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BOOKS
 | Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate
This travel guide to America sure isn't from Arthur Frommer. As author Michael Yates puts it, “When you scratch beneath the surface of a place, you find that appearances are deceiving.” Yates, a retired University of Pittsburgh economics professor, and his wife, Karen, traveled all over the United States, staying in cheap motels and cooking meals on a two-burner hot plate. His book describes the vast inequality in smalltown America, the day-to-day work that takes place in such towns and the environmental destruction across the country. One reviewer rightly calls this “a road story for radicals.” Available from . |
 | What Workers Say: Employee Voice in the Anglo-American Workplace
A basic idea behind What Workers Say is that we're not alone. Union women and men in the United States have a lot in common with our sisters and brothers in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. We have similar histories, values and problems—in particular, we all work in market economies that are tilted often badly against workers. What's more, working people in our six countries share some interesting opinions about the voice they should have on the job. For example, the authors found that “many more workers want traditional, union-based representation than are organized; unfilled demand for unionism is greatest among workers who are vulnerable or who have severe workplace problems.” Sound familiar? Available at .™ |
 | Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants
For several decades after the first "stewardess" went aloft in 1930, flight attendants were expected to look good, make customers feel great and act as if their jobs were a cinch. In reality, their work is tremendously demanding, gross exploitation routine and discrimination rampant. Racially discriminatory hiring, marriage bans and mandates to retire at age 32 were standard practice. The other side of the story, though, is that flight attendants were in the forefront of women workers asserting their rights. As early as the 1940s, flight attendants unionized to demand recognition and respect, and in the 1960s, they were among the first working women to take advantage of laws prohibiting sex discrimination. Noted historian Kathleen Barry has written a fascinating history of working women and their activism. Available from .™ |
MUSIC
 | Karaoke Union Songs
If you're a karaoke fan, this CD is for you. It includes vocal and karaoke versions of several union movement anthems plus such wonderful new songs as “Ruby and the Painted Pants,” a ballad about factory women getting revenge on a foreman for sexual harassment. The CD is a co-production of the United Steelworkers and People's Progressive Karaoke, three union guys in Toronto who know their music inside and out. Even if you limit your singing to the privacy of your car, you should get this CD for the highly original vocal versions of the songs, performed by Toronto-area singers. Available from .™ |
DVD
 | Morristown: In the Air and Sun
There are a thousand towns like Morristown, Tenn.: once-bustling factory hubs whose vibrancy long has faded. For Morristown, the troubles started in the early 1980s, when the local Magnavox plant moved jobs to Mexico. “Morristown” shows what happens to both the American workers whose jobs disappear and the Mexican workers who are stuck with scandalously low wages, no future and little hope. This documentary also shows what can happen when workers are fed up: They join together and they fight back. Available from The Union Shop Online.™ |
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