CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – A book co-written by a University of Illinois professor that provides an insider’s look at a touchstone U.S. labor conflict has earned two national awards.
“Staley: The Fight for a New American Labor Movement,” written by labor professor Steven K. Ashby and C.J. Hawking, was named book of the year in March by the United Association for Labor Education, a scholarly organization that promotes the labor movement and worker rights.
The 2009 book also took top honors from the Working Class Studies Association, which supports education and activism as tools to advance working-class life and culture. The award will be presented in June during the association’s annual meeting at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
The book, which recounts a bitter union-management stalemate at A.E. Staley’s corn-processing plant in Decatur, Ill., also earned book of the year honors from the Illinois State Historical Society.
Published by University of Illinois Press, the book is an on-the-ground history of an impasse that is regarded as one of the most pivotal labor conflicts of the last quarter-century.
Ashby and Hawking, who are married, coordinated solidarity efforts for Staley workers during the early 1990s conflict, and augment their first-hand experience with workers’ reflections, media accounts and details from videotapes of union strategy debates.
Although Staley workers ultimately lost their standoff with management, the conflict left a legacy of tools that are still used to protect worker rights in the evolving U.S. labor movement, the book says.
Innovative tactics included a “work-to-rule” campaign, during which workers slowed production by strictly following company rules and doing only what they were ordered to do, and a national “Road Warriors” campaign that raised $3.5 million as rank-and-file workers traveled the country to build support during a nearly three-year company lockout.
Ashby is a clinical professor and coordinator of online programs for the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the U. of I. Hawking is a Methodist minister and the executive director of Arise Chicago, a faith-based workers’ rights group.
