Kerrissey Wins ASA Book Award

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Jasmine Kerrissey, labor studies, and co-author Judith Stepan-Norris have won the 2024 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award from the American Sociological Association's section on Labor and Labor Movements. "Union Booms and Busts: The ongoing fight over the U.S. Labor Movement" (Oxford University Press, 2023) examines over 115 years of data from 11 industries and considers the societal context and actions taken by union and employer organizations to offer a bird's eye view of the U.S. labor movement.  

With attention to historical developments and the economic, political, and legal contexts of each period, the book highlights workers' and their unions' actions, including strikes, union elections, and organizing strategies as well those of employers, who aimed to disrupt union organizing using legal maneuvers, workforce-based strategies, and race and gender divisions. By demonstrating how workers used strikes, elections, and other strategies to win power and employers used legal maneuvers, workforce-based strategies, and race and gender divisions to disrupt unions, the authors reveal data-driven truths about the ongoing history of unionization.

Kerrissey was presented with the award at the 119th American Sociological Association Annual Meeting in Montréal, Québec, August 9-13, 2024.