In Labor Under Fire, historian Timothy Minchin offers the first general history of the AFL-CIO from 1979 to the presidency of Barack Obama. Minchin feels previous scholarly treatments of the AFL-CIO have focused too much on its mixed record on civil rights, support of U.S. foreign policy, and the decline of the labor movement under its leadership. While acknowledging these criticisms, Minchin also argues “the AFL-CIO deserves to receive a more balanced treatment than it has so far” (6). Though membership numbers have drastically dwindled since its founding in 1955, the AFL-CIO, according to Minchin, remains a progressive force to this day capable of “exerting real political power” (13) through electoral campaigns and congressional lobbying. “As a result,” as Minchin states, “this book focuses heavily on how the AFL-CIO at the national level, and particularly its leaders, interacted with various presidential administrations and with Congress” (7). With this focus, Minchin has produced a top-down institutional history of the AFL-CIO almost completely devoid of rank-and-file unionists’ voices and struggles.

Labor Under Fire is a well-written and informative book on the highest levels of the AFL-CIO. Minchin accomplished this by utilizing the AFL-CIO’s papers, including the mostly restricted post-1979 papers, which he received special permission to use. He also mines the archives of political leaders, using all the presidential libraries from Eisenhower to Clinton, in addition to contemporary newspapers and union publications. Impressively, Minchin interviewed sixty former and current AFL-CIO staffers, including past presidents John Sweeney and Thomas Donahue and its current president, Richard Trumka. These interviews, especially those of the staffers, breathe life into this history.

Minchin begins by summarizing the AFL-CIO’s history from 1955 to 1979 under George Meany. Due to the changing nature of the American workforce, union density declined from 32 percent in 1955 to 24 percent in 1979. As Minchin notes, “Meany refused to be concerned about decline, insisting that the Federation was strong and healthy” (16) as overall union membership numbers remained steady during this period, despite the decline in percentage. With stable membership numbers, most unions focused on servicing their members, and Meany made political work his main priority rather than organizing.

Many labor historians see the 1970s as the major turning point for organized labor in the United States. This decade witnessed an accelerated drop in manufacturing jobs that, coupled with the rise of a new conservative movement, brought a sharp decline in the labor movement. Minchin views the decade in a less negative light. Through its political influence, the AFL-CIO during this decade played key roles in securing passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, extension of the Voting Rights Act, and incremental raises in the minimum wage. Through Minchin’s political lens, labor’s decline does not begin in a dramatic way during the 1970s— instead, it was during the Reagan administration that organized labor truly came “under fire.”

Prior to Ronald Reagan assuming the presidency, Meany retired as AFL-CIO president in 1979, with insider Lane Kirkland taking over. Minchin provides the first archival-based treatment of the Kirkland years. Minchin shows how Meany’s singular attention to Washington politics left Kirkland and the federation unprepared “for the more hostile political and economic climate it would soon face” (17). The 1980 election results “were a disaster for the AFL-CIO” (58), especially because of the large backing Reagan received from union voters, showing how out of touch the AFL-CIO officialdom was with its base.

As detailed by Minchin, “Kirkland responded to the harsh climate by accelerating his efforts to unify the labor movement” (64). In this, Kirkland did succeed when the UAW reaffiliated with the AFL-CIO. Also, according to Minchin, Kirkland became “an unlikely militant” (79) by organizing Solidarity Day on September 19, 1981. Solidarity Day drew around four hundred thousand people to Washington, DC, making it the largest labor march ever and one of the biggest marches in U.S. history. Until this book, Solidarity Day has received little scholarly treatment, which Minchin devotes an entire chapter to and draws parallels between it and the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington (MOW). For Minchin, Solidarity Day “showed that the AFL-CIO under Kirkland could connect with workers, as well as with allies outside the labor movement” (74), and he gives it partial credit for the Democrats electoral gains in the 1982 mid-term elections. Comparing these marches, however, is a stretch when viewed from the bottom-up. While Solidarity Day showed that the AFL-CIO could mobilize people, unlike the MOW, it was not connected to grassroots organizing and did not result in any lasting changes for organized labor. Moreover, that the AFL-CIO organized its membership for an act of political theater, not for the strikes of this era, only strengthens the argument of the federation’s critics, whom Minchin attempts to counter.

Despite Solidarity Day, the Reagan administration remained undeterred in carrying out its anti-labor offensive. The 1980s remained tough years for organized labor, with what Minchin describes as only a “partial détente” during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. By 1992 union density had fallen to around 16 percent. Rather than organizing, the AFL-CIO expended its vast resources in backing Bill Clinton for president with the hope that he would deliver “a new political dawn” (183). Instead, Clinton secured passage of NAFTA, which Minchin sees as another major turning point in labor’s decline.

With the AFL-CIO under Kirkland engaging in little organizing and receiving scant payback from its electoral focus, calls for a change in leadership grew louder. Rather than being forced out, Kirkland retired in 1995, and Secretary Treasurer Donahue served the remaining four months of Kirkland’s term. SEIU President John Sweeney then announced he would run for the presidency, bringing about the first contested election in the federation’s history, which he would win.

Minchin states, “The early Sweeney years were a remarkable time” (237). The federation under Sweeney’s leadership helped block Clinton’s Fast Track trade bill and brought more women and minorities into union leadership and staff positions. It also took an anti-war stance and called for amnesty for undocumented immigrants. These were all remarkable changes considering the federation’s previous support for U.S. war efforts and immigration quotas. These efforts, though, could not stem the tide of deindustrialization that continued to devastate entire industries and unions.

The final turning point Minchin cites in labor’s decline is 9/11. The nation’s focus on international terrorism left little room for the AFL-CIO’s domestic labor agenda. With the optimism of Sweeney’s presidency dashed, labor reformers once again called for a change. This time the change came in the form of a split. In 2005, five large unions withdrew from the AFL-CIO and formed Change to Win as a rival organization. The main impetus for the split was the demand for more organizing. The rivals did come together, though, in their campaign efforts for Obama in 2008. According to many media sources, the efforts of organized labor in battleground states proved decisive in electing Obama, demonstrating for Minchin the AFL-CIO’s continued importance in U.S. politics.

As stated, Minchin provides a top-down history of the AFL-CIO. He adds much to the developing scholarship of this period. However, while seeking to provide “a more balanced treatment” of the AFL-CIO by solely looking at the leadership, Minchin’s analysis becomes highly unbalanced. Nevertheless, Minchin has produced an important book that scholars of labor, politics, and business will find valuable.