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Book Cover for: Unions of Our Own: 8 Building Blocks to Change Work and the World, Daniel Gross

Unions of Our Own: 8 Building Blocks to Change Work and the World

Daniel Gross

Work is not meeting our needs - to say the least. And the gap between how we know our workplace should be and how they actually are is only growing.

But the path to do something about problems at work feels murky, it feels like a lot, it feels too risky.

At the same time right now being unorganized as co-workers and as a working class is devastating us outside of work too as billionaires control more and more of society.

Unions of Our Own is a radically new framework and practice for workers who need and want change at work...and in the world. It reveals the eight fundamental building blocks that it takes to create a sustainable labor union that meets your needs -- as you define them. Through practical tools, clear guidance, and gripping examples from personal experience and fiery labor history, Unions of our Own is an actionable, inspiring, and confidence-boosting guide on how to use these 8 blocks to win the job you deserve.

The clarity you'll get will take you from square one of even considering action all the way to the union you imagine. Not only can you do this, it is only you and your co-worker who have the wisdom and collective power to make your job as it should be while making justice in your industry and community.

But you can't go in with a blank slate, that wisdom and power needs to be surfaced, tested, and refined. The union design framework of the 8 blocks enables you to do just that. Frustrated workers are on the move but too many union efforts are falling short or not getting off the ground in the first place.

Cookie cutter organizing methods and traditional models don't cut it - not for a long while and even less so in the current moment. It takes something more: it takes you. Unorthodox, irreverent, and battle-tested, Unions of Our Own, shows the way.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Haymarket Books
  • Publish Date: Apr 28th, 2026
  • Pages: 304
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 0.00in - 0.00in - 0.00in - 0.00lb
  • EAN: 9798888906354
  • Categories: Activism & Social JusticePolitical EconomyLabor & Industrial Relations

About the Author

Gross, Daniel: -

Daniel Gross works at the Solidarity Union Network (SUN) where he is a member of its launch team and works hand in hand with workers forming their own unions in diverse industries. He got into unionism working in fast food, non-profit, and retail jobs. Daniel has been doing worker-led organizing and union-building for twenty plus years, both at his own jobs and accompanying thousands of workers creating unions in their industries.

He is the co-author of Labor Law for the Rank & Filer: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law with Staughton Lynd, a cult classic passed around year after year among workers looking for know-how and confidence to win change on the job, as well as Solidarity Unionism at Starbucks, the graphic booklet also with Lynd as well as noted political cartoonist Tom Keough.

Amid the context of a severely declined labor movement, Daniel and his co-workers successfully organized the groundbreaking IWW Starbucks Workers Union, which held power over a decade at the coffee giant and helped revitalize a more inclusive labor movement, especially in fast food and other tough to organize sectors.

Daniel subsequently became the founding director of Brandworkers, the first worker center of the immigrant workers in the metro New York local food manufacturing industry, a force transforming exploitative factories and a vital community resource set to commemorate its twentieth anniversary.

Daniel practiced labor law for a time, having been motivated to study law by the union-busting he had experienced and a desire to look at the law from a rank & file perspective.


He has served on the boards of the National Lawyers Guild and Food Chain Workers Alliance and was active in the Immigrant Worker Justice Working Group of Occupy Wall Street, the movement against corporate-controlled globalization and the Iraq war, and others.