Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement

Description

Assesses the American union movement and notes the low membership of unionized private-sector workers while sharing stories of the author's victories, revealing conflicts in organized labor and recommending how labor can be revived.;Prologue: Florida, November 2000 -- Introduction: organizing is about raising expectations -- Whole-worker organizing in Connecticut -- The Yo-yo : into and out of the national SEIU -- Bumpy landing in Las Vegas -- Round one : reorganizing Desert Springs and Valley hospitals, and why labor should care more about primaries than about general elections -- Laying the foundation : at Catholic Healthcare West, an enlightened CEO; at SEIU, an unenlightened president -- Government workers get militant : big, representative bargaining versus bad laws and bullies -- Launching the 2006 Las Vegas labor offensive -- The gloves come off : union busters, the NLRB, and a purple RV -- The gold standard : what a good contract looks like, and how it relates to patient care -- The CEO, the union buster, and the gunrunner -- Full court press -- Strike! Victory at Universal Health Services, victory in the public sector -- Things fall apart : how national and local labor leaders undermined the workers of Nevada -- Afterword: San Francisco, February 2014.