| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

A Strike like No Other Strike: Law & Resistance during the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989–1990. By Richard A. Brisbin Jr. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. xvi, 350 pp. $44.95, ISBN 0-8018-6901-3.)
This excellent study describes the 1989–1990 Pittston coal strike, which was centered in southwestern Virginia. Richard A. Brisbin Jr. avoids offering a traditional narrative in favor of a deeper analysis of the dispute that explores the strike's significance as an exercise in civil disobedience and oppositional culture. As the title indicates, this strike appeared to be different from previous disputes in terms of its intensity and the raw emotions it evoked. In addition, Brisbin devotes considerable attention to how the law favors management.	1
Brisbin begins by describing the interaction between the legal system and organized labor, which he refers to as legalism, and shows how unions are at an immediate disadvantage in this arena owing to the law's bias in favor of property rights. Nevertheless, legalism became an important tool for organized labor because of the New Deal's protective legislation, especially the Wagner Act. This was reinforced for the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) with the 1950 accord reached between its president, John L. Lewis, and the nation's major coal operators.	. . .

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