What's wrong with U.S. unions, and what could make it right? These are the questions addressed by nineteen partisans - union dissidents and noted scholars - of union democracy. Agreeing that any long-term solutions must come from the grassroots of the union movement, they argue for expansion rather than contraction, militancy rather than accommodation, and internal democracy rather than oligarchy.

To break the stranglehold of business, union, and government elites, they emphasize, ordinary workers must be energetically recruited and actively involved in the management of their unions.