Bob Crow: Socialist, Leader, Fighter: A Political Biography, by Gregor Gall. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2017, ISBN: 978‐1526100290, Price £20, hardback.
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12270 |
| Author | Ralph Darlington |
Book Reviews 887
disrupts the flow of the book. A further concern is the use of Wikipedia as a point of
reference when sourcing the original material is a more academically rigorous means
of citing the material.
Despite these problems, Surviving Job Loss adds to existing literature relating to
the dislocation of workers and contemporary employment relations. Specifically, it
contributes to the small amount of existing scholarship regarding the paper mill
industry in the USA, which suers from on-going layosdue to digital developments,
environmental pressures and competition from foreign trade. Additionally, Root
and Park frame the conclusion of the book as a series of recommendations and
considerationsthat may well be worth considering by employersand legislators. Having
come to this book from a background in book history, with a research focus on
contemporary publishing culture and practices, this book was a fascinating insight
into the declining paper-making industry and the people who haveworked within that
industry for decades and, often, generations. Through the voices of the people who
are experiencing dislocation first-hand, this book gives a detailed and contemporary
account of an age-old problem: skilled labour being overtaken by technological
developments and digital innovation.
STEVIE MARSDEN
CAMEo Research Institute for Culturaland Media Economies, University of Leicester
Refe renc e
Root,K. and Park, R. J.(2009). Forced Out: Older WorkersConfront Job Loss. Boulder,
CO: First Forum Press.
Bob Crow: Socialist, Leader, Fighter: A Political Biography, by Gregor Gall.
Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2017, ISBN: 978-1526100290, Price
£20, hardback.
During his term of oce as general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime
and Transport Workers (RMT) during 2002–2014 until his early death at the age of
52, Bob Crow became one of the most widely known British union leaders of his
generation. His stress on the virtues of militant resistance towards employers and
government contributed to RMT members on the railways and London Underground
organizing (on a proportionate basis) probably more ballots for industrial action,
securing more successful ‘yes’ votes and taking strikeaction more often than any other
union. In the process,Crow became the bˆ
ete noire of the tabloidmedia, with the Evening
Standard claiming he was ‘The Most Hated Man in London’.
So, Gregor Gall’s attempt to provide, from a sympathetic but ‘critical Marxist’
analytical standpoint, the first in-depth study of Crow’s leadership of the union is to
be welcomed. The first six chapters of the book provide a chronological account of
Crow’s life, beginning with his family background and early childhood in a working
class east London/Essex family,influenced by his trade unionist and communist father.
After leaving school at the age of 16 without any qualifications, Crow started work
on London Underground, joined the Communist Party and after becoming a local
rep of the National Union of Railwaymen (predecessor of the RMT), developed into
a confident radical leader who rose up the ranks. He built a base of support that
C
2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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