In Fighting Times, Jon Melrod shares his personal experiences in historical context about his human rights battles against social injustices. Jon was an early supporter of the Black Panther Party and the struggle for black liberation. As you will read, he became a target of the FBI after landing on the Bureau’s radar when he called the Chicago office to coordinate sales of The Black Panther Community Newspaper in Madison, WI. A must read for all freedom loving peoples.” 

 -Emory Douglas, Social Justice Artist & The Black Panther's Revolutionary Artists/Minister of Culture 1967-1981

Jon Melrod’s Fighting Times blends the riveting personal history of a dedicated class war veteran with important lessons in building multi-racial, multi-gender, working class solidarity on the shop floor, in the streets, and especially when confronting the boss. As a lifelong activist and unapologetic revolutionary, Melrod’s efforts to democratize the UAW during the 1970’s and 80’s foreshadowed today’s battles for union democracy, and his story offers a handy blueprint for the next generation of fired-up workers, labor organizations, and hell-raisers.

-Kim Kelly, Labor journalist and author
Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor

Melrod's Fighting Times isn't a memoir that talks about halcyon days when revolution was in the air--it's a fighting manual for people today who want to change society. The revolutionary doesn't just think the masses into action, but acts alongside them, lifting their fellow worker up and leading by example. If you're a young worker or student who wants to get things moving, Fighting Times shows you what it means to do just that.

-Brace Belden, Co-host True Anon podcast,
Volunteer with YPG Kurdish Militia in Syria, ILWU Local 6 Organizing Committee at Anchor Brewing San Francisco

To organize communities and workers you have to listen to them. Jon Melrod’s many stories show he did just that--and had a blast, too, as they turned their creativity and solidarity against the boss. Yes, there’s a lot to be learned from Melrod’s tales, but they’re also a joy to read.

 -Ken Paff, Co-founder, Teamsters for a Democratic Union

Brother Melrod’s book Fighting Times provides first-hand insight into the valiant struggles waged in the early to mid-eighties in the contentious struggle between rank-and-file auto workers and the four U.S. auto manufacturers. Concession fever, pushed by both the auto companies and their partners in the UAW International union, swept the industry and threatened to decimate decades of hard-fought gains won by the rank-and-file since breaking down the non-union shops in the 1930’s. 

For any young activist just entering the labor movement, Fighting Times offers inspiration, guidance, and insight on how to motivate the rank-and-file to identify its own interests and stand up to corporate attacks, and in some cases, union sellouts who do the bidding of the owning class. The book is a must read for all aspiring labor activists. 

-Peter Kelly, 9 years President UAW Local 160 GM Tech Center, UAW National Bargaining Committee 1985

Long before Kenosha, Wisconsin became a flashpoint in Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, this blue-collar city was the scene of intense shop floor campaigns against racism and for militant unionism in the auto industry. Jon Melrod’s account of his workplace organizing and reform caucus building in the 1970s and 80s is full of useful lessons for younger radicals trying to revive organized labor today. Fighting Times illustrates the importance of resisting contract concessions, defending free speech on the shop floor, and democratizing the United Auto Workers, a key rank-and-file struggle to this very day. 

--Steve Early, Labor journalist, author, and former International Representative, Communications Workers of America

Jon Melrod’s Fighting Times tells the story of a ‘60s-era student radical who was one of thousands of young revolutionaries who left the campus and headed for mills, mines, factories, and battered neighborhoods. It was a learn-as-you go migration that was as challenging and exciting as it was chaotic and dangerous

Much ink has been devoted to Weatherman’s stuttering attempts to attack the system. What’s missing is the organizing these one-time SDS activists did in the coal miners right to strike movement, the postal workers wildcat strikes, and - in Melrod’s case - Kenosha American Motors factory. American youth everywhere were inspired by the freedom fighters of the Black Panthers, Vietnamese NLF, and the Chinese Revolution. It was an exciting time and Jon Melrod’s extraordinary book puts you there.

-Tommy Amano-Tompkins, English professor at LA Harbor College and one-time arts editor at the S.F. Bay Guardian 

Fighting Times is an excellent example of a militant rank-and-file caucus taking up the battle for women’s equality. The Fighting Times caucus At the American Motors’ auto plant in Kenosha, WI took up the battle against discrimination of women on the shop floor, within the union, and in the broader community. When Jon was elected chief steward his election slate consisted of newly energized women activists. Under his leadership, ½ the steward body were women. 

I recommend any young person looking to become active in the union movement read this book, which is vital for building today’s movement in support of women’s fight for equality and the fight for social justice. 

-Laura Drake, Served 25 years on Allied Industrial Workers local 232 Bargaining Team & Plant Grievance Rep, Senior Organizer Chicago AFSCME Council 31 for 17 years

72-year-old Jon Melrod has been an activist all his life—starting in second grade. His book, Fighting Times is a remarkable document that shows us how one dedicated person became a leader who helped build a movement that improved the lives of industrial workers. Fighting Times is a blueprint for anyone who seeks to bring justice to the workplace.

-Stephan Shames, American Photographer, fellow alumnus Putney School

For too long the dominant narrative of Sixties radicalism has been one of unrealistic idealism giving way to desperation, capitulation, or despair. Missing are stories of those who became radicalized in that time and went to ‘to the working class’ as a means to affect fundamental change. Now Jon Melrod brings us one of those stories, one that is both unique — his having been a catalyzing force in key struggles — and far more representative than what we have been led to believe. His is an essential story of someone who emerged from the Sixties maelstrom intent on taking things in further liberatory directions.

-Aaron J. Leonard, Author of Heavy Radicals: The FBI’s Secret War Against America’s Maoists.

The transition from the activist bubble to the workplace is not always easy, and Melrod doesn’t pretend it to be. Fantasies about “mobilizing the masses” quickly dissolve, a Nazi coworker points a gun at you, and your new date spouts racial slurs when suspecting you of flirting with a black co-worker. At the core of Melrod’s both enlightening and entertaining account is the coming-together of very different people in the class’s interests, the basis of revolutionary politics.

-Gabriel Kuhn, LeftTwoThree, Sweden