Common Preservation: In a Time of Mutual Destruction

Jeremy Brecher

jun 2021 · PM Press

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As world leaders eschew cooperation to address climate change, nuclear proliferation, economic meltdown, and other threats to our survival, more and more people experience a pervasive sense of dread and despair. Is there anything we can do? What can put us on the course from mutual destruction to common preservation? In the past, social movements have sometimes made rapid and unexpected changes that countered apparently incurable social problems. Jeremy Brecher presents scores of historical examples of people who changed history by adopting strategies of common preservation, showing what we can we learn from past social movements to better confront today’s global threats of climate change, war, and economic chaos.

In Common Preservation, Brecher shares his experiences and what he has learned that can help ward off mutual destruction and provides a unique heuristic—a tool kit for thinkers and activists—to understand and create new forms of common preservation.

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Jeremy Brecher has participated in movements for nuclear disarmament, civil rights, peace, international labor rights, global economic justice, accountability for war crimes, climate protection, and many others. He is the author of fifteen books on labor and social movements, including the national best seller Strike! He has received five regional Emmy awards for his documentary film work. He is currently policy and research director for the Labor Network for Sustainability.

Todd Vachon is a union carpenter turned educator and faculty member in the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University. As the faculty coordinator of the Labor Education Action Research Network, he directs the university’s labor education extension programs, including classes and workshops for workers, unions, and other organizations. Todd earned his PhD in sociology from the University of Connecticut, where he helped to organize the graduate employee union-UAW Local 6950 and served as the first local president. His research, which has been published in a variety of academic journals and edited books, focuses on inequality, labor, climate change, and justice. His current project is a book about the American labor-climate movement, titled Clean Air and Good Jobs: U.S. Labor and the Struggle for a Just Transition.