reserved for the direct producers, while all other decisions would be made by allworkers. The reason for this conception is well intentioned: the author believesthat only in this way can the producers of a surplus truly decide what is to bedone with it, and thereby by excluding anybody else from these decisions,exploitation of productive workers finally would be eliminated.

Surely, that is a laudable goal. But this two-tier arrangement seems to risk anew source of friction and inequality. Why shouldn’t all workers be included inwhat are an enterprise’s most important decisions?—especially when thoseworkers are critical to the success of the enterprise. And what would constitutea decision about distributing surplus? Wages are an expense before profits arecalculated, but in an enterprise run on this model, could the direct producersdecide that setting wages comes under their exclusive purview? The potentialityof a debilitating split eroding the solidarity necessary for a cooperative economyto function might loom as a serious problem.

Nonetheless, Democracy at Work performs necessary work by bringing up sucha topic, one that is not ordinarily discussed. Regardless of the specific forms ofcooperative enterprises, be they WSDEs or something else, they could onlyflourish in a political and economic system much different than capitalism. Thatappropriately is discussed in the book, which provides a tangible, plausible modelfor a better world—something badly needed after decades of “there is no alter-native.” Functioning alternatives and realistic models are indispensable to shat-tering that tired canard, and Democracy at Work provides a valuable contribution.

Pete Dolack has been an organizer with several groups, among them AmnestyInternational, National People’s Campaign, New York Workers AgainstFascism, and the No Spray Coalition. He currently focuses on researching andwriting about the ongoing global economic crisis. He has been published innumerous publications, and writes the Systemic Disorder blog. Address corre-spondence to: Pete Dolack, P.O. Box 220-554, Brooklyn, NY 11222, USA.E-mail: pdolack@gis.net and systemicdisorder.wordpress.com.

Schwartz, Robert M. Just Cause: A Union Guide to Winning Disciplinary Cases. Cambridge, MA:Work Rights Press, 2012. 176 pp. US$20.00 (paperback).

Robert M. Schwartz, author of several popular union labor law guides, haswritten a new book entitled Just Cause: A Union Guide to Winning DisciplinaryCases. The sixth book in Schwartz’s Work Rights Press series, it draws on thebroad tradition of “do-it-yourself” and “self-help” books. Due to the demands oftheir jobs, the average steward or workplace activist does not have much timefor educational reading on the side. Yet job stewards are expected to be familiarwith a large body of information related to job rights and benefits, collectivebargaining procedures, and in some cases, union administration and financialrecord-keeping.

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All of Schwartz’s books make arcane legal decisions, legislative history, andthe workings of labor-related administrative agencies highly accessible.Schwartz writes short, punchy, and understandable sentences and paragraphs,and uses sidebar boxes and Q&A sections at the end of each chapter. He alsoemploys an excellent cartoonist, Nick Thorkelson, to illustrate his work inhumorous fashion. The beauty of Schwartz’s books is their accessible organi-zation and the ease with which the reader can find relevant information whenneeded.

Just Cause: A Union Guide to Winning Disciplinary Cases is no exception. Basedon more than four years of research into 15,000 arbitration awards and theauthor’s long experience representing unions, the book presents a new methodto analyze and present disciplinary cases. The book begins by reviewing the“Seven Tests of Just Cause,” developed by arbitrator Carroll Daugherty in 1964.While several of these tests have been accepted by the arbitration profession,others, such as the necessity for an “objective” investigation, have not. Accordingto Schwartz, if they are no longer being used by arbitrators as benchmarks fortheir decisions, they must be discarded or modified. Moreover, says Schwartz,the “Seven Tests,” widely used by unions in the U.S. and Canada, inexplicablyomitted two concepts frequently cited by arbitrators when overturning punish-ments: progressive discipline and mitigating circumstances.

Modifying the seven tests, Schwartz presents what he terms is the far morewidely accepted “Seven Basic Principles of Just Cause.” These are the following:

1. Fair notice: An employer may not discipline an employee for violating a ruleor standard whose nature and penalties have not been made known.

2. Consistency: An employee may not be penalized for violating a rule orstandard that the employer has failed to enforce for a prolonged period.

3. Due process: An employer must conduct an interview or a hearing beforeissuing discipline, must take action promptly, and must list charges precisely.Once assessed, discipline may not be increased.

4. Substantial proof: Charges must be proven by substantial and credibleevidence.

5. Equal treatment: Unless a valid distinction justifies a higher penalty, anemployer may not assess a considerably stronger punishment against oneemployee than it assessed against another known to have committed thesame or a substantially similar offense.

6. Progressive discipline: When responding to misconduct that is short ofegregious, the employer must issue at least one level of discipline that allowsthe employee an opportunity to improve.

7. Mitigating and extenuating circumstances: Discipline must be proportionalto the gravity of the offense, taking into account any mitigating, extenuating,or aggravating circumstances.

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Schwartz explains each principle, cites relevant quotations from authorities,provides sample letters and checklists, and shares many “grievance tips” directedto shop stewards and union officers. The book’s final chapter addresses practicalsubjects, such as writing up a grievance, deadlines, requesting information,presenting a winning argument and building solidarity.

There is another reason to be excited about Schwartz’s book. As the newauthoritative guide to what constitutes reasonable grounds for employer disci-pline or discharge, Just Cause lays out a framework that could be applied morebroadly to all workers. Following the defeat of the Employee Free Choice Act(EFCA), a debate within the labor movement has already begun about the nextsteps for labor law reform. There is widespread agreement that unlike theEFCA, future reform proposals must be wrapped in a much broader mantel thatwill appeal to all workers—not just union members.

Successful past reforms led by the labor movement have won minimumwage, other wage and hour laws, child labor laws, health and safety laws, andprohibitions against discrimination. What is left to achieve that might inspire allworkers—union and nonunion alike?

“Employment security” could be the remaining frontier. A campaign to passa “just cause” standard into state laws would spur union growth since the numberone reason why workers are afraid of union organizing is the knowledge thatthey are likely to be terminated.

The U.S. is alone among industrialized countries in allowing “at-will”employees to be terminated for arbitrary reasons. France, Germany, Japan, andthe U.K., and even the Republic of South Africa, require employers to have a justcause to dismiss non-probationary employees.

Winning “just cause” legislation would certainly not be easy. But building amovement to win it on a similar scale to the effort put behind the EFCA wouldoffer union leaders and activists an opportunity to champion an issue that wouldbenefit all workers. Short of winning state or federal legislation, local unions,Central Labor Councils, and workers’ centers could seek to enforce a just causestandard through workers’ rights boards and/or community pressure. By edu-cating more workers about the benefits of the job security features of unioncontracts and raising expectations for a just cause standard, such a campaign couldalso spur union growth.

By popularizing and refining the “just cause” concept, Schwartz’s book mayhelp lay important groundwork for more workers (and communities) to beginthinking how that noble standard could be applied much more broadly.

Rand Wilson has worked as a union organizer and labor communicator formore than thirty years. Wilson has worked on a wide variety of contract cam-paigns and strikes with Teamsters, telecom, healthcare, and public serviceemployees. Wilson coordinated membership communications and public rela-tions for the Teamsters strike at United Parcel Service in 1997. The historicstrike garnered broad public support and brought increased attention to theproblems facing part-time and temporary workers. He currently works as an

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organizer in Boston for SEIU Local 888, a statewide union of public service,not-for-profit, and higher education workers. Address correspondence to: RandWilson, 3 Lester Terrace, Somerville, MA, 02144, USA. E-mail: rand.wilson@gmail.com.

Aronowitz, Stanley. Taking It Big: C. Wright Mills and the Making of Public Intellectuals. New York:Columbia University Press, 2012. 288 pp. US$32.50 (hardcover).

Stanley Aronowitz’s new book, Taking It Big, is a tour de force of publicintellectual achievement on one of the world’s most important thinkers, C.Wright Mills. In it, Aronowitz gives deep historico-intellectual framing forunderstanding Mills’ body of work, but also does right by one of Mills’ primarytenets: “No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography,of history and their intersections within a society has completed its intellectualjourney.”1 Taking It Big takes its readers on such a ride—from Mills’ pragmatistroots to his Weberian collaboration with Gerth, to his critiques of labor move-ment bureaucratization, middle-class liberalism, and institutionalized powerstructures, to his engagement with Neumann and Marx (what Aronowitz calls“historical materialism without historical Marxism”2), his words on the militaryindustrial complex, and lettering to the New Left, and scathing critique ofpostmodernism—all the while traversing the author’s own materialist engage-ment with his and our time, informed by Aronowitz’s rich biography of politicaland intellectual radicalism.

As with any melding of great minds, the book is not short on enduring,complex themes—how does social change work? How can ideas become potenthistorical forces, and what are the barriers to free thinking? How is political andclass consciousness formed? What is the stuff of public intellectualism, and itsunderbelly, academic unfreedom? What are the sources and structures of thedominant power, and how can they be unseated?

This review considers only a portion of the problems/issues raised in thebook, duly driven by my own biography and historical engagement. Otherreaders will undoubtedly find their own gems—Taking It Big is full of them.

Listen Sociologists!

C. Wright Mills was not beloved in his time. He countered mainstreamcurrents with audacity and acumen, and as Aronowitz describes it, took risks thatdeeply upset his peers. Ironically, works like The Power Elite, White Collar, andespecially The Sociological Imagination, have now become part of the canon ofsociology, and in fact some of the most privileged institutions in the countryhave renamed their intro classes “The Sociological Imagination.” Some of thesesame institutions were at the heart of the sociological turn toward middle rangetheory and normal science, and they continue to reinforce the academic elitism

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