Teamster Rank and File

Samuel R. Friedman has worked as a sociologist and AIDS and public researcher since 1968. In the 1970s and recently, he has worked with Teamster and other activists to organize rank-and-file movements. He organized a union where he worked in the later 1980s. He is a socialist and a poet. He currently is employed as a Research Professor at a major medical school.

• Foreword by Doug Allan and Peter J. Camarata, Introduction to the First Edition, Introduction to the New Edition: TDU, the Rank and File, and Socialism from Below, 1. Bureaucratic Unionism, 2. Teamsters Local 208, 3. Drivers and Driving, 4. Rank-and-File Rebellion in the Late Fifties, 5. Rank and Filers in Office, 6. Changes in the Trucking Industry and the Teamsters Union, 7. Apolitical Activism Ambushed: The 1970s Wildcat, 8. Trusteeship, 9. Militants Enchained, 10. Teamster Rank and File Organizes Nationwide, 11. Conclusion: The Many Meanings of Local 208, Appendix 1: Dates in Local 208 History, Appendix 2: What Might Socialism Look Like?, Appendix 3: Creating a Socialism That Meets Needs

“Samuel Friedman’s Teamster Rank and File was in its time a rare and profound contribution to the study of social movements and the sociology of work. It was rare because, unlike so many studies of specific work situations and of unions, it also took up the thorny issue of the labor bureaucracy. The book captures the US labor movement just before neoliberalism put it on the back foot for over three decades. Now that we are undergoing a resurgence of the labor movement in the US, with militant new organization and struggle taking place among teachers, graduate student workers, autoworkers, Teamsters, and others, a new edition of this book is very timely. Firstly, it captures the US labor movement at a very high stage of activity and militancy, with important lessons for today. Secondly, Friedman does not limit his gaze to worker grievances and activism vs. employer power. This is because he also examines critically the labor bureaucracy as another form of domination over the working class. This issue has received little discussion recently, but as organized labor is growing again in power and size, it will be important to look at this problem again. In this regard, Friedman’s book speaks to us today in ways that are still new and important.”Kevin B. Anderson, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of California Santa Barbara, and author of A Political Sociology of Twenty-First Century Revolutions (Routledge, 2024)“As a scholar whose research focuses in part on the Teamsters Union, I encountered the first edition of Samuel Friedman’s book early on in my research, and it was very helpful in teaching me about the structure and functioning of the Teamsters Union particularly, but also the challenges that unions face in their day-to-day functioning more generally. This new edition not only brings the storied history to a new generation but offers insight into the challenges and paths forward for organizing and labor today. This is a fantastic example of a lost art form in labor sociology, and illuminates some of the biggest questions in the study of labor and social movements. Studies like this are all too rare today, and I think that we need more of them.”Barry Eidlin, Associate Professor of Sociology, McGill University, and author of Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada (2018)“The introduction to the new edition of Teamster Rank and File is both a reflection and a strategic guide rooted in history but aimed at today's labor realities. It set the stage for workers disillusioned by the gap between union rhetoric and outcomes, highlighting how grassroots rank-and-file movements can (and have) disrupted entrenched union bureaucracy.“As a former warehouse employee of Amazon, a company emblematic of modern, high-pressure, logistics-driven workplace – this text resonates as a case study in reclaiming worker power from both management and union leadership.“The introduction is powerful in its candid acknowledgment of failure and limitation - victories are partial, movements recede, and bureaucracy often reasserts itself. Yet it also presents a realistic sense of hope: that even in heavily managed and surveilled environments, rank-and-file initiative can challenge the ‘Bureaucratic consolidation of power.’“This book doesn’t romanticize struggle. It prepares readers to navigate the practical and political demands of organizing – which, if you’ve seen Amazon’s internal dynamics, you know isn’t abstract. The lessons drawn from mid-century Teamsters organizing are still urgent, especially as newer workers (younger, more diverse, often gig-based) start rediscovering collective action without the institutional muscle of old-school unions.”Ian W. Tulloch, former Amazon driver and union activist“From teachers and homecare workers to Starbuck’s baristas and adjunct professors, union activism is back – and ever more urgent against Trump’s authoritarianism. How can twenty-first-century workers fight for their needs in a moribund capitalism and even push beyond? Sam Friedman’s classic study, Teamster Rank and File, lends vital lessons from the grassroots. Updated with an expansive introduction that links union struggles with those against racism, colonialism and sexism, it shows in vivid detail how the ability of frontline workers to organize is always immanent in day-to-day workplace life. Far from an ‘iron law of oligarchy,’ rank-and-file Teamsters in Los Angeles’ Local 208 stood up to and demanded democracy from both the bureaucratic tendencies of their union and the autocratic ones of their employers. Friedman unpacks this history with skillful use of counterfactuals and a clear view toward broader, socialist transformation. This reissue of Teamster Rank and File could not come at a better time and deserves attention from a new generation of union and social activists.”Peter Ikeler, Associate Professor of Sociology, SUNY, Old Westbury“Even though the Teamsters have a huge cultural footprint, serious writing about it is missing recent decades. This is doubly true for studying efforts at reforming the most notorious union in U.S. history. When I read Sam's book thirty years ago, it blew me away. It's even more relevant today in O'Brien era of the Teamsters.”Joe Allen, author of The Package King: A Rank and File History of United Parcel Service, and writer for Jacobin and Socialist Worker.“I remember avidly reading Sam Friedman’s Teamster Rank and File, published back in 1982. It was a study of Teamster Local 208 in Los Angeles examining the relations between the employers, the union officials, and the rank and file, with special attention to Black workers. I found it a fascinating book then and still do today as the Teamster rank and file faces new challenges from within and without. In his new introduction he explains that he is interested in the union rank and file, the bureaucracy and the relations between them, in union reform movements, contract negotiations, and strike, and in how such development and events related to the questions of socialism. As Friedman writes in his new Introduction, ‘From the bottom of my heart, I think the history and ideas contained in this book will help the new generation of working class and socialist activists.’ So do I.”Dan La Botz, author of Radioactive Radicals: A Novel of Labor and the Left