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BOOKS  |  |  |  |  | The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement—And How You Can Fight Back
Many of us know the gap between America’s middle class and the wealthy has widened significantly in recent years, and we’re all aware of the nation’s health care crisis and our lack of retirement security. But in “The Great Risk Shift,” Jacob S. Hacker makes clear that these and other recent phenomena are related. Hacker demonstrates how actions by employers and the Republican-led federal government have made low-income and middle-class workers more vulnerable to economic disaster. In moving beyond documentation of the problem, Hacker is especially successful in his recommendation for how lawmakers can repair a health care system that leaves 45 million Americans without coverage. Available at The Union Shop Online.™ | |  | |  |
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 | | | | | The Chasm
A U.S. maritime lawyer and vice president of an American flag ocean carrier, David Ainsworth spent years fighting Asian countries’ trade barriers that limit shipping by the United States; then his own company was sold to a foreign government entity. Now he has written the story of America’s trade deficit—as a novel. Ainsworth describes “The Chasm” as the only work of fiction that dissects the growing impact of the global economy on Americans. It has a rich cast of characters: an Iranian-American woman, her lobbyist lover, a Japanese reformer, a yakusa chieftain, a congressman from Ohio, an African-American war vet, and a poster boy for Silicon Valley. This different take on trade issues should educate a new wave of activists. Available at The Union Shop Online.™ | | | | |
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 | | | | | The New Women’s Labor History
The Fall 2006 issue of “Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas” is devoted to the history of women in the labor movement. Among the fascinating stories the labor history journal tells are those of African-American laundry workers seeking both jobs and justice in Memphis during World War II; the pink-collar activism of flight attendants after the war, who had to fight against being reduced to icons with few rights and no respect (or, in the words of the article’s title, “too glamorous to be considered workers”); and the thousands of Native American women in the late 1800s who would travel hundreds of miles along the Pacific Northwest coast every year and pick hops in Puget Sound. Available from www.powells.com. | | | | |
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MUSIC
 | | | | | Hail to the Thieves
The bad news is we still have two more years of the Bush administration. The good news is there’s a rousing, fun new CD to help us make it through with a smile. “Hail to the Thieves, Volume III; Songs to Take Our Country Back!” features artists like Billy Bragg, Anne Feeney, Utah Phillips and other folk musicians, and includes 20 songs, poems and stories on today’s political issues. Check out “None of Us Are Free” by the the D.C. Labor Chorus, and don’t miss Evan Greer’s “The Ballad of Hurricane Katrina.” Available from Labor Heritage Foundation. | | | | |
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RESOURCES  | | | | | Golden Lands, Working Hands
There was a day when California was dismissed as a land of surfers, sequoia trees and Richard Nixon. No more. The last 30 years have seen an incredible outpouring of books, film and journalism that finally give the state its due. Now a splendid 10-part video series, sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers and supported by more than 400 unions, sets out a key part of the California drama: the story of California’s workers and their unions. “Golden Lands, Working Hands” begins with the 19th century rise of the Workingmen’s Party and carries on through efforts to form unions by longshore workers, teachers, shipyard workers, aircraft factory workers and others. Kevin Starr, an expert on the state’s history, calls the series “first rate” and praises it for its “informed and empathetic commentary.” Available at The Union Shop Online ™. | | | | |
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