American Labor

In the long annals of sports and crime, no story compares to the one that engulfed the Luckman family in 1935. As 18-year-old Sid Luckman made headlines across New York City for his high school football exploits at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, his father, Meyer Luckman, was making headlines in the same papers for a very different reason: the gangland murder of his own brother-in-law. Amazingly, the connection between sports celebrity son and mobster father was studiously ignored by the press and ultimately overlooked for eight decades.

What We Mean by the American Dream investigates how we think about whether an individual deserves an opportunity, job, termination, paycheck, or fortune. Taussig looks into the fabric of American life to explore how various people, including dairy farmers, police officers, dancers, teachers, computer technicians, students, store clerks, the unemployed, homemakers, and even drug dealers got to where they are today and whether they earned it or not.

The untold history of the surprising origins of the "gig economy" - how deliberate decisions made by consultants and CEOs in the '50s and '60s upended the stability of the workplace and the lives of millions of working men and women in postwar America.

Black Hands, White House documents and appraises the role enslaved women and men played in building the US, both its physical and its fiscal infrastructure. The book highlights the material commodities produced by enslaved communities during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. These commodities enriched European and US economies; contributed to the material and monetary wealth of the nation's founding fathers, other early European immigrants, and their descendants; and bolstered the wealth of present-day companies founded during the American slave era.

In American history, the prevailing narratives of the tumultuous late-nineteenth century focus on wealthy individuals and tycoons while downplaying the very high social and economic stresses they caused. The Age of Discontent reveals that it was not the tycoons, but rather the laborers and farmers, who in a great uprising of popular democracy reinvented the nation for the emerging industrial world never imagined by the Founders.

For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865 describes the African American struggle to obtain equal rights in the workplace and organized labor's response to their demands. Award-winning historian Robert H. Zieger asserts that the promise of jobs was similar to the 40-acres-and-a-mule restitution pledged to African Americans during the Reconstruction era. The inconsistencies between rhetoric and action encouraged workers, both men and women, to organize themselves into unions to fight against unfair hiring practices and workplace discrimination.

As of the date of publication (March 2022), this is by far the largest collection of Eugene V. Debs' writings available in audio. Published in 1916, it is a compilation of his writings - magazine articles and campaign material - and his speeches to conventions and other large gatherings, from the years of his greatest popularity and influence. This collection is presented to you for your consideration, for you to learn who this man was and what his movement advocated. His core principles and ideals are included herein.

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.

Robber Barons and Wretched Refuse explores the connection between the so-called robber barons who led American big businesses during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and the immigrants who composed many of their workforces.

A narrative that originates in the garment industry of mid-century New York, which produced over 80 percent of the nation's dresses at the time, Murder in the Garment District quickly moves to a national stage, where congressional anti-corruption hearings gripped the nation and forever tainted the reputation of American unions. Replete with elements of a true-crime thriller, Murder in the Garment District includes a riveting cast of characters, from wheeling and dealing union president David Dubinsky to the notorious gangster Abe Chait and the crusading Robert F. Kennedy.

For two and a half centuries, America has been held together by the belief that if you work hard and conduct yourself responsibly in this country, you will be able to prosper and leave a better life for your children. But over the past decade, that idea has come into crisis. In this story-driven manifesto on the future of American work, author Jay Richards argues that such thinking is counterproductive - making us more fragile, more dependent, and less equipped to succeed in a rapidly changing economy.

Linda Chavez, who was denied a plum job in President George W. Bush's Cabinet because she employed an illegal alien, here has her chance to get back at the unions and like-minded organizations that opposed her candidacy. She takes this opportunity with a vengeance. Chavez is shocked that labor unions have traditionally supported Democratic politicians and social causes; to her, these politicians and causes represent "socialism" at its worst.

From James Beard Leadership Award winner Saru Jayaraman, Forked is an enlightening examination of what we don't talk about when we talk about restaurants: Is the line cook working through a case of stomach flu because he doesn't get paid sick days? Is the busser not being promoted because he speaks with an accent? Is the server tolerating sexual harassment because tips are her only income?

Linda Chavez, President George W. Bush’s original choice for Secretary of Labor and a former union official, is one of the foremost authorities on America’s labor unions. Now, in the explosive new book Betrayal, she and fellow union expert Daniel Gray expose the corrupt bargain between the labor movement and the Democratic Party.

It’s no secret that hundreds of companies have been slashing pensions and health coverage earned by millions of retirees. Employers blame an aging workforce, stock market losses, and spiraling costs - a perfect storm of external forces that has forced them to take drastic measures. But this so-called retirement crisis is no accident. Award-winning investigative reporter Ellen E. Schultz reveals how large companies and the retirement industry - benefits consultants, insurance companies, and banks - have all played a huge, hidden role in the death spiral of American pensions and benefits.

Best known as a monumental achievement of the civil rights movement, the 1964 Civil Rights Act also revolutionized the lives of America's working women. Title VII of the law made it illegal to discriminate "because of sex". But that simple phrase didn't mean much until ordinary women began using the law to get justice on the job - and some took their fights all the way to the Supreme Court.

In early 1968 the grisly on-the-job deaths of two African-American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, prompted an extended strike by that city's segregated force of trash collectors. Workers sought union protection, higher wages, improved safety, and the integration of their work force. Their work stoppage became a part of the larger civil rights movement and drew an impressive array of national movement leaders to Memphis, including, on more than one occasion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King added his voice to the struggle in what became the final speech of his life.

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.