Rhomberg, Chris (2012) The Broken Table: The Detroit Newspaper Strike and the State of American Labor. Russell Sage Foundation.
In an era when the incidence of strikes in the U.S. has been drastically reduced, the 1995 Detroit newspaper strike stands out as one of the largest and longest work stoppages of the past two decades. In The Broken Table Chris Rhomberg argues that this landmark case represented an historic collision of two opposing institutional orders, between an older New Deal system of industrial relations and a rising corporate anti-union regime. At the same time the strike signaled the new terrain of labor-management conflict, in which disputes that occur now frequently spill over into wider public arenas in the state and in society. Contemporary strikes are no longer simply about the traditional dollars and cents of contract negotiations but about the survival and future of the collective bargaining relationship. The result illustrates the de-democratization of the institutional regulation of labor disputes, and raises broader questions of workplace governance and accountability.
