Take Back the Power

The Fall and Rise and Fall of NYC’s Transport Workers Union Local 100, 1975-2009

Series: 

Author:
Marc Kagan
The fifty-year long neoliberal era has been marked by working-class reverses and moribund unions. Grounded in the author’s own experiences as a transit worker participating in a decades-long effort to fight management and austerity economics, Take Back the Power presents a new perspective on what activists can do to revitalize the labor movement. Marc Kagan uses his union’s story to illuminate key dilemmas their efforts face, among them: fight the boss or fight the union to fight the boss; the tension between leadership and participatory democracy; and the costs and benefits of risk aversion. This book encourages us to think introspectively about the choices we make as we attempt to build a better world.
Copyright Year:
2026
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-74865-1
Publication:
22 Dec 2025
Hardback
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-74863-7
Publication:
02 Feb 2026
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About MyBook
Marc Kagan is a former transit worker, a life-long union and shopfloor activist, and sometime union officer. He has taught American, NYC, and Labor History, and is co-author of Gains and Losses: How Protestors Win and Lose (Oxford, 2022).
Acknowledgements
List of Figures

PART 1: Introduction



1 The Fall of the House of Labor, and the New Directions Project
 1 Transformational Efforts and Union Dilemmas
 2 Three Theories on the Decline of American Trade Unions – and Their Implications
 3 Challenging and Changing the Structure and Culture of American Unions
 4 The “Long” History of TWU Local 100 and the New Directions Project in the Neoliberal Era
 5 An Outline of the Book

2 Local 100, the Transit Industry, and New York City’s Fiscal Crisis
 1 Life as a Transit Worker
 2 The First Decades of Transport Workers Union Local 100
 3 Union Reorganization(s)
 4 Distinctions across Transit and Local 100
 5 Local 100 in the Long 1960s
 6 The Taylor Law, New York City’s Fiscal Crisis, and Austerity
 7 Conclusion: Priming the Fall

PART 2: Fall



3 A Bottle-Rocket that Led to Only a Wage Increase
 1 1978 Contract Ratification
 2 The 1979 Election
 3 The 1980 Strike: Victory or Defeat?
 4 Controlling the Narrative of the Strike; and After
 5 Conclusion: the Dilemmas of Oppositionist Organizations

4 The Fall of TWU Local 100
 1 The Fight at 207th St.
 2 Management’s Agenda, Union Complicity, 1982–1999
 3 Conclusion: Neither the Army Nor the Town Hall

PART 3: Rise



5 Divisional Efforts at “Shop-Floor” Struggle
 1 Sort-of Top-Down Militancy in Structure
 2 Mass Action in Car Equipment
 3 Sort-of Bottom-Up in Track
 4 RTO Spawns New Directions
 5 Conclusion: Four Different Countriesv
6 The Rise of New Directions
 1 The Early Years of HoW-ND
 2 Toward Electoralism, 1989–1995
 3 Staving Off New Directions
 4 Democracy in New Directions; New Blood and New Questions, 1996–1998
 5 Success? 1998–2000
 6 Conclusion: the Blemishes on the Golden Apple

7 The Trials and Tasks of Running a Union, 2001–02
 1 Not a “Productive Bargaining Relationship”
 2 The Successes and Limits of Fighting Back within the Web of Rules
 3 A Case Study in Bargaining: Local 100’s Health Benefit Crisis
 4 Union and Worker Action
 5 Problems of Union and Workplace Democracy in Theory and Local 100 Practice
 6 The Officers Replicate the Stewards
 7 Management at the Union Hall
 8 The Break-Up of New Directions
 9 Conclusion: Big Gains and Squandered Opportunities

8 Negotiating a Contract
 1 Goals and Priorities
 2 Organizational Preparations for Negotiations
 3 Lots of Expectations: Bargaining Begins
 4 Outside Pressures
 5 Down from the Pinnacle: the 2002 Contract
 6 Final Contract and Fallout: Why No Strike?
 7 Ratification and Objections
 8 Conclusion: a Better Bargain?

PART 4: Fall



9 The Union on the Defensive
 1 Contract Implementation Bogs Down
 2 Accountability, the 2003 Elections, and the Final Demise of the New Directions Left
 3 Union Building …
 4 … And Union Unbuilding
 5 Fighting Transit?
 6 Conclusion: a House Divided

10 The 2005 New York City Transit Strike
 1 Contract Preparations and Messaging
 2 Final Pre-Strike Negotiations and Agreements
 3 A Deadline Is a Deadline?
 4 The Strike
 5 The Rejection of the Contract
 6 I Hate the Members; and Contract Arbitration, after All
 7 Conclusion: an Odd Strike, an Odder Ending

11 The End, and “Back to Normalcy”
 1 The 2006 Elections and New Rounds of Internal Warfare
 2 Amending the Taylor Law, and Other Political Efforts
 3 Cooperation with Transit
 4 Bad Decisions: the Union Bleeds Money, and Members
 5 By-Laws Changes
 6 A Very Bizarre Contract Round
 7 2009 Election
 8 Conclusion: Back to Normalcy

12 The Dilemmas of Union Revitalization
 1 Dilemma: Fight the Boss, or Fight the Union to Fight the Boss
 2 Dilemma: Educational Campaigns or First Win
 3 Dilemma: Leadership, or Participatory Democracy, in the New Directions Caucus
 4 Dilemma: the Army or the Democratic Town Meeting at the Union Hall
 5 Dilemma: the Union Caucus after Victory
 6 Dilemma: Things, or Industrial Democracy
 7 Dilemma: Urgent, or Important? 4348 Dilemma: Risk, or Is Another World Possible?

Appendix A: The Problems and Possibilities of Writing Contemporary and Presentist History
Appendix B: Marxist-Leninist Party Leaflets
Appendix C: Transition Issues for Local 100 (December 2000)

Bibliography
Index
This book is especially relevant for union education and training programs, university courses focused on labor, employment relations, organizational studies, economics, political science, sociology, and history. It will also appeal to union and social movement activists, as well as enthusiasts of New York City and mass transit.
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