My guest today is author, attorney and progressive activist, Eric Lotke. Welcome back to OpEdNews, Eric.

Joan Brunwasser: We haven’t spoken for quite a while. Union Made has just been published. Congratulations! Your last two books dealt with prison and our legal system. In Union Made, the relationship between management and the workforce takes the center stage. Why did this become your latest literary foray?

Eric Lotke: I was late to unions. Previous books came from earlier stages of my career, fighting mass incarceration and exploring other ways to keep communities safe. That was good work and I stand by it. But even when we could win a fight against mandatory minimum sentences or a private prison company, the country kept moving in the wrong direction. Inequality rising. Politics broken. The criminal legal system basically unchanged.

What might change it? I came to realize that the only thing that would fix those problems was working people working together. Wait a minute! I realized. That’s what unions do. One factory worker alone is powerless – but all the factory workers together can close down the plant and demand a fair share of the profits they help produce.

So I joined the team. I quit my job and went to work for a labor union. A few years later I decided to write a book about it. Partly because I thought people might enjoy the story… and partly because storytelling is part of social movements. That’s why I wrote Making Manna about the criminal legal system and now Union Made, a romance about union organizing.

To Read More, Go To: https://www.opednews.com/articles/Novelist-Asks-Are-Unions-by-Joan-Brunwasser-Interviews_StoryTelling_Union-Busting_Union-Dues-210322-101.html