Reddit mentions of The Worker Elite: Notes on the Labor Aristocracy

This list provided by /u/marxism-feminism is pretty good, but I would argue many Third-Worldist websites and articles lack concrete details about the nature of the Western labor bureaucracy (the institutions of the labor aristocracy). That is to say, it's not simply a case of arguing things like how large the labor aristocracy in the imperialist nations is, or whether they even have a proletariat, but you have to explain the fact that the institutions of the 'working class' itself have been overtly in support of their own imperialists for over a century now.

Even those who are not Third-Worldists have understood this, they just have not been able to come up with a concrete explanation for why it is the case. In that regard, reading this material with a Third-Worldist lens is quite illuminating, and I think, profoundly important for bringing the Third-Worldist analysis out of pure theoretical abstraction and into a concrete historical materialist analysis.

AFL-CIO's Dark Past (http://www.laboreducator.org/darkpast.htm) by Harry Kelber

Organized Labor and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Solidarity Center in Historical Context (http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/752/) by George Nelson Bass

Solidarity for Sale (http://www.laborers.org/SOLIDARITYFORSALE.html) by Robert Fitch

Unequal Exchange and the Prospects of Socialism (http://snylterstaten.dk/english/unequal-exchange-and-prospects-socialism-communist-working-group) by the Communist Working Circle

Labor Aristocracy: Mass Base of Social-Democracy (http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/contemp/whitemyths/edwards/) by H.W. Edwards

Taking Care of Business: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy of American Labor (http://www.amazon.com/Taking-Care-Business-Kirkland-American/dp/1583670033) by Paul Buhle

Where were you, brother? An account of trade union imperialism (http://www.amazon.com/Where-brother-account-trade-imperialism/dp/0905990048) by Don Thompson and Rodney Larson

Workers of the World Undermined: American Labor's Role in U.S. Foreign Policy (http://www.amazon.com/Workers-World-Undermined-American-Foreign/dp/0896084299/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418155072&sr=1-1&keywords=workers+of+the+world+undermined) by Beth Sims

Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism (http://bookzz.org/book/2064979/b76b20) by Zak Cope

The Worker Elite: Notes on the Labor Aristocracy (http://www.amazon.com/The-Worker-Elite-Notes-Aristocracy-ebook/dp/B00KOTXSTC) by Bromma

AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage? (http://www.amazon.com/AFL-CIOs-against-Developing-Country-Workers/dp/0739135023/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418155256&sr=1-1&keywords=afl-cio+secret+war) by Kim Scipes

The Influence of Organized Labor on U.S. Policy toward Israel, 1945- 1967 (https://ohiostatepress.org/Books/Complete%20PDFs/Hahn%20Empire/08.pdf) by Peter L. Hahn

Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat (http://bookzz.org/book/900314/deedd1) by J. Sakai

Two Pages from Roman History (https://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/pdf/1902/two_pages.pdf), by Daniel De Leon.

The Labor Lieutenants of American Imperialism (https://archive.org/details/TheLaborLieutenantsOfAmericanImperialism) by Jay Lovestone

That last one is particularly interesting, because it is clear Lovestone used his understanding of the nature of the US labor bureaucracy to actually catapult himself to the top of it, after he was expelled from the CP for refusing to accept the Black Nation line.

The term "Labor Lieutenants" comes from Daniel De Leon. If the Bolsheviks had never succeeded, it would be possible to reconstruct the labor aristocracy thesis almost entirely from Daniel De Leon and his group's struggle with the US labor bureaucracy.