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It is we who push the papers, put the paychecks in the mail;
        It is we who type the letters, mind the office without fail.
        And until we get a contract, it is we who'll shut down Yale, For the union
        makes us strong.
      (To the tune of "John Brown's Body")
      "Must reading for anyone who wants to learn what a revitalized labor
        movement would look like." -- Labor Notes
      "A textbook on solidarity unionism." -- Staughton Lynd
      "One of the very best books on labor in the 1970s and 80s."
        -- Dana Frank, University of California at Santa Cruz
      "There are very few case studies in recent labor history as readable
        and provocative as this one." -- Karen Sawislak, Stanford University
      On Strike for Respect is a lively account of the 1984-85 strike
        by clerical and technical workers at Yale University. Members of Local
        34, with a strong female majority, mobilized themselves and the public,
        breathing new life into the labor movement as they fought for and won
        substantial gains. A short update on current conditions concludes this
        volume.
 

In recent years, a flurry of reports on downsizing, outsourcing, and flexible staffing have created the impression that stable, long-term jobs are a thing of the past. According to conventional wisdom, workers can no longer count on building a career with a single employer, and job security is a rare prize. While there is no shortage of striking anecdotes to fuel these popular beliefs, reliable evidence is harder to come by. Researchers have yet to determine whether we are witnessing a sustained, economy-wide decline in the stability of American jobs, or merely a momentary rupture confined to a few industries and a few classes of workers. On the Job launches a concerted effort to reconcile the conflicting evidence about job stability and security. The book examines the labor force as a whole, not merely the ousted middle managers who have attracted the most publicity. It looks at the situation of women as well as men, young workers as well as old, and workers on part-time, non-standard, or temporary work schedules. The evidence suggests that long-serving managers and professionals suffered an unaccustomed loss of job security in the 1990s, but there is less evidence of change for younger, newer recruits. The authors bring our knowledge of the labor market up to date, connecting current conditions in the labor market with longer-term trends that have evolved over the past two decades. They find that  layoffs in the early 1990s disrupted the implicit contract between employers and staff, but it is too soon to declare a permanent revolution in the employment relationship. Having identified the trends, the authors seek to explain  them and to examine their possible consequences. If the bonds between employee and employer are weakening, who stands to benefit? Frequent job-switching can be a sign of success for a worker, if each job provides a stepping stone to something better, but research in this book shows that workers gained less from changing jobs in the 1980s and 1990s than in earlier decades. The authors also evaluate the third-party intermediaries, such as temporary help agencies, which profit from the new flexibility in the matching of workers and employers. Besides opening up new angles on the evidence, the authors mark out common ground and pin-point those areas where gaps in our knowledge remain and popular belief runs ahead of reliable evidence. On the Job provides an authoritative basis for spotting the trends and interpreting the fall-out as U.S. employers and employees rethink the terms of their relationship.

After decades of research by the author and her colleagues into what women do in positions such as bank teller, secretary, waitress, nurse, factory worker, and poultry processor, Karen Messing is astonished to find that for many policy-makers, researchers, and activists, the topic of women's occupational health doesn't exist.

Messing investigates different types of occupational health issues for women, notably the controversial topics of male/female differences in jobs, health, and basic biology. The pain and suffering of women workers is illustrated in vivid case studies of research into health risks for women in the workplace, including musculoskeletal disease, the hazards of office work, emotional stress, and reproductive hazards.

No longer can employers, administrators, and health professionals ignore the very real problems women encounter in their jobs. Throughout the book, Messing captures the everyday reality of workplace tasks and stress -- from lifting boxes to juggling mental tasks under pressure to the emotional labor of caring for upset or abusive people -- by combining on-site observing with listening to the workers' descriptions of their work lives.

Responding to the tough question, why are scientists so unresponsive to the needs of women workers, Messing describes long-standing difficulties in gaining attention for the occupational health of women, ranging from the structure of the grant process and the conferences crucial to the professional life of researchers to the basic assumptions of scientific practice. Messing laments the separation of even most feminist health researchers from workplace concerns and asserts that it is time to develop a science that can prevent women workers' pain and suffering.

As a consequence of market-oriented reforms and historic shifts in governmentpolicy toward labor, the Mexican organized labor movement has declined substantially in size, bargaining strength, and political influence since the 1980s. Democratization has expanded workers' choices at the ballot box, and some unions have bolstered their position by forging alliances with counterparts in Canada and the United States. By analyzing the changes, continuities, and contradictions characterizing labor politics in Mexico, this book contributes to a broader assessment of organized labor's role in contemporary Latin America. Democratization has had remarkably little impact on the state-labor relations regimeinstitutionalized following the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. This legal regimeboth underpins the position of unrepresentative union leaders and grants governmentofficials extensive controls over labor organizations. The combination of weakenedunions, unaccountable leaders, and strong government controls fundamentally constrainsworkers' capacity to defend their interests.
This state of affairs - especially the failure to enact progressive labor law reform since democratic regime change in 2000 - limits democracy and imposes heavy costs on society as a whole.

In 1990, Hartford, Connecticut, ranked as the eight poorest city in the country by the census; the real estate market was severely depressed; downtown insurance companies were laying off and the retail department stores were closing; public services were strained; and demolition sites abandoned for lack of funds pockmarked the streets. Hartford's problems are typical of those experienced in numerous U.S. cities affected by a lingering recession.

The harsh economic times felt throughout the city's workplaces and neighborhoods precipitated the formation of grassroots alliances between labor and community organizations. Coming together to create new techniques, their work has national implications for the development of alternative strategies for stimulating economic recovery.

Louise B. Simmons, a former Hartford City Councilperson, offers an insider's view of these coalitions, focusing on three activist unions—rhe New England Health Care Employees Union, the Hotel and Restaurant Employees, and the United Auto Workers—and three community groups—Hartford Areas Rally Together, Organized North Easterners-Clay Hill and North End, and Asylum Hill Organizing Project. Her in-depth analysis illustrates these groups' successes and difficulties in working together toward a new vision of urban politics.

In the series Labor and Social Change, edited by Paula Rayman and Carmen Sirianni.

The contributors to Out Front take a hard look at the emergent relationship between sexual politics and the labor movement. With a fundamental focus on the relationship between class and social identity, they explore real and potential connections between the gay rights and labor movements. Encompassing a range of political issues concerning rights and representation, the essays have been shaped by the combined influences of trade unionism and identity politics of New Left social movements.
In their examinations of worker and gay rights, the scholars, artists, and activists who speak in this volume argue that neither the labor movement nor the gay rights movement will make substantial progress without a deeper understanding of the connections between identity politics and class. Included is a major policy statement by AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney. Four other labor leaders—Bill Fletcher Jr., Yvette Hererra, Gloria Johnson, and Van Allen Sheets—discuss homophobia as “labor’s new frontier.” Nikhil Pal Singh’s conversation with lesbian activist Amber Hollibaugh and a virtuoso piece by filmmaker Tami Gold offer incisive personal histories and commentaries, which Cathy J. Cohen takes the mainstream gay and lesbian movement to task for not adequately or consistently focusing on issues of class.

Contributors. Cathy J. Cohen, Bill Fletcher Jr., Tami Gold, Yvette Herrera, Amber Hollibaugh, Gloria Johnson, Kitty Krupat, Patrick McCreery, Van Allen Sheets, Nikhal Pal Singh, John J. Sweeney

Out of Sync & Out of Work explores the representation of obsolescence, particularly of labor, in film and literature during a historical moment in which automation has intensified in capitalist economies. Joel Burges analyzes texts such as The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Wreck-It Ralph, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Iron Council, and examines their “means” of production. Those means include a range of subjects and narrative techniques, including the “residual means” of including classic film stills in a text, the “obstinate means” of depicting machine breaking, the “dated means” of employing the largely defunct technique of stop-motion animation, and the “obsolete” means of celebrating a labor strike. In every case, the novels and films that Burges scrutinizes call on these means to activate the reader’s/viewer’s awareness of historical time. Out of Sync & Out of Work advances its readers’ grasp of the complexities of historical time in contemporary culture, moving the study of temporality forward in film and media studies, literary studies, critical theory, and cultural critique.