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BOOKS
 | Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace
Think the First Amendment protects your free speech on the job? Think again. As Bruce Barry points out, it's legal for nearly all American workers to be fired for expressing their opinions. He gives several disturbing examples of workers being denied free speech, including a factory worker fired because her boss disagrees with the political bumper sticker on her car and a flight attendant who is grounded because her airline disapproves of what she writes in her personal blog. Barry, a Vanderbilt University professor and president of the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in Tennessee, suggests some commonsense reforms so workers don't have to check their rights at the workplace door. Available from . |
 | 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007
Undocuments is an apt title for this fascinating multimedia collection, which tells what it's really like to live as a virtual outlaw in the United States because you are an undocumented immigrant. Juan Felipe Herrera, the son of Mexican immigrants and a University of California-Riverside professor, reveals his own truths about the plight of Mexican immigrants culled from 35 years of travels in Mexico, Central America and California. As the introduction says, this book is "a symphony for the cyclone fence and hundreds of miles of breezes that swirl right through." Available from . |
 | State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy and Regain Political Influence
Phil Dine of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one of the few remaining labor reporters in America, has written one of the best books in years about the union movement—its strengths, its weaknesses and its pivotal importance for America's middle class. He tells fascinating stories few know, such as the role of the AFT in bringing down the Iron Curtain, the grassroots political efforts of the Fire Fighters that saved a presidential campaign and the thousands of organizers in the Communications Workers of America’s "stewards' army." Dine clearly appreciates that "labor's most important role may be to serve as a vehicle for the voices of people who are being drowned out." Available from .™ |
WEBSITE
 | www.folkstreams.net
This quiet little website takes some of America’s cultural treasures that once were available only to a lucky few—a wide array of documentary films that are too short or too long or too quirky to make it on public broadcasting—and makes them available through streaming online. Folkstreams' documentaries, as commentators on National Public Radio put it, capture "the myriad worlds that make up America, from Italian street festivals in Brooklyn to homeless San Francisco runaways." The collection's great strengths are the documentaries about workers, including gandy dancers (railroad track laborers) in the South, basket makers in Maine, a wrangler in California and Nevada and a quilt maker in Oregon. |
CD
 | Altar of the Bottom Line
If you've been around the union movement for a while, you probably know about Tom Juravich. As the director of the Labor Center and professor of labor studies at the University of Massachusetts, he's an academic who understands what workers are all about—he's the son of a factory worker and a longtime labor activist. But Juravich also is a musician and composer who sings about working people. On his latest CD, he sings about immigrant workers and the crushing monotony of call center jobs and adds songs like Billy Bragg's anthem "Power in a Union" as well. Available from .™ |
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