Product Index

They're Bankrupting Us! And 20 Other Myths about Unions

How familiar do these phrases ring? Unions are responsible for budget deficits; they’ve outlived their usefulness; their members are overpaid and enjoy cushy benefits. The only way to save the American economy, many say, is to weaken the labor movement, strip workers of collective bargaining rights, and champion private industry. In They're Bankrupting Us! And 20 Other Myths about Unions, longtime labor activist and educator Bill Fletcher Jr. makes sense of this debate as he unpacks the 21 myths most often cited by anti-union propagandists. 204 pages paperback

More Info

Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America

Her rallying cry was famous: "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living." A century ago, Mother Jones was a celebrated organizer and agitator, the very soul of the modern American labor movement. At coal strikes, steel strikes, railroad, textile, and brewery strikes, Mother Jones was always there, stirring the workers to action and enraging the powerful. In this first biography of "the most dangerous woman in America," Elliott J. Gorn proves why, in the words of Eugene V. Debs, Mother Jones "has won her way into the hearts of the nation's toilers, and... will be lovingly remembered by their children and their children's children forever." 408 pages paperback

More Info

May Day: A Graphic History of Protest

May Day: A Graphic History of Protest traces the development of International Workers' Day, May 1st, against the ever-changing economic and political backdrop in Canada and across North America. Recognizing the importance of work and the historical struggles of workers to improve their lives, with a particular focus on the struggles of May 1st, the comic includes the reader as part of this history, and the story concludes that “We are all part of this historical struggle; it's our history and our future.” 32 pages paperback

More Info

The Union Member’s Complete Guide: Everything You Want – and Need – to Know About Working Union

An easy-to-read, thorough explanation of what unions are, how they work, and the rights and responsibilities of membership. Countless workers today became union members only because they took jobs in previously organized workplaces and have little understanding of how unions work. This book gives them that basic understanding and answers bedrock questions about such things as the structure of the labor movement, how contracts are negotiated, the grievance process, core labor laws, their union’s role in their community and a whole lot more. 150 pages paperback

More Info

Managing Tomorrow’s High-Performance Unions

Only by adopting a new style of high-performance union management can labor recover and revitalize itself, says Thomas A. Hannigan, a 40-year member and one-time research and education director of the IBEW. His book offers a practical, common-sense understanding of how successful management works and how it can be used in day-to-day union activities. 301 pages paperback

More Info

Member Assistance Programs in the Workplace

This study, published by Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, looks at labor-based peer counseling and referral programs and documents the major role that well-implemented MAPs can play in the prevention and treatment of substance-abuse problems. 88 pages paperback

More Info

May Day: A Short History of the Int’l Workers’ Holiday

This is the story of May Day, a day born out of Chicago’s Haymarket Massacre in 1886, and marked ever since as a workers’ holiday the world over. In this short history, noted labor scholar Philip Foner writes of the dramatic origins of the day and recounts highlights of May Day celebrations through the years and around the globe. 184 pages paperback

More Info

Making the News: A Guide for Nonprofits and Activists

Tired of the union being ignored by your local media? Fed up with the way your employer’s side of the story always gets told...while the union side gets barely a passing mention, usually negative? You’ll want this book. 289 pages paperback

More Info

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the March on Washington

Written for 5 to 8 year-olds, this is a very nice introduction to Martin Luther King, Jr., and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, that watershed event in the fight for civil rights. It uses the March as a point of reference as it talks about segregation in America and the battle for equal rights. 48 pages Paperback

More Info

The Autobiography of Mother Jones

Mary Harris Jones -- “Mother Jones” -- was the most dynamic woman ever to grace the American labor movement. Employers and politicians around the turn of the century called her “the most dangerous woman in America” and rebellious working men and women loved her as they never loved anyone else. 302 pages paperback

More Info

Mother Jones Speaks: Speeches and Writings

Admirers and students of Mother Jones will want this comprehensive collection of her speeches, letters, articles, interviews and testimony before Congressional committees. In her own words, this brave and determined heroine to millions of workers, active from the end of the Civil War until shortly before her death in 1930, explains her life, her mission, her passion on behalf of working people. 934 pages paperback

More Info

The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker

Society makes sweeping judgments about the intelligence of the "common worker." But consider the lightning-fast calculations required of any waitress; the complex spatial mathematics of the carpenter; the hairdresser’s ability to turn a client’s vague description into a real hairdo. Ditto the skills and brainpower involved in being an electrical worker, a welder and more. In this impassioned and insightful book, Mike Rose reveals the intellectual skills that physical labor requires and assesses the costs -- educational, economic and societal -- of ignoring them. 249 pages paperback

More Info