Labor Movement

In this, the first broad historical overview of labor in the United States in 20 years, Philip Nicholson examines anew the questions, the villains, the heroes, and the issues of work in America. Unlike recent books that have covered labor in the 20th century, Labor's Story in the United States looks at the broad landscape of labor since before the Revolution. Throughout, the audiobook focuses on the integral relationship between the strength of labor and the growth of democracy, painting a vivid picture of the strength of labor movements.

On May 4, 1886, a bomb exploded at a Chicago labor rally, wounding dozens of policemen, seven of whom eventually died. A wave of mass hysteria swept the country, leading to a sensational trial that culminated in four controversial executions and dealt a blow to the labor movement from which it would take decades to recover. Historian James Green recounts the rise of the first great labor movement in the wake of the Civil War and brings to life an epic 20-year struggle for the eight-hour workday.

THE CLASSIC NATIONAL BESTSELLER ""A wonderful, splendid book—a book that should be read by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future."" –Howard Fast Historian Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United...

The dramatic story of the explosive 1894 clash of industry, labor, and government that shook the nation and marked a turning point for America. The Edge of Anarchy offers a vivid account of the greatest uprising of working people in American history. At the pinnacle of the Gilded Age, a boycott of Pullman sleeping cars by hundreds of thousands of railroad employees brought commerce to a standstill across much of the country. Famine threatened, riots broke out along the rail lines. Soon the US Army was on the march and gunfire rang from the streets of major cities.

A timely, in-depth, and vital exploration of the American labor movement and its critical place in our society and politics, from acclaimed labor reporter Hamilton Nolan. Inequality is America’s biggest problem. Unions are the single strongest tool that working people have to fix it. Organized...

Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain is the remarkable story of a couple who came together during the Civil Rights Movement and made fighting for equality and civil and workers’ rights their purpose for more than sixty years, overcoming adversity—with the strength of their love and commitment—to bring about meaningful change.

She put the brush to her lips because they told her it was safe. Orange, New Jersey, 1917. Grace is eighteen years old, ambitious, and desperate for independence. When she lands a job painting watch dials with luminous radium paint—twenty dollars a week, more than her father earns—she thinks her life has finally begun. The work is delicate, beautiful, modern. The factory glows. The girls glow. The company says the paint is perfectly safe. It isn’t. Years later, Grace’s jaw is crumbling. Her bones fracture when she coughs. Her friend Mollie is dead—her death certificate stamped ...

An award-winning sociologist reveals the unexpected link between overwork and inequality. Most Americans work too long and too hard, while others lack consistency in their hours and schedules. Work hours declined for a century through hard-fought labor-movement victories, but they've increased...

Discover the gripping labor history of how ordinary workers fought brutal conditions to win the modern weekend. Perfect for your daily commute, this inspiring historical narrative transports you from nineteenth-century coal mines to today's high-tech gig platforms. Experience the David versus...

Ten office workers in Boston started out sitting in a circle and sharing the problems they encountered on the job. In a few short years, they had built a nationwide movement that united people of diverse races, classes, and ages. They took on the corporate titans. They leafleted and filed lawsuits and started a woman-led union. They won millions of dollars in back pay and helped make sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination illegal. The women office workers who rose up to win rights and respect on the job transformed workplaces throughout America. 

On April 10, 1966, a crowd of 10,000 farm workers and supporters gathered at the California state capitol to celebrate victory in one of the most significant strikes in American history - one that made Cesar Chavez famous as leader of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW). Marshall Ganz tells the story of the UFW's ground-breaking victory, drawing out larger lessons from this dramatic tale.

***A BEST BOOK OF 2018 SELECTION*** NPR * The Washington Post * Book Riot * Autostraddle * Psychology Today ***A BEST FEMINIST BOOK SELECTION*** Refinery 29, Book Riot, Autostraddle, BITCH Rage Becomes Her is an “utterly eye opening” (Bustle) book that gives voice to the causes, expressions...

Read by Hugh Fraser Like The Labors of Hercules, the twelve cases Poirot must solve in this captivating collection of short crime fiction stories are dangerous, demanding, and positively ingenious. In appearance Hercule Poirot hardly resembled an ancient Greek hero. Yet—reasoned the...

Although it's no longer well known as a flashpoint, few things were as controversial during the late 19th century as the Haymarket Affair. Depending on one's perspective, the riots and the violence that ensued were the result of anarchist terrorists attacking law enforcement authorities with a homemade bomb that was detonated during a large public event, killing a police officer and wounding several more.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018 Named one of the “5 Books About Famous Strikes That Demonstrated the Historical Importance of Civil Disobedience” by Bustle “Loomis refuses to romanticize this period or the labor movement it produced. . . . What Loomis’s book perhaps does best is...

This remarkable account has had an enduring influence on social and economic studies and has remained in print since its first English publication in 1885. It was written, in German, by a youthful Friedrich Engels, the son of a German industrialist, who was already concerned - even angered - by...

The Shocking Truth Behind Wage Slavery and the 9-5 Prison You’ve been told work is noble. That jobs bring dignity. That the system is broken but fixable. What if every single one of those stories was a lie? From the bestselling author of The Brutal Truth About Work comes the explosive follow-up, The Dark History of Work a shocking investigation into how humanity was transformed from free communities into wage-dependent populations. This is not the sanitized history taught in school. This is the real story of how a few hundred years of deliberate social engineering built the modern prison ...

A leader of the Starbucks and Tesla union movements shares stories from the front lines to help us organize our own workplaces and “better understand the aims and goals for a resurgent trade union movement and how workers all over the country can join in solidarity with it” (Senator Bernie...

Étienne Lantier arrives in the mining town of Montsou unemployed and desperate. He finds work at Le Voreux mine, descending into hell: miners crawling through passages barely high enough to permit movement, working in suffocating heat, constantly threatened by cave-ins and explosions, earning wages insufficient to feed their families. Émile Zola published Germinal in 1885 after spending two weeks in the Anzin mining region, descending into pits, interviewing workers, documenting everything from extraction techniques to household budgets. He arrived during a 56-day strike involving over ...

Written with never-before-seen documents from Paul Keating’s archive and drawing on long conversations and interviews with him over many years, this book explores the ambitions for Australia and its place in the world that guided Keating: arguably the last Prime Minister with a compelling...