Economic-union Books

A must for anyone wanting to learn the ropes of a grueling job of Union Organizer. This book sells NEW for $25.00 anywhere else. Dont be scammed by anything over that price.

THE best book you can get on tactics for union activists FULL STOP.

The authors, two Leninist economists from the (then) Soviet Union, drive the last nail into the coffin of central economic planning, also known as the command economy. While still favoring Socialism (collective ownership of the means of production; as in Lenin's New Economic Policy of the middle 1920's), they point out in great detail why individual enterprises and individual workers must be free to make their own decisions in the marketplace. Countless examples illustrate the folly of one-size-fits-all regulation. The book shows how the Soviet economy, then one of the world's largest, was essentially reduced to operating on a barter basis for wholesale (what are now called Business-to-Business) transactions.

It will greatly temper expectations of what can be accomplished by, and the price to be paid for, government intervention into the economy, whether done from Moscow or (for example) Washington, D.C.

This is a great 'hidden wonder' of recent American Labor History.

As an unabashed and truly proud pro-labor, pro-New Deal and pro-working class Democrat and Progressive("Progressive" in the real, tough and true sense, not the ACLU-'save the spotted owl' and 'hug a treee' sense), I loved this book as both a study in recent history, and a tribute to one of the greatest movements ever produced on God's green earth.

The American Labor movement - as comparatively small as it may be - is one of this nation's greatest movements, alongside the abolitionist and civil rights ones. In the past 100 years, this movement, along with its allies in the Democratic party and other forward looking sections of the U.S., has given us the 40 Hour Work Week, the Minimum Wage, child labor laws, public works, Social Security, the safety net, Food Stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, consumer safety laws, public employment programs for the at-risk, OSHA and various anti-discrimination laws. This is the movement which has dared to look into the face of greed and demand true justice.

This is the grand story of the United Auto Workers - and their heroic leader, Mr. Walter Reuther - and their quest into traditional American liberalism in the Democratic party. Their quest for true social justice was never achieved, yet, their aims remain those of many forward looking, compassionate and decent Americans who know that the shaft of the workers is one which hurts not only these men and women on the job, but their families, loved ones and community in general.

The book is right when, in the end, it states that we need forward looking voices like the UAW in our culture to demand an end to injustice and keep the forces of injustice in check. We need voices to stand up to right wing efforts to scale back labor laws for the working man and woman, civil rights and health care, day care, family leave and wage oriented legislation of the past. We need more moral voices for American workers and their allies across the world. This book is such a voice. I especially loved the part of George Wallace. This bigoted demagogue constantly exploited the working class by giving out racist rhetoric which was - as some saw it unfortunately - 'pro worker.' Wallace's current followers of the past 20 years include Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Newt Gingrich and the Lott/Delay gang in the Congress. All of these overlook - and ignore - class in order to protect their rich special interests. Instead, they bash the welfare mother, the immigrant and the ghetto child - and call that 'progress.'

May the American labor movement not only stop falling, but may it rise again to successfully demand justice for the working American and his or her family. God would want nothing more from us.

The Unfinished Struggle, considering its brevity and the number of years that it covers, represents an adequate, even good, effort at describing the difficult, hazardous, uneven, and highly compromised journey of the labor movement since the Great Railroad Uprising of 1877.

Since the book is intended for those without thorough knowledge of the labor movement, a shortcoming of the book is the absence of any history of unions prior to 1877. How did they start? What was/is the social, economic, and political/legal context of unions? But the book is a window into the practicality and realities of unionism since 1877.

The author shows that other than for a brief thirty-year period the labor movement has mostly struggled for relevancy, even survival. It is not clear as to the degree of optimism that the author has regarding the completion of the struggle. As a practical matter, a reading of this book leaves little room for optimism.

In the absence of great detail, the author focuses on historical "turning points" as markers to indicate the standing and prospects of the labor movement. Among those selected for discussion were the Strike of 1877, the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912, WWI, the Steel Strike of 1919, the Great Depression, the Wagner Act of 1935, WWII, the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, the PATCO Strike of 1981, and the change in the leadership of the AFL-CIO in the mid-90s. In addition the conflicts and contradictions within the labor movement are well assessed. Basically, the book is a very sobering account of the labor movement.

The author acknowledges the next to impossible task of writing a short history of the labor movement because of its complex past, but he has done a very credible and worthy job.

The passage of time has demonstrated just how insightful the author was when writing 25 years ago. One of the first scholars to write about post-industrialism, Schmidman makes the never-ending struggle for workers' rights come alive. The writing style is clear and informative and never excessively wordy. A must read for those who would understand the dynamics of the labor movement.

This book is like a bible to anyone interested in this particular area. Olga Soffer knows the material well. The book is easy to work through and provides numerous raw data tables making it simple to get straight to the facts.

The book has many drawings and black & white photos throughout. Each of the 29 sites studied has a comprehensive report that details the history of the sites excavation; stratigraphy; artifacts recovered; site plan (if available); and details of the site today.

Professor Vandervort offers readers of European history a balanced account of the life and times of a French revolutionary labor leader at the beginning of this century.

Victor Griffuelhes, coauthor of the influential "Charter of Amiens" (1906) and General Secretary of the Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT) from 1901 to 1909, rose from modest origins to lead what was arguably one of the most dynamic labor movements in Europe before the First World War. His life, not unlike Professor Vandervort's, represents an odyssey through shifting political paradigms and violent global upheavals.

Disarmingly personal at times, Professor Vandervort's account provides us with a sensitive and tough-minded analysis of his subject, explaining how a person's consciousness is moved by dialectical changes beyond the control of any individual. Moreover, this book offers readers an up-to-date historiography of the French labor movement.

The author expresses skepticism toward the current linguistic debate among leading French labor historians, like Joan Scott and William Sewell, who argue for "the primacy of discourse over class in the formulation of workers' politics." Following in the tradition of radical historians like Harvey Goldberg, Georges Haupt, E.P. Thompson, Georges Lefranc, Edouard Dolleans, Maurice Dommanget, Jean Maitron, and Jacques Julliard, Professor Vandervort does not hesitate to disagree with and point out the shortcommings of his closest intellectual allies.

Because of its honesty and its richly detailed descriptions, "Victor Griffuelhes and French Syndicalism, 1895-1922" comes highly recommended to any student of power politics and social class relationships. This book serves well as an antidote for the many vapid accounts in quantitative history that measure the body and omit the soul.

In "Wealth by Association" John Edmunds and John Marthinsen show how the world can move forward to a single global currency. Not only will such a world save on the hundreds of billions of dollars annually wasted today on foreign exchange trading transaction costs, and on avoided currency crises and on avoided currency inflation; the assets of the world will grow because of the elimination of currency risk.
If the decision makers of the world could read this book, they would push much more rapidly toward a single global currency. The concepts in "Wealth by Association" are not rocket science, as the authors show how the U.S. Dollar and the old German Mark are/were "common currencies", as is now the euro.
Bravo for "Wealth by Association"
morrison bonpasse
President
Single Global Currency Association
Newcastle, Maine
www.singleglobalcurrency.org

This is the clearest explication of how the geopolitics of oil (and other resources) shape our world. The case history recounted and dissected here yields insights that simply must be understood to seriously promote co-existence among discordant states competing in the world markets.