Economic-union Books

This is a usefull practical guide for the consultant working in development projects in the third world.

Progressives in the early decades of the twentieth century were concerned with all manner of social issues, including the "labor question," or the relationship of employers and employees. Powers Hapgood, born in 1899 into a Progressive family, was, like many of his Harvard contemporaries, interested in the standing of the working class. But he, unlike them, sought to actually join with workers in their struggles.

After a certain amount of wandering around, Hapgood ended up playing a not insignificant role in the massive mine workers strike of 1922 from the base of Somerset County, PA, where he mostly provided assistance to miners and their families, including fund raising and creating public sympathy through writing articles for progressive publications. He became known in Progressive circles and developed friendships with any number of reformers. In addition, he became lifelong friends with John Brophy, a miner, working class intellectual, and UMW labor official. The capitulation of John Lewis, the head of the UMW, to the mine owners was disconcerting to the idealistic Hapgood, bringing home the facts that a union could be a personal fiefdom and that a just cause could be crushed.

The author suggests that this book should be required reading for not only college students taking on summer jobs with unions but also for those running those programs. They need to know, as Hapgood found out, that organizational demands of unions trump worker empowerment every time. The post-WWII labor framework rested on government sanctioned administrative processes, not worker activism. Though the radical politics of Hapgood placed him even further outside labor officialdom, he suppressed his idealism sufficiently to work on the CIO organizing drives of the mid-1930s, re-uniting with Lewis, and even became a regional director for the CIO in the later 1940s. But he was purged from his position in 1948 in the anti-Communist hysteria of the times. He was a longtime member of the socialist party, but had many friends in the CP.

Worker democracy is a constant theme of the book, but it is only vaguely identified. At times it seems to be worker voice within unions and at others within workplaces, although the extent of any empowerment in not made clear. The labor contracts that are generally negotiated under the NLRA legalistic framework are at least as restraining of workers as they are of giving workers any power. In fact, bargaining over wages and working conditions leaves employers free to make all general business decisions regardless of any harm to their workforces. It is hard to conceive of worker democracy as anything less than co-management.

Hapgood had few moments where he felt as though he really belonged to the working class and could make a difference. His life was a series of frustrations, which led to alcohol abuse over the last fifteen years of is life. He also had a complicated romantic affair with the labor radical Rose Posetta, which only added to his problems. He died at the early age of forty-nine in 1949.

Although Hapgood was not overly happy with the results of his efforts in the labor movement, it is difficult to even imagine students of the modern era being able to find the opportunities to immerse themselves in workers' struggles as did Hapgood. The political climate is so anti-labor and conservative that the mere fact of union survival is a precarious proposition. Perhaps we need some labor activists to come forward with the courage of a Powers Hapgood.

This book shows how successive German Governments have maintained Germany's dominance over the European Union. In 1978, Chancellor Schmidt suggested a European Monetary System whose members would share responsibility: this drew in the leaders of the other EU states. But the German Government then changed the EMS's rules so it was created in March 1979 as a Deutschmark zone.

The Bundesbank dominated the EMS, forcing deflation on its members. They suffered substantial slowdowns in growth and increased unemployment in the 1980s, and levels of investment declined compared to the rest of the industrialised world. Trade between EMS members actually fell, and their inflation rates declined no more than those of non-members. As the Federation of German Trade Unions said, "We have criticised the Bundesbank because it always cares more about monetary stability than general economic policy. We put employment first"; the Bank was "strangling growth in Germany and Europe".

In 1987, the French Government proposed a Franco-German Economic and Financial Council to coordinate economic and monetary policies. Chancellor Kohl at first agreed, but the Bundesbank refused to share power. So Kohl then stripped the proposed Council of any policy-making powers, preserving the Bundesbank's dominance.

In 1988, the French Government put forward a scheme for Economic and Monetary Union. Kohl at first rejected it, in order to win the 1990 election, then embraced it after the election. The scheme's European Central Bank, unaccountable and unelected, was modelled on the Bundesbank, except that it is not obliged to support Government policy. Its only aim is price stability. The President of the ECB promised that "policy will be directed towards the French and German economies ... smaller fry with other needs come second ..." But even in the EMS's dominant economy, unemployment is five million.

By entering EMU, we would hand over control of our economy, irrevocably, to a replica of the Bundesbank, in which our needs would be subordinate. We would lose at once and for ever our sovereignty and democracy.

Phelan's biography of Terence V. Powderly, along with his previous works on William Green and John Mitchell, places him in the premiere rank of labor biographers. His task in GRAND MASTER WORKMAN is to present a revised and much more favorable view of Powderly and his fourteen year (1879-1893) tenure as head of the Knights of Labor. Phelan targets the generations of American labor historians, particularly Norman Ware and Philip S. Foner, who dismissed Powderly and the Knights as a last gap of the utopian traditions of the antebellum years which were unsuited to the economic realities of the Gilded Age. This argument was specifically the case in regard to the rise of the rival and ultimately successful American Federation of Labor (AFL) with its more apolitical craft unionism. Powderly himself was charged with, among other things, being sensitive, vain, naive, and arrogant. Recent studies of the Knights, especially on the local level, have transformed the view of the Knights into that of an authentic working-class organization with a convincing critique of industrial capitalism. Unfortunately, the view of Powderly had not been transformed, until now. Phelan's Powderly is not a pusillanimous utopian but a worthy if somewhat flawed hero who articulated the collective progressive vision of the working masses in the face of the oppression and inhumanity of the industrial capitalist system and its leaders which eventually crushed the Knights. Phelan uses the voluminous archival papers of Powderly, on deposit at The Catholic University of America and available on microfilm, to present Powderly in his own words. The liberal use of quotes, such as Powderly's opinion of his former protege and personal Judas, John William Hayes, as a "Skunk" and a "Pimple," are a special treat and a great insight into Powderly's personality. Although the focus was on labor, Phelan could have written more on Powderly's later career as a government official, first as Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1897-1902, then as Chief of the Division of Information of the Bureau of Immigration, 1907-1921, and Commissioner of Conciliation of the Deparment of Labor, 1921 until his death on 24 June 1924. It was during this time that Powderly became a bosom friend and correspondent of the great labor advocate, 'Mother' Mary Harris Jones, the celebrated 'Miners' Angel.' In conclusion, Phelan's GRAND MASTER WORKMAN is the most definitive and balanced account of Powderly's years in the Knights of Labor but a more complete and detailed biography encompassing the rest of his career is still needed. END END

The real history of United States, specialy the labor movement, has always been hidden. In this book, the author present one side of this history, the labor unions. All the workers have to be thankful of the goals of the movement. The author presents what made the unions through time; their success; and their failure. It's a good resource to everyone making a research in labor relations.

This is a fascinating collection of articles on the vital question - should Britain enter the euro? Nine economists evaluate the economic and policy implications of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Three somewhat atypical representatives of business - Stephen Davies of the Institute of Directors, and the Lords Haskins and Simon - discuss its likely effect on British firms. Couldn't they find anybody from manufacturing industry?

Unfortunately, the editors include only two trade unionists, both of whom support EMU. Why didn't they find someone to speak for the majority of trade union members who oppose it? Finally, four MPs discuss its effect upon national sovereignty.

The contribution by John Edmonds, the GMB's General Secretary, is most revealing. He argues for conditionally supporting EMU. Yet he admits, "The tendency in any negotiations is for conditions to be successively stripped away until all that remains is a stark position of support covered by a few words of threadbare rhetoric." Quite!

The editors write that entering EMU "is intended to be a one-way shift towards future economic integration." But that is not all that EMU means: Edmonds openly says that he wants to `achieve extensive political union'. That is why he supports our entry into the euro: the euro was, until recently, the key motor for driving us all into the single European state that the EU's leaders all want.

Blair has now had to accept that he cannot presently win a referendum on the euro. However, this does not mean that he will respect our wishes in future. The EU's leaders can advance on many different fronts and employ many different devices to form a single European state: the Euro-army, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, Corpus Juris, a single taxation policy, etc.

The majority of the British people do not want to enter the euro. Doesn't democracy have something to do with what people want?

This modest collection of essays embodies the kind of work I love most: a master historian writing about the questions that interest him.

"The Irrepressible Conflict" stood out as the most convincing and thorough argument. Its subject is the inevitability of the Civil War and whether the North could have ended slavery through patience. Stampp dismantles the idea with aplomb.

"The Southern Road to Appomattox" promotes the idea that a lack of will killed the confederacy. Stampp places too much emphasis on guilt, but the idea of a lack of will was useful for other works, notably "Why the South Lost the Civil War".

The other essays are a mix of historiography and analysis of such questions as Lincoln's motivation in resupplying Fort Sumter, the use and misuse of psychology in assessing slaves, and the meaning of racism in the Republican Party.

Recommended.

This book is an excellent review of the history of the UAW in an important era of its history. The author adds insight and detail. It reads like the wind.

This work is often cited as the definitive biography of Big Jim Larkin, the Irish labor leader. With good reason. Not only did the author research the subject thoroughly, he also interviewed many of the story's protagonists at length. As Big Jim was no longer living, the author was able to interview his son.

One of the narrative's strengths is that it examines Jim as he developed: a poor laborer who progressed from apprentice to journeyman to master labor agitator. The tone is neither flaterring nor scathing but remains objective throughout.

More recent authors on Big Jim Larkin have the benefit of viewing more FBI and KGB files on the man. But none has improved on the insights of this work. Pick up a copy if you can.

A biography on Khrushchev...and Bulgarian Tomatoes, how do they relate? This biography contains numerous details which one probably does not really care to know, but is loaded with information on the guy himself and how he rose to power. I would reccommend this for IB history classes, which helps to understand the cold war. The end section, which contains documents is rather interesting and simple to follow. There is one document on Khrushchev's views on Bulgarian tomatoes, which is rather interesting. However, the British spellings can be annoying for American readers, but should not hinder anyone's desire to purchase this. It is deffinently great material to be used in a seminar.