Handbook for the Revolution: Building a More Perfect Union for the Twenty-First Century
ISBN
Publisher
Imprint
Year Published
Print Length
Format
SKU
9780374613716
AUWA
N/A
2026
224 pages
Paperback
26363
Original price was: ₨7,995.00.₨1,395.00Current price is: ₨1,395.00.
From the cofounder of the Amazon Labor Union, a definitive how-to guide to workplace organizing told through a David vs. Goliath chronicle for the ages.
Description
On April 1, 2022, the Amazon warehouse known as JFK8, in Staten Island, notched an improbable victory when its workers voted to become the company’s first unionized facility. Miraculously, a completely self-taught and worker-led union had defeated one of the most powerful corporations on the planet. In the aftermath, two of the founders of the Amazon Labor Union, Derrick Palmer and Chris Smalls, began traveling across the country to help workers at Amazon and other corporations form their own unions. Unsurprisingly, nearly everyone they met had the same question: How did they do it?
In Handbook for the Revolution, Derrick Palmer, who continues to work at JFK8, provides the answer in the form of a how-to guide to organizing in today’s workplace while providing gripping, never before-told anecdotes from the ALU’s fight and its plans for the future. Practical, philosophical, and full of personality, Palmer’s manual-cum-manifesto is an accessible step-by-step playbook for the often contentious and complex process of unionization, and a powerful call for equality―and greater understanding―through worker solidarity.
Full of hard-won lessons and personal experience, and written in the context of mass consolidation, fluctuating labor laws, and an ever widening wealth gap, Handbook for the Revolution is an invaluable resource for the modern labor movement, a thrilling chronicle of persistence, and an inspiring push for change in the workplace―and beyond.
Praise and Reviews
"A conversational how-to for unionizing one’s workplace . . . Throughout, [Palmer's] guidance is as common sense as it is compassionate . . . A useful manual for those with a budding interest in unionizing." ―Publishers Weekly----------------------------
"When Derrick Palmer and his coworker friends defeated Amazon, they inadvertently created a blueprint for 21st-century organizing. Handbook for the Revolution reveals what those battles taught: vision, tenacity, strategy, and community are the cornerstones of sustaining a movement when everyone wants to see you fail. It offers an honest reckoning with racism, power struggles, and the cost of revolutionary work. In this moment when so many of us are saddled with inordinate amounts of fear and anger, this book offers much needed inspiration and guidance for how to redirect those feelings into action that can save lives." ―Tarana Burke, New York Times-bestselling author of Unbound, activist, and founder of the "Me Too" movement----------------------------
"Derrick Palmer's nuts and bolts approach to unionizing the Amazon warehouse on Staten Island is rooted in a powerful insight: People with power refuse to communicate―and that's how they retain their unjust dominance. People looking for positive change are dependent on communication―for it is only through the transformative nature of relationship, that the stale status quo can be reimagined and overturned." ―Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show
About the Author
Derrick Palmer is the cofounder of the Amazon Labor Union, which in 2022 successfully unionized an Amazon warehouse for the first time in the company’s history. In 2022, he and union cofounder Christian Smalls were honored with placement on Time's 100 Most Influential People list and as one of the Dynamic Duos on Ebony's Power 100 list. He continues to work at the Amazon JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, where he lives.
Handbook for the Revolution: Building a More Perfect Union for the Twenty-First Century
By : Derrick Palmer
From the cofounder of the Amazon Labor Union, a definitive how-to guide to workplace organizing told through a David vs. Goliath chronicle for the ages.
Description
On April 1, 2022, the Amazon warehouse known as JFK8, in Staten Island, notched an improbable victory when its workers voted to become the company’s first unionized facility. Miraculously, a completely self-taught and worker-led union had defeated one of the most powerful corporations on the planet. In the aftermath, two of the founders of the Amazon Labor Union, Derrick Palmer and Chris Smalls, began traveling across the country to help workers at Amazon and other corporations form their own unions. Unsurprisingly, nearly everyone they met had the same question: How did they do it?
In Handbook for the Revolution, Derrick Palmer, who continues to work at JFK8, provides the answer in the form of a how-to guide to organizing in today’s workplace while providing gripping, never before-told anecdotes from the ALU's fight and its plans for the future. Practical, philosophical, and full of personality, Palmer’s manual-cum-manifesto is an accessible step-by-step playbook for the often contentious and complex process of unionization, and a powerful call for equality―and greater understanding―through worker solidarity.
Full of hard-won lessons and personal experience, and written in the context of mass consolidation, fluctuating labor laws, and an ever widening wealth gap, Handbook for the Revolution is an invaluable resource for the modern labor movement, a thrilling chronicle of persistence, and an inspiring push for change in the workplace―and beyond.
Praise and Reviews
"A conversational how-to for unionizing one’s workplace . . . Throughout, [Palmer's] guidance is as common sense as it is compassionate . . . A useful manual for those with a budding interest in unionizing." ―Publishers Weekly----------------------------
"When Derrick Palmer and his coworker friends defeated Amazon, they inadvertently created a blueprint for 21st-century organizing. Handbook for the Revolution reveals what those battles taught: vision, tenacity, strategy, and community are the cornerstones of sustaining a movement when everyone wants to see you fail. It offers an honest reckoning with racism, power struggles, and the cost of revolutionary work. In this moment when so many of us are saddled with inordinate amounts of fear and anger, this book offers much needed inspiration and guidance for how to redirect those feelings into action that can save lives." ―Tarana Burke, New York Times-bestselling author of Unbound, activist, and founder of the "Me Too" movement----------------------------
"Derrick Palmer's nuts and bolts approach to unionizing the Amazon warehouse on Staten Island is rooted in a powerful insight: People with power refuse to communicate―and that's how they retain their unjust dominance. People looking for positive change are dependent on communication―for it is only through the transformative nature of relationship, that the stale status quo can be reimagined and overturned." ―Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show
About the Author
Derrick Palmer is the cofounder of the Amazon Labor Union, which in 2022 successfully unionized an Amazon warehouse for the first time in the company’s history. In 2022, he and union cofounder Christian Smalls were honored with placement on Time's 100 Most Influential People list and as one of the Dynamic Duos on Ebony's Power 100 list. He continues to work at the Amazon JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, where he lives.