“Unions Are Laboratories of Democracy”: Hamilton Nolan on Joe Biden, Gawker, and the Power of Labor

Hamilton Nolan's new book, The Hammer: Power, Inequality , and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor, hits shelves this week .

Nolan 's book is a love letter to the power of workplace organizing and a lacerating critique of the shortcomings of mainstream labor organizations.

Nolan: "My immersion into unions felt like finally grasping the right tool after rummaging around in a toolbox for years ".

Much of the book focuses on the AFL-CIO , the largest federation of unions in the US .

You criticize the organization in quite strong terms, calling it a “mediocre in-house lobbying firm and traffic cop for America ’s unions” The biggest one is just spending money on new organizing, he says.

The success or failure of unions in the U.S. is central to the success of American democracy, author says.

Unions are one of the only institutions that are actually democratic, he says.

Building worker power is, in my mind, the single most effective tool to fix the single biggest problem in America .