Dismembering heroic unions.

This article presents the author comments on the studies by Roger Horowitz and Rick Halpern on packing-house workers of the United States. The author says that by the late 1920's Midwestern packinghouses employed a diverse pool of white, black, and Mexican workers who performed some of the worst work. Despite the horrendous working conditions, graphically depicted in fascinating detail in these two books, workers found their differences and employers' tactics insurmountable. Between 1930 and 1960, however, packinghouse workers' organizational failures of the previous three decades gave way to a successful challenge of the unequal structural and cultural relations of power. By the end of the 1930's militant organizers and a highly disciplined rank-and-file had built the formidable United Packinghouse Workers of America. The author says that he heartily recommend the two books by Horowitz and Halpern. The author says that he heartily recommend the two books by Horowitz and Halpern. According to the author, each author posits that workers succeeded in overcoming those vexing differences of race, ethnicity, and gender because they sustained a militancy at the point of production.