"When it was first published in 1974, Studs Terkel's oral history about "what people do all day and how they feel about it" became a best seller, was hailed as an instant classic, and eventually inspired a Broadway musical. Today, in this new edition with a foreword by the New York Times' Adam Cohen, it remains as relevant as ever: a masterpiece that reveals how "ordinary" Americans - that is, all of us - ceaselessly search for, but only sometimes find, satisfaction in our work."--Dust jacket back cover.

This is the story of a 30 year, one-man war. The author confesses his bias - in favor of labor, in friendship with Lewis, but he manages to present Lewis convincingly, with his complicated personality, his inconsistencies, his dynamic power, his ruthless use of any means to his end. He traces the steps by which he reached the peak from the pits of Illinois mines. He tells how he created C.I.O. in protest over the limitations of A.F. of L.; of how he secured his own U.M.W. even at the cost of dictatorship. He goes behind the scenes for his breaks with Green, with Murray, with Roosevelt. But the end-all is gains for his miners - in pay, in safety, in security. Brilliant analysis, an unflaggingly interesting chapter in American labor, it provides an interesting insight into a fascinating part of American history. It's a reminder of what unions did achieve and it is a contrast to the comparative powerless of unions these days.

During the 1970s radical politics in France underwent major changes, transformed by the rise of the Socialist Party, the decline of the Communists, and the loss of faith in Marxism. These changes, together with the lessened impact of the industrial proletariat and the problems presented by Mitterrand's sweeping Socialist victory in 1981, signalled a veritable turning point in modern French history. This book offers a historical and political analysis of the history of labor, Socialism, and Communism in France since the Revolution, an analysis that is essential for understanding recent French political developments. Unlike most books, which treat labor, Socialist and Communist history separately and view French Marxism as a self-contained philosophical phenomenon, Marxism and the French Left offers a refreshingly different approach to the subject. Judt emphasizes the complex and interwoven themes that unify the topics of his essays to construct a distinctive and original interpretation of French left-wing politics over the past 150 years.

Work and Authority in Industry analyzes how the entrepreneurial class responded to the challenge of creating, and later managing, an industrial work force in widely differing types of industrial societies: the United States, England, and Russia. Bendix's penetrating re-examination of an aspect of economic history largely taken for granted was first published in 1965. It has become a classic. His central notion, that the behavior of the capitalist class may be more important than the behavior of the working class in determining the course of events, is now widely accepted. The book explores industrialization, management, and ideological appeals; entrepreneurial ideologies in England's early phase of industrialization; entrepreneurial ideologies in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russia; the bureaucratization of economic enterprises; and the American experience with -industrialization. This essential text will interest those in the fields of political science, industrial relations, management studies, as well as comparative sociologists and historians.

A landmark study in the history of working class labour organisations, WORLDS OF LABOUR is a sequel to the author's widely acclaimed LABOURING MEN. WORLDS OF LABOUR is a series of studies that considers the formation and evolution of working classes in the period between the late eighteenth century and the mid-twentieth, scrutinising their 'consciousness', ways of life and the movements they generated. The emphasis throughout the study is on the way labour organisations, policies and ideas were rooted in the everyday reality of working class life. In the process, leading Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm reveals the daily struggles of working class militants, many of whom are still unknown to the modern world. The result is a book that is expansive in scope, but fluent and clear in detail. It will serve as a valuable source of reference to those with an academic interest in the subject, and as an inspiration to those who simply wish to discover the development of working class movements.

An examination of the development of the non-Zionist Jewish socialist Bund in Russia, Labour Zionism, and the American Jewish Labour movement, portraying their often bitter struggles with each other and with non-Jewish socialist movements, especially in Russia.

The fight for a "living wage" has a long and revealing history as documented here by Lawrence B. Glickman. The labor movement's response to wages shows how American workers negotiated the transition from artisan to consumer, opening up new political possibilities for organized workers and creating contradictions that continue to haunt the labor movement today. Nineteenth-century workers hoped to become self-employed artisans, rather than permanent "wage slaves." After the Civil War, however, unions redefined working-class identity in consumerist terms, and demanded a wage that would reward workers commensurate with their needs as consumers. This consumerist turn in labor ideology also led workers to struggle for shorter hours and union labels. First articulated in the 1870s, the demand for a living wage was voiced increasingly by labor leaders and reformers at the turn of the century. Glickman explores the racial, ethnic, and gender implications, as white male workers defined themselves in contrast to African Americans, women, Asians, and recent European immigrants. He shows how a historical perspective on the concept of a living wage can inform our understanding of current controversies.

Examines the role of women as leaders, activists, and members of the labor movement in New York and Chicago during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Book by Miklos Haraszti

“Pre-eminent among historians of labor history.†—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The textbook history of the 1920s is a story of Prohibition, flappers, and unbounded prosperity. For millions of industrial workers, however, the “roaring twenties†looked very different. Working-class communities were already in crisis in the years before the stock market crash of 1929. Strikes in the 1920s and attempts to organize the unemployed and fight evictions in the early 1930s often fell victim to police violence and repression. Here, Irving Bernstein recaptures the social history of the decade leading up to Franklin Delano Rooseveltâ€s inauguration, uncovers its widespread inequality, and sheds light on the long-forgotten struggles that form the prelude to the great labor victories of the 1930s. "In other words, viewed from afar, most of the people who were suffering the hardships of the Depression were depressed and even ashamed, ready to blame themselves for their plight. But the train of developments that connects changes in social conditions to a changed consciousness is not simple. People, including ordinary people, harbor somewhere in their memories the building blocks of different and contradictory interpretations of what it is that is happening to them, of who should be blamed, and what can be done about it. Even the hangdog and ashamed unemployed worker who swings his lunch box and strides down the street so the neighbors will think he is going to a job can also have other ideas that only have to be evoked, and when they are make it possible for him on another day to rally with others and rise up in anger at his condition. —From the new introduction by Frances Fox Piven

Good plus/Good minus. First Edition Hardcover. No marks or inscriptions. Very clean very tight pages with unmarked black cloth boards, tanned and dusty page edges, slight fraying to top of spine and bumping to upper corners. Well-sunned dust jacket not price clipped or torn or creased with some rubbing and with nicks to spine ends. 356pp. Scarce First Edition of the anaysis of where Britain's Labour Party was politically around 1960 and how its leaders had dealt with the problems they had faced. It also covers Left wing minority groups.

Does the American Dream still exist when nearly 30 million Americans live in families in which workers find a paycheck and poverty in the same envelope? Just as Michael Harrington's The Other America shocked the nation with its disclosure of poverty in the 1960s, John E. Schwarz and Thomas J. Volgy's The Forgotten Americans exposes the breadth of poverty that exists today among responsible, hardworking Americans. At the end of the prosperous 1980s, the number of Americans living in working-poor families equaled the combined populations of the nation's 25 largest cities. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this situation is not largely confined to minorities, women, the undereducated or young adults. It is commonplace for workers from nearly all segments of society to be employed in low-paying jobs even during good economic times. The Forgotten Americans reveals the betrayal of the hopes and expectations of these industrious people through broad-based factual evidence and the real-life stories of individual families. Their hardship has been ignored at enormous cost to them and the country. Numerous problems at the forefront of national debate--welfare dependency, crime, and the inadequate performance of many American school children--are closely connected to the existence of working poverty on a large scale. Unless corrective action is taken, the country risks the creation of a deeply fractured society arising from the despair of millions of employed people who have discovered that practicing the work ethic yields little reward. The problem is staggering and often misunderstood by politicians, the media, and the public. Once Schwarz and Volgy have outlined the implications of this social and economic tragedy, they propose effective solutions that require simple changes to existing policies--solutions that are politically feasible and can be accomplished without new taxes.

The stories in this book come to life through the voices of remarkable individuals; child laborers in Dickensian England, visionary women on Parisian barricades, gun-toting railway strikers in Americas Wild West, and beer-swilling German metalworkers who tried to stop World War I.It is a story of urban slums, self-help cooperatives, choirs and brass bands, free love, and self-education by candlelight. And, as the author shows, in the developing industrial economies of the world, it is still with us. Live Working or Die Fighting celebrates a common history of defiance, idealism, and self-sacrifice, one as alive and active today as it was two hundred years ago. It is a unique and inspirational book.

The famous Wobbly poet, songwriter and organizer was executed in Salt Lake Cityon November 19, 1915. Many felt that he was not guilty of the murder he was charged with, that he did not have a fair trial, and that he was the victim of class persecution. Here the noted labor historian, Philip Foner presents the first complete study of this important labor case. Based on exhaustive research in a wide variety of sources, many never before examined, Dr. Foner conclusively demonstrates that Joe Hill was the victim of a colossal frame up.

"In July 1877, one year after the celebration of the one hundredth birthday of the United States, the country was prostrate after five years of economic depression. Railroad workers at Martinsburg, West Virginia, went out on strike against still another wage cut. Despite the intervention of the state militia and the U.S. army, the strike extended up the Baltimore & Ohio line and spread rapidly to other lines. The railroad strike carried the spark of rebellion to other workers in the great cities, including the unemployed. Within a few days, 100,000 workers were on strike in the first nationwide labor upheaval. In St. Louis, the Great Strike developed into a systematically organized and complete shutdown of all industry-- the first truly general strike in history."--Back cover.

In 1947, at the time of completing Volume I of the History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Foner reflected on the role of a Marxist historian of labor. Foner summed up the role this way: to present an "historical view which will enlighten our present struggles, will stimulate the foresight of labor's thinkers and leaders, and give to the great mass of our workers the clarity, courage and determination to forge ahead for the attainment of their immediate ends, and for the accomplishment of the historical mission of the working class: the abolition of the exploitation of man by man." In Volume XI Foner remained true to this goal. The book radiates enlightenment for current struggles and encouragement for those fighting for a socialist future.

Hardcover reprint of the original 1923 edition; hardbound in brown cloth with gold stamped lettering, 8vo - 6x9''. This item is printed on demand as a collector quality facsimile, crafted to hold its own in a library of first editions. Book Information: Lovestone, Jay . Blood and Steel; An Exposure of the 12-Hour Day in the Steel Industry. Indiana: Repressed Publishing LLC, 2012. Original Publishing: Lovestone, Jay . Blood and Steel; An Exposure of the 12-Hour Day in the Steel Industry. New York, Workers Party Of America, 1923. Subject: Wages, Iron and steel workers, United States, Hours of labor, United States, Steel Strike, U.S., 1919-1920.

Evolutionary Socialism was Bernstein's most significant work, and it set the stage for the Democratic Socialism of today. In Evolutionary Socialism, Bernstein was principally concerned with refuting Karl Marx's predictions about the imminent and inevitable demise of capitalism. Bernstein warned that a violent proletarian revolution, as in France in 1848, produced only reactionary successes, which undermined workers' interests. Therefore, he rejected revolution and instead insisted the best strategy to be patiently building up a durable social movement working for continuous nonviolent incremental change.

No detailed description available for "The Politics of German Codetermination".