Rest in Power Mike Parker, 1940-2022

[Omaha Steve]

Mike co-authored the beloved book Democracy Is Power: Rebuilding Unions from the Bottom Up and broke ground with his brilliant analysis of employer strategies that swept the country in the 1980s and 1990s: lean production, the team concept, and labor-management participation schemes. Photo: Alyssa Kang


https://labornotes.org/2022/01/rest-power-mike-parker-1940-2022

January 20, 2022 / Alexandra Bradbury

Mike Parker, the author of four Labor Notes books and a close supporter and key strategist throughout our 43-year history, died January 15 of pancreatic cancer. He will be hugely missed—remembered as a brilliant thinker, a humble and dedicated movement-builder, and a moral compass and mentor to generations of activists.

“I knew Mike Parker when I was a student at the University of Chicago in the early 1960s,” Senator Bernie Sanders told Labor Notes. “Mike was a brilliant advocate for workers and unions then, and he remained so for the rest of his life. Mike fought tirelessly for human solidarity and a more just and humane world. His life’s work and dedication should serve as an example for all of us.”

One of Mike’s major contributions was a critical examination of closely linked employer strategies that swept the country in the 1980s and 1990s: lean production, the team concept, and labor-management participation schemes with names like “quality circles” and “quality of work life.” He developed this analysis while working as an electrician and Auto Workers (UAW) member at Chrysler and Ford plants near Detroit.

Lean production was vigorously promoted by Toyota, spreading first through the auto industry and then to all kinds of other sectors such as hospitals. Its veneer of worker empowerment and emphasis on solving problems could sound enlightened until you decoded those terms—as Mike did in Inside the Circle: A Union Guide to QWL (1985), Choosing Sides: A Union Guide to the Team Concept (1988), and Working Smart: A Union Guide to Participation Programs and Reengineering (1995), the latter two co-authored with Jane Slaughter.

FULL story at link above.