schools and demanding an end to the Vietnam War. Fifty years later, their rebellion remains an inspiration, as radical student politics is back on the agenda
more...
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POPULARRESISTANCE.ORG
VA Privatization Leaves Veterans Waist Deep In Another Big Muddy
By Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon
March 31,2020
Two years ago, President Trump persuaded a bipartisan coalition in Congress to pass the VA MISSION Act of 2018. It authorized a costly expansion of outsourcing by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which provides healthcare for nine million former military personnel. Under the guise of giving
more... |
JACOBIN MAGAZINE
Bernie Sanders Is the Pro-Union Candidate
Many national unions still haven’t endorsed in the presidential race. But no other candidate has the same history of walking the picket lines, fighting for worker rights, and fostering union organizing that Bernie Sanders does.
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laprogressive.com
VoteVets for Buttigieg: Who’s Really Keeping Us in The Dark About Campaign Funding?
In an urgent fund-raising appeal, Mayor Pete implied that Sanders wasn’t truly committed to getting big money out of politics because “nine dark money groups” are making independent expenditures on his behalf |
NEW POLITICS
How General Strike Rhetoric Became A City-Wide Reality
Calls for a general strike have long been a staple of “resolutionary activity” on the U.S. left. During moments of crisisand militancy—from the mass firing of air traffic controllers in 1981 to Occupy Wall Street and last winter’s federalgovernment shutdown—rousing speeches are invariabl... |
Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon: The Halls are used to getting their way in wine country, even amid protestors brandishing signs warning their customers about “Chainsaw Wine” and an environmental “Hall-O-Caust.” |
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LAP PROGRESSIVE
In Re-Run Election: LA Times Journalist Wins Presidency of NewsGuild Steve Early: Debates may be a familiar part of campaigning for public office. But, within a supposedly democratic labor movement, they are fairly rare. |
PORTSIDE
AFGE’s “Me Too” Moment: When Top Leaders Misbehave, Union Members Pay The Price
Members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), who work for federal agencies in Washington and around the country, face major threats from the Trump Administration, which is trying to weaken their workplace rights and contract protections. Unfortunately, a sexual harassment scand... |
BEYOND CHRON
“Other Than Honorable?” Veterans With “Bad Paper” Seek Long Overdue Benefits
On Veterans Day this year, in a nation now reflexively thankful for military service of all kinds, nearly 500,000 former service members are not included in our official expressions of gratitude. These forgotten men and women had the misfortune to leave active duty with what’s called “bad paper.... |
JACOBIN MAGAZINE
The Ghost of Jimmy Hoffa Won’t Go Away
Martin Scorsese’s new film The Irishman continues Hollywood’s obsession with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. We’re more concerned with what happened to Teamster working conditions under his son, James P. Hoffa.
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by Steve Early
September 27, 2019
 At the national, state, and even local level, union political endorsements are often made with insufficient membership involvement.
Union leaders and legislative/political directors like to get their favorite candidates endorsed, without too much debate or discussion…..
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by
Suzanne Gordon
Steve Early
September 1, 2019
Republicans and centrist Democrats love to pour money into more and more wars. But when it comes to providing public health care for the soldiers they put in harm’s way, they try to privatize and starve vets’ programs. We have to stop them. |
A GI rebellion: When soldiers said no to war
by Steve Early
August 27, 2019
COURAGE TO RESIST
Fifty years ago this fall, a campus upsurge turned opposition to the Vietnam War into a genuine mass movement. |
At War is best labor film in years....
by Steve Early
July 11, 2019
LABOR NOTES
About this website
Review: A Plant Closing War
Since last fall, protestors wearing yellow vests have commanded center stage in France. Their grassroots challenge to the neoliberal regime of President Emmanuel Macron draws on a long tradition of labor militancy, including factory closing fights. When these protestors
still had blue collar jobs an... |
In1989, CWA and IBEW joined forces to wage one of the biggest anti-concession struggles of the decade--which became a rare strike victory against health care cost-shifting.
by Steve Early / Rand Wilson
July 13, 2019
JACOBIN
How a Telephone Workers’ Strike Thirty Years Ago Aided the Fight for Single Payer
Thirty years ago this summer, 60,000 telephone workers walked off the job in New York and New England — and stayed out for seventeen weeks. Their struggle against NYNEX, a telecom giant, became one of labor’s few big strike victories, during a decade that began with the disastrous defeat of PATC... read more |
 Moulton for President: Has This
“Service Candidate” Served Other Veterans Well?
LA Progressive
Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon: The 40-year old ex-military officer is worth watching, for as long as his vanity campaign lasts. Moulton-style “service candidates” are now being widely recruited and strongly supported by both major parties and their wealthy funders. |
Can the Military Be Reformed?
April 2, 2019
LA Progressive
Steve Early: Unfortunately, going to war—or even just training for it—can be a life-changing experience in ways never mentioned by military recruiters with a quota to fill. |
 An Election Challenge: Time for Change at NewsGuild
LA Progressive
Steve Early: It’s likely that many Guild loyalists—if they are eligible to vote—will be casting their ballots based on how they think the union is faring against powerful employers in a rapidly changing industry. |
A Trusteeship Diaspora:
How SEIU’s Self-Inflicted Loss Became Labor’s Gain
by Steve Early
January 29, 2019
Beyond Chron
SEIU-UHW Alumni Keep Fighting for Progressive Change
Ten years ago this month, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) shot itself in the foot, big time. To silence internal critics, then-SEIU President Andy Stern imposed the largest trusteeship over a local union in the history of U.S. labor. SEIU headquarters in Washington dispatched hundreds of national union staffers from around the country to seize control of Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers (UHW). |
 Why the Working Class Matters
Review of Can the Working Class Change the World?
by Michael Yates. (Monthly Review Press, 2018)
by Steve Early
Janurary 18, 2019
LA Progressive
Radical economist Michael Yates grew up in a western Pennsylvania manufacturing town, later hard hit by de-industrialization. He spent more than three decades working as a college professor in his home state.
Despite his career in academia and editorial role at Monthly Review, a seventy-year old project of socialist intellectuals, Yates never lost touch with the life experience of high school classmates, friends, neighbors, and relatives who toiled in blue collar jobs. |
Did Donald Get The Memo? Trump’s VA Secretary Denounces ‘Veteran as Victim’ Stereotyping
by Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon
January 18, 2019
CounterPunch
Amid a controversial government shutdown, affecting 800,000 thousand federal employees, you would think that the agency headed by Robert Wilkie would be an oasis of tranquility. |
 A Call Center Coup: Ex-Teamster Boots Riley Tackles Telemarketing And its Discontents
Steve Early
July 8, 2018
Portrside
When I was a union rep, one of my most challenging assignments was assisting a Communications Workers of America (CWA) bargaining unit at a Boston-area telemarketing firm.
Most CWA members in New England had call center jobs at the phone company, with good pensions, health insurance, and full-time salaries.... |
 Requiem for a Steelworker: Mon Valley Memories of “Oil Can” Eddie
Steve Early
June 18, 2018
Stansnbury Forum
In progressive circles in the upper mid-west today, if you’ve heard the name Sadlowski, it’s probably because you were involved in the Wisconsin labor uprising of 2011, where you might have linked arms with AFSCME organizer and state capitol occupier Edward A. Sadlowski. Or maybe you applauded the electoral victory of his sister, Susan Sadlowski Garza, when she won a Chicago city council seat four years later, as a standard bearer for her union, the Chicago Teachers.
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 Making Meet Ups Matter: What Activists Can
Learn From "Art of Gathering”"
Steve Early
June 6, 2018
Beyond Chron
Have you ever been to an awful panel discussion? An awkward funeral? A long and frustrating meeting? A flash mob that fizzled? A dinner party with unfriendly people? According to Priya Parker, a meeting facilitator and expert on social interaction, the fault wasn’t yours
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 The Greening of Vermont: From Hippie Invasion To Blue State Conversion and Beyond
Steve Early
April 16, 2018
CounterPunch
Donald Trump’s fear-mongering about Mexicans and Muslims, Haitians and Africans, and other foreigners is hardly sui generis in U.S. history. In the mid- 19th century, east coast nativists regularly sounded the alarm about barbarian invasions from famine-stricken Ireland. Their west coast counterparts warned for many decades of the “yellow peril” to California, which took the form of Asian immigration. |
 Purple bullying, ten years later: SEIU trustees trample membership rights
MRONLINE.ORG
In Chicago this coming weekend, 2,500 rank-and-file activists, from the U.S. and abroad, will be meeting under the banner of Labor Notes to celebrate the revival of union militancy, including recent strike victories like the West Virginia teachers’ walk-out. |
 Room to Grow
Jacobin Magazine >>
By Steve Early
When leftists push their ideals on their kids, politics looks more like drudgery than liberation.
As a left-wing labor activist and father of two now-adult daughters, I once grappled with the challenges of “progressive parenting.”
It was hard enough, I soon discovered, to avoid screwing up the basics of old-fashioned child-rearing — keeping kids safe, healthy, reasonably happy, and well-adjusted. Insuring conformity with parental views and values would have been an additional heavy lift — and an effort that could easily backfire.
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 Weinsteins in the Workplace:
Will Unions Be Part of the Solution Or the Problem?
Beyond Chron >>
By Steve Early
Unions have their own Weinstein sexual harassment skeletons. Will labor be part of the solution or the problem?
Being a CWA rep was always a learning experience, during my 27 years on active duty with that union. See link below to an account of how one blue-collar CWA affiliate, in a Massachusetts factory town, responded to a workplace harassment case in a fashion that advanced its decade-long struggle to become a more member-driven and effective union.... |
 Ralph's Museum: A Report from Winsted
September 20, 2017
Report From Winsted >> Ralph Nader’s Museum
By Steve Early
My favorite Helena Bonham Carter film is called Margaret’s Museum. In it, she plays Margaret MacNeil, the young widow of a Nova Scotia coal miner killed, on the job, like others in her family before him.
Margaret’s grief leaves her mentally unhinged in a community steeped in fatalism and acceptance. After her release from an asylum, she turns her seaside cottage into a museum depicting the human toll of underground mining. The sign outside, drawing few tourists in the late 1940s, says simply: “The Cost of Coal.”
I thought instantly of this movie, in late July, when I was the sole Sunday morning viewer of exhibits in a Winsted, CT. museum similarly suffused with righteous indignation over the human cost of hazardous products and dangerous occupations...
For more on Ralph Nader's American Tort Law Museum, see:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/20/report-from-winsted-naders-museum/ |
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