Steve Early has been active as a labor journalist,
lawyer, organizer, or union representative since 1972. For 27
years, Early was a Boston-based staff member of the Communications
Workers of America. He finished his CWA career in 2007, after
serving as administrative assistant to the vice-president of
CWA District 1, which represents more than 160,000 workers in
New York, New England, and New Jersey,
Early aided CWA organizing, bargaining, and/or major strikes
involving NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, AT&T, Verizon, Southern New
England Tel, SBC, Cingular, and Verizon Wireless. He also assisted
CWA public sector organizing, plus mergers with other AFL-CIO
affiliates and independent unions.
Early’s freelance journalism has appeared in The Nation, The
Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New York Times, Washington Post,
Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, Christian
Science Monitor, Philadelphia Inquirer, USA Today, Toronto Globe & Mail,
The Berkshire Eagle, The Progressive, CounterPunch, Beyond Chron,
The Guardian, In These Times, Our Times, American Prospect, Mother
Jones, Labor History, New Politics, New Labor Forum, Social Policy,
Labor Notes, Labor Studies Journal, WorkingUSA, Labor Research
Review, Monthly Review, Technology Review, Boston Review, Dollars
and Sense, Socialism and Democracy, Democratic Left, The Guild
Reporter, Jacobin, Tikkun, and Labor: Studies in Working Class
History in The Americas.
He is the author of Embedded With Organized Labor: Journalistic
Reflections on the Class War at Home (Monthly Review Press, 2009)
and The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor: Birth of a New Workers’
Movement or Death Throes of the Old? (Haymarket Books, 2011). His
book, Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in Distress,
was published by MRP in early 2014.
Alone or with co-authors, Early has also contributed chapters
to eight edited collections. Among these is an often-cited essay, "Membership
Based Organizing," in A New Labor Movement For
The New Century,
edited by Gregory Mantsios (Monthly Review Press, 1998); "Globalization
and De-Unionization in Telecommunications: Three Case Studies
in Resistance" (co-authored with Larry Cohen) in Transnational
Cooperation Among Labor Unions, edited by Michael
Gordon and Lowell Turner (Cornell University Press, 2000); "The
NYNEX Strike: A Case Study in Labor-Management Conflict Over
Health Care Cost Shifting," in Proceedings of
NYU Annual National Conference on Labor (Little,
Brown &Co., 1991); "Defending
Workers' Rights in the Global Economy: The CWA Experience" (co-authored
with Larry Cohen) in Which Direction For Organized
Labor? edited
by Bruce Nissen (Wayne State University Press, 1999) and also
reprinted in Le Syndicalisme Dans La Mondialisation,
edited by Annie Fouquet, Udo Rehfeldt, and Serge Le Roux (Les
Editions de L'Atelier, Paris, 2000); "Strike Lessons From
The Last Twenty-Five Years" in The Encyclopedia
of Strikes," edited
by Ben Day, Manny Ness, and Aaron Brenner ( M.E. Sharpe, Inc.,
April, 2009); "The Enduring Legacy & Contemporary Relevance
of Labor Insurgency," in Rebel Rank-and-File: Labor
Militancy and Revolt From Below During the 1970s, edited by Cal Winslow,
Aaron Brenner, and Bob Brenner (Verso, 2009), and “Back to the
Future: Union Survival Strategies in Open Shop America,” (co-authored
with Rand Wilson) in Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights
Back, edited
by Michael D. Yates, (Monthly Review Press, 2012).
Early serves on the editorial advisory committees for four labor-related
publications--Labor Notes, New Labor Forum, WorkingUSA and Social
Policy. He is also a board member of United For a Fair Economy.
He is a member of the Pacific Media Workers Guild (Freelancers
Unit), an affiliate of the TNG/CWA.
Early has been a longtime backer of Jobs with Justice, the Association
for Union Democracy and Teamsters for a Democratic Union. In
1992, while on loan from CWA, he was part of the Teamster headquarters
transition team for newly-elected IBT President Ron Carey and
other union reformers who won office in the union’s first direct
election of national leaders.
Early is a graduate of Middlebury College and Catholic University
Law School. He was admitted to the Vermont bar and state and
federal courts in Vermont in 1976. In the 1970s, Early worked
for the United Mine Workers and wrote for The UMW Journal, when
it received a National Magazine Award in 1975. |