Books about Afl cio from Amazon.com

The U.S. trade union movement finds itself today on a global battlefield filled with landmines and littered with the bodies of various social movements and struggles. Candid, incisive, and accessible, Solidarity Divided is a critical examination of labor's current crisis and a plan for a bold new way forward into the twenty-first century. Bill Fletcher and Fernando Gapasin, two longtime union insiders whose experiences as activists of color grant them a unique vantage on the problems now facing U.S. labor, offer a remarkable mix of vivid history and probing analysis. They chart changes in U.S. manufacturing, examine the onslaught of globalization, consider the influence of the environment on labor, and provide the first broad analysis of the fallout from the 2000 and 2004 elections on the U.S. labor movement. Ultimately calling for a wide-ranging reexamination of the ideological and structural underpinnings of today's labor movement, this is essential reading for understanding how the battle for social justice can be fought and won..
Price: $15.55 [Notify me when price goes down.]

“In the pages that follow, The War At Home unapologetically attempts to describe and analyze the major elements of that class war being waged today in the U.S. against American workers and their unions.” [from the Author’s Preface] Its ten chapters cover the current Jobs Crisis, offshoring, Free Trade and the collapse of manufacturing, declining wages and workers’ incomes, the great American Tax Shift, attacks on Pensions and Social Security, the pending privatization of Medicare, the health care costs crisis, the transformations of the Republican and Democratic parties, the decline of union membership and bargaining power, the pending split in the AFL-CIO, and the origin and evolution of the corporate offensive from Reagan through George W. Bush. “Did you like Howard Zinn's A People’s History of the United States? If so, you are going to love the new book by Jack Rasmus, The War At Home. Rasmus effectively picks up the story where Zinn leaves off….His book is an excellent complement and companion to Zinn’s popular work…It is a sobering and path-breaking effort to ‘put it all in one place’.” [Harvey Schwartz, Curator, ILWU Oral History Collection].
Price: $18.36 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits follows the history of the Building and Construction Trades Department from the emergence of building trades councils in the age of the skyscraper; through treacherous fights over jurisdiction as new building materials and methods of work evolved; and through numerous Department campaigns to improve safety standards, work with contractors to promote unionized construction, and forge a sense of industrial unity among its fifteen (and at times nineteen) autonomous and highly diverse affiliates. Arranged chronologically, Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits is based on archival research in Department, AFL-CIO, and U.S. government records as well as numerous union journals, the local and national press, and interviews with former Department officers.

Grace Palladino makes the history of the building trades come alive. By investigating the sources of conflict and unity within the Building and Construction Trades Department over time, and demonstrating how building trades unions dealt with problems and opportunities in the past, she provides a historical context for the current generation of workers and leaders as they devise new strategies to suit their current situation..
Price: $47.43 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Amusing and informative story of a career in international affairs, lurching from the CIA to Africa to the White House, Wall Street, and back to the African diamond trade..
Price: $34.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In the first published account of the massive U.S. covert intervention in British Guiana between 1953 and 1969, Stephen G. Rabe uncovers a Cold War story of imperialism, gender bias, and racism.

When the South American colony now known as Guyana was due to gain independence from Britain in the 1960s, U.S. officials in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations feared it would become a communist nation under the leadership of Cheddi Jagan, a Marxist who was very popular among the South Asian (mostly Indian) majority. Although to this day the CIA refuses to confirm or deny involvement, Rabe presents evidence that CIA funding, through a program run by the AFL-CIO, helped foment the labor unrest, race riots, and general chaos that led to Jagan's replacement in 1964. The political leader preferred by the United States, Forbes Burnham, went on to lead a twenty-year dictatorship in which he persecuted the majority Indian population.

Considering race, gender, religion, and ethnicity along with traditional approaches to diplomatic history, Rabe's analysis of this Cold War tragedy serves as a needed corrective to interpretations that depict the Cold War as an unsullied U.S. triumph..
Price: $19.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A seismic shift occurred inside the US trade union movement in October 1994 when the 'New Voice' campaign swept a new leadership into the AFL-CIO, the federation of American unions. Led by John Sweeney, the campaign forced the first democratic election for top officers in the history of the organisation. The new team, including Sweeney as President, Rich Trumka as Secretary-Treasurer, and Linda Chavaz-Thompson as Executive Vice-President, came to power promising changes from within. With the new leadership came a virtually complete recasting of the federation designed to meet the needs of working families in a changing economy and rebuild the most critical link in fighting for a more progressive and egalitarian America. The US union movement is making news again--from political action to organising, from challenging corporate power to building links with workers in an international arena. Yet, even with increased press attention and more public awareness of today's unions, the inside story of the new AFL-CIO hasn't been told before. In these pages the new programme of the federation is presented for the first time by those directly involved with its implementation. Not Your Father's Union Movement is an indispensable guide for anyone who is a union member or who cares about social change. The book also provides a useful introduction to today's unions for students, teachers and others. Among the topics discussed are programmes around organising, political action, women, immigrant workers, global strategy and international worker solidarity, and changing the union's image. Case studies of how labour won the strike against UPS, and the legislative fights to increase the minimum wage and defeat Fast Track Trade Authority, are also included. Contributors: Jo-Ann Mort, Harold Meyerson, Richard Bensinger, Karen Nussbaum, Steve Rosenthal, Kelly Candaele, Jerry Hudson, Amy Dean, Hector Figueroa, Barbara Shaillor, Guy Molyneux, David Kusnet, Mark Baldwin, David Glenn, Matt Witt, Rand Wilson, Juan Gonzalez and Noel Beasley..
Price: $9.23 [Notify me when price goes down.]