The Hammer (Without the Sickle)

A short review of Hamilton Nolan's new book

Hamilton Nolan’s new book, The Hammer, is about the extraordinary efforts of working people — men, women, white, black, brown and immigrants — to form unions. That’s the surface story, but the book is really about Nolan’s unadulterated love for the ordinary people who do extraordinary work against all odds to organize their workplaces.  Some are part of large unions, like the Food and Commercial Workers, Unite Here, and the Service Employees International Union. But some of the most moving stories come from the lone rangers struggling to start unions, virtually on their own, at places like a Lowes in New Orleans and a small fast-food chain in West Virginia. Even when they fail, they are justly depicted as noble warriors in the struggle for freedom and justice. Not only does Nolan make these stories come to life, but he shares his passion for their struggles.   

Nolan tries as hard as he can, again and again, to capture what is unique and glorious about labor unions. Here’s one account that is gold:    

“What corporate America fails to understand is that unions, real unions, spread like religions, not like businesses. The evangelicals of unions like Unite Here are those who have had the union extend its hand to pull them out of dangerous waters, and they feel obligated to do the same for others. It is one of the most unadulterated things you will ever find in this nation of scammers and grifters and omnipresent commerce. Companies cannot grasp it because there is no parallel to it in the business world. It is pure.”

After describing an immigrant organizer a few paragraphs later, he ends with this:

“Her voice catches in her throat. The union is bigger than a contract. It’s love.”

Nolan also is grappling with what worries so many of us – the rise of authoritarianism.  He wants the entire country to understand that unions are the key to democracy.

“When does the typical American ever experience democracy? As a child, they are told what to do. At school, they are told what to do. When they grow up, they get a job, and are told what to do. If they go to church, they are told what to do. And everyone with any common sense can see that voting, the one activity explicitly branded as participating in democracy, seems to change nothing, as power is concentrated and decisions are made by unknown people in places remote from the everyday experience of a normal person. From this base of nothing, we expect Americans to treasure democracy as their greatest value. That is a hard ask, when it is something they have never seen in the wild.

Unless— unless— they happen to be in a union. In a decent union, their opinion will matter. They can directly participate in discussions that lead to a set of demands. They can decide, collectively, to take direct actions to win their demands. They will be able to see how power is formed from a group of individuals coming together. Being in a union, for millions of Americans, is the one and only experience they have of democracy at work. It is not democracy as a slogan, but democracy as a lived experience. That changes people. It serves as a prism through which the flaws in our national politics can be viewed.”

For Nolan, the solution is straightforward. Everyone should be able to join a union as soon as possible. To make that happen existing unions should create a “Delta Force” team that provides help to all the workers struggling on their own to form unions.  The labor movement, Nolan says, has to cough up billions of dollars, not just millions, to create a massive organizing effort so that anyone, anywhere, can get the help they need.  Labor activists have been arguing for just such a campaign for decades, and it is good to see the case made once again and so beautifully.

What’s lovely about Nolan’s love affair is that he seems so genuinely in tune with the new spirit of union organizing that is spreading across the country and reaching young workers at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, and many other service and tech companies. He feels their optimism, amplifies it, and puts it in language that can be widely shared.

For those of us who have spent a lifetime in and around the labor movement, hope and optimism are exactly what is needed.  Thank you, Hamilton Nolan.