(Part 2) Best labor & economic relations books according to redditors
We found 555 Reddit comments discussing the best labor & economic relations books. We ranked the 200 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
From The ABCs of Socialism
This shouldn't be necessary to point out. Many businesses are fascist regimes, with the CEO serving as the head, answerable only to the board. Trump has been the CEO for a few companies, and while his track record isn't that great, he's used to demanding something get done and it gets done. Furthermore, he's used to thinking of competitors as enemies. This is why the claim that he wants to run the government as a business is deeply flawed, the government should be about the cooperation of diverse viewpoints, not the top down demands of a single person.
I've thought about this a lot, and from both sides of the coin. Here's kind of where my mindset is at the moment...
Some regulation is absolutely necessary in certain segments of the industry.
There is a very good (but very hard to read) book called Risk Society written by Ulrich Beck that caused something of a paradigm shift in the engineering mindset in the 90s.
To oversimplify, society (and the world it exists in) has become complex to the point that you can not engineer risk out of the equation.
This idea is supported by the findings of people like Sidney Dekker in The Field Guide to Understanding Human Failure, who performs what could be considered root cause analysis of surgical and aeronautical accidents. The systems that he deals with are now complex to the point where there is no single root cause, because failure is an inherent operational condition of the environment. In other words, asking why something failed is exactly like asking why something didn't fail - it was the end result of an impossibly complex web of interrelationships, all of which culminated in the eventual success (or failure) of the system.
There are a lot of scenarios where the tasks undertaken by system administrators do have life or death consequences, and in order to architect those infrastructures with adequate resiliency, a lot of education is necessary.
The path of a lot of system administrators from amateur to professional resembles that of a child who is exceptionally gifted at building erector sets being hired to construct a pedestrian bridge. Then, if the bridge doesn't fall, the kid gets to build bridges designed to handle interstate traffic.
I don't write this to disparage the upwardly mobile system administrator who has learned on the job, acquired a high skill level, and is successful in the systems that they engineer. Someone who does that should be justly proud.
When you start considering the potential loss of human life in such a system, however, you start to realize that "best effort" learning isn't enough, particularly when there is no test to establish a safe knowledge level.
Why should you require a degree in civil engineering to design and implement a traffic control system, then not require the slightest test of the people who administer the IT infrastructure that it runs on?
No, I anticipate that in the future, "critical infrastructure" administrators will have certain requirements laid on them for the benefit of everyone who uses the system. The difficult decision will be where to draw the line.
What are your thoughts?
It definitely isn't. Check out the Smithfield Foods union campaign for an inspiring example of justice being delayed but not denied. I highly recommend Jane McAlevey's second book for a good narrative of the fight (as well as discussion of corporate alliance SEIU vs. worker militant SEIU plus the Chicago teachers' strike fight) and some hope for the future.
Document everything. Carry around a notepad and write down everything the bosses do that even seems suspicious. Whenever you talk with the boss, do it in groups, dont allow yourself or others to be cornered. Also note performance, the bosses will likely try and fabricate a reason to fire troublemakers. Also i believe 2 party states make an exception if you believe a law is going to be infringed. If im wrong about that, remember to write every detail you can remember, that kind of paper trail is vital for an nlrb case.
You are legally protected from being fired for speaking in favor of the union. The bosses will spread misinformation about unions, do research. It is illegal to threaten layoffs, closure, or pay cuts.
I recommend this book.
AHHH. These days I often forget about CU! Matt Stoller has also opened my eyes to a similar type of silencing no one seems to want to deal with as well!
This book and a lot of Anderson's work, now that I know about it, has really cemented my view that those on the free speech side are just unable to view the world through any useful range.
Do you happen to listen to This American Life? A little while back they had a story on a small time Republican who unwillingly ran up against the NRA machine.. fucking terrifying: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/637/words-you-cant-say
Also, the most recent episode documents how much of a game people like Rubin's TPUSA are promoting radicalization of campuses and thought of youth. They treat it as a battle to win against progressive thoughts. Fucking crazy. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/645/my-effing-first-amendment.
You're right in the first line, but you don't go far enough with the last line. Current safety engineering best practices will not accept 'human error' as an end-state in the search for why things failed. See The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error by Sidney Dekker for an introduction to the field.
It's a bit more complicated than that but it's hard to express it properly in a place like this where views are quite broad and as a result definitions for all these things start to get fuzzy. Marxists and liberals don't quite speak the same language so it gets hard sometimes.
But as someone who's fairly close to this blend of politics and has actually met the founder of Jacobin magazine irl I'll try to give a rough outlook. Though don't expect it to describe all the rest of these people.
With regard to Marx I would describe myself as a Marxist in that I think Marx was dead right on much of his criticisms of capitalism and that is the vast bulk of his work. He was a bit too optimistic about what would happen though and capitalism has proved more resilient. But he is still the most important foundation thinker for socialist politics.
With regard to historical Marxist revolutionaries I very much appreciate those that genuinely fought to make the world a better place doing the best that they could or knew at the time. I see a lot of them the way I see the French Revolution. Obviously Stalin, Mao, Paul Pot etc. are not appreciated.
The various revolutions of history are inspiring and have very important lessons in terms of defending gains, keeping things on track, practical running of things, how capitalist powers will react and what not to do again etc. But at the same time those were different times, different conditions and different stages of development. There's going to be no storming of the White House by the workers and peasants of DC. Instead the path is going to look a lot more like reformism but at the same time we need to learn the lessons of the old reformist movement which these days has completely lost its way and is falling apart while in a lot of European countries undoing the very things they fought to put in place. Here Marxist thinkers like Gramsci and Miliband become quite influential.
In this sense you can have reformists who are more radical and Marxists who see the grassroots fight for reforms through mass movements both on more or less the same page politically for the foreseeable future especially in the US.
Hopefully that makes things a bit clearer. This stuff isn't exactly mainstream in the US. Jacobin Magazine has a really neat short little book out this year called the ABCs of Socialism which is written from this kind of perspective as an introduction for those curious.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005QSBW8A/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Oma valuutta voisi olla eduksi, mutta markkaan palaaminen ei vaikuta kovinkaan realistiselta. En tosin ymmärrä miksi pidät omaa valuuttaa toivottavana mutta et joustavia työmarkkinoita. Oma valuuttakin nostaisi työllisyyttä laskemalla reaalisia palkkoja, eikä siis ole mikään taikatemppu työllisyyden nostamiseksi.
>Palkat ovat tälläkin hetkellä liian matalia.
Mitä etua kuvittelet omasta valuutasta olevan jos palkat ovat mielestäsi liian matalia? Mitä uskot tapahtuvan uuden valuutan arvolle jos siihen siirrytään?
Mitä edes tarkoitat liian matalalla palkalla? Mikä on mielestäsi palkkatason vaikutus työttömyyteen? Voiko korkea palkka missään tapauksessa edes estää työllistymistä?
Jos palkka ei riitä kohtuulliseen elintasoon, sitä voi korvata vaikka perustulolla. Palkan tulisi olla sellainen että työttömyys on mahdollisimman pieni.
>Ei selitä. Korkea työttömyys on yksinomaan talousriisin seurausta.
Mikä on arviosi rakentellisesta työttömyydestä? Suomen työttömyys oli ennen talouskriisiäkin vain hetkellisesti alle 7%, ja tämäkin oli kovan inflaation aikana. NAIRU on varmaan jotain 7-8%. Tuon alle tuskin pitkän ajan tasapainossa päästään ilman uudistuksia.
Talouskriisin takia työttömyys on ehkä vain 1-2% korkeammalla kuin muuten.
Mä kysyin sulta joku aika sitten mihin sun ymmärrys työmarkkinoiden toiminnasta perustuu, ja vastasit:
>Tietoni perustuu siihen, että olen lukenut työllisyyskatsauksista ja mediasta, että Suomessa tehdään runsaasti palkatonta työtä edellämainituilla nimikkeillä.
Tämä ei vielä kerro mitään työmarkkinoiden toiminnasta. Jos sinua oikeasti kiinnostaa asia niin työn taloustieteestä löytyy kirjoja joita suosittelen lukemaan. Tässä vaikka yksi jota käytetään aiheen kursseilla.
Do you have anything specific you are interested in?
These are just some off the top of my head: http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281/ref=pd_sim_b_1
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Haymarket-Chicago-Movement-Bombing/dp/1400033225/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335220339&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/An-American-Betrayal-Cherokee-Patriots/dp/0805089551/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335220408&sr=1-4
http://www.amazon.com/Sin-Second-City-Ministers-Playboys/dp/0812975995/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335220450&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/The-Hanging-Thomas-Jeremiah-Encounter/dp/0300171323/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335220494&sr=1-1 (this is my favorite out of all of them)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Rise-American-Democracy-Jefferson/dp/0393329216/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335220469&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/What-Hath-God-Wrought-Transformation/dp/0195392434/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335220477&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Muckraking-Landmark-Articles-Ellen-Fitzpatrick/dp/0312089449/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335220555&sr=8-1
> The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners by Seamus Milne.
I found this review helpful
>Milne makes it clear enough that the miners' strike was not just a dispute over pay and conditions. He informs readers that an alliance of left-wingers and communists “had taken control of the pivotal Yorkshire area in the late 1960s and early 1970s” and that consequently the union was “at the feet of the left”.
> Milne also writes that by the late 1970s the NUM leaders “wanted closer links with Soviet and East European miners as a step towards greater control of the world's energy resources”.
>
> An uninformed reader might think that the trade unions of the Soviet Union, eastern Europe and Libya were free and representative of their members. While Milne reports that the the British security services subverted “democratic liberties” he tells us nothing about the absence of such liberties in the communist countries from which the miners' leaders sough help or for miners who who did not want to strike.
Was it called "The Working Poor" by David K. Shipler? That book should be required reading for anyone who wants to exist.
This list provided by /u/marxism-feminism is pretty good, but I would argue many Third-Worldist websites and articles lack concrete details about the nature of the Western labor bureaucracy (the institutions of the labor aristocracy). That is to say, it's not simply a case of arguing things like how large the labor aristocracy in the imperialist nations is, or whether they even have a proletariat, but you have to explain the fact that the institutions of the 'working class' itself have been overtly in support of their own imperialists for over a century now.
Even those who are not Third-Worldists have understood this, they just have not been able to come up with a concrete explanation for why it is the case. In that regard, reading this material with a Third-Worldist lens is quite illuminating, and I think, profoundly important for bringing the Third-Worldist analysis out of pure theoretical abstraction and into a concrete historical materialist analysis.
AFL-CIO's Dark Past (http://www.laboreducator.org/darkpast.htm) by Harry Kelber
Organized Labor and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Solidarity Center in Historical Context (http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/752/) by George Nelson Bass
Solidarity for Sale (http://www.laborers.org/SOLIDARITYFORSALE.html) by Robert Fitch
Unequal Exchange and the Prospects of Socialism (http://snylterstaten.dk/english/unequal-exchange-and-prospects-socialism-communist-working-group) by the Communist Working Circle
Labor Aristocracy: Mass Base of Social-Democracy (http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/contemp/whitemyths/edwards/) by H.W. Edwards
Taking Care of Business: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy of American Labor (http://www.amazon.com/Taking-Care-Business-Kirkland-American/dp/1583670033) by Paul Buhle
Where were you, brother? An account of trade union imperialism (http://www.amazon.com/Where-brother-account-trade-imperialism/dp/0905990048) by Don Thompson and Rodney Larson
Workers of the World Undermined: American Labor's Role in U.S. Foreign Policy (http://www.amazon.com/Workers-World-Undermined-American-Foreign/dp/0896084299/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418155072&sr=1-1&keywords=workers+of+the+world+undermined) by Beth Sims
Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism (http://bookzz.org/book/2064979/b76b20) by Zak Cope
The Worker Elite: Notes on the Labor Aristocracy (http://www.amazon.com/The-Worker-Elite-Notes-Aristocracy-ebook/dp/B00KOTXSTC) by Bromma
AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage? (http://www.amazon.com/AFL-CIOs-against-Developing-Country-Workers/dp/0739135023/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418155256&sr=1-1&keywords=afl-cio+secret+war) by Kim Scipes
The Influence of Organized Labor on U.S. Policy toward Israel, 1945- 1967 (https://ohiostatepress.org/Books/Complete%20PDFs/Hahn%20Empire/08.pdf) by Peter L. Hahn
Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat (http://bookzz.org/book/900314/deedd1) by J. Sakai
Two Pages from Roman History (https://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/pdf/1902/two_pages.pdf), by Daniel De Leon.
The Labor Lieutenants of American Imperialism (https://archive.org/details/TheLaborLieutenantsOfAmericanImperialism) by Jay Lovestone
That last one is particularly interesting, because it is clear Lovestone used his understanding of the nature of the US labor bureaucracy to actually catapult himself to the top of it, after he was expelled from the CP for refusing to accept the Black Nation line.
The term "Labor Lieutenants" comes from Daniel De Leon. If the Bolsheviks had never succeeded, it would be possible to reconstruct the labor aristocracy thesis almost entirely from Daniel De Leon and his group's struggle with the US labor bureaucracy.
Ever read Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital?
If there's a central idea that we should be able to pull as useful from Marxist thought, it's this: our industrial productivity relies on large part upon the separation of labor. This simultaneously makes work simpler, more rote and less fulfilling. It converts skilled labor into unskilled labor, in turn vastly driving down the cost of goods. It increases prosperity at the cost of a decrease in the fulfillment of the action of work itself, except for those lucky enough to pursue labor that cannot be effectively subdivided. How do we reconcile the positive effects of productivity with this conversion of human work to rote repetition?
This is one of the documents the CPUSA often cites to excuse their total and complete opportunism. The work itself is actually quite good, but here is the passage the CPUSA quotes to justify itself:
>After the first socialist revolution of the proletariat, and the overthrow of the bourgeoisie in some country, the proletariat of that country remains for a long time weaker than the bourgeoisie, simply because of the latter’s extensive international links, and also because of the spontaneous and continuous restoration and regeneration of capitalism and the bourgeoisie by the small commodity producers of the country which has overthrown the bourgeoisie. The more powerful enemy can be vanquished only by exerting the utmost effort, and by the most thorough, careful, attentive, skilful and obligatory use of any, even the smallest, rift between the enemies, any conflict of interests among the bourgeoisie of the various countries and among the various groups or types of bourgeoisie within the various countries, and also by taking advantage of any, even the smallest, opportunity of winning a mass ally, even though this ally is temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Those who do not understand this reveal a failure to understand even the smallest grain of Marxism, of modern scientific socialism in general. Those who have not proved in practice, over a fairly considerable period of time and in fairly varied political situations, their ability to apply this truth in practice have not yet learned to help the revolutionary class in its struggle to emancipate all toiling humanity from the exploiters. And this applies equally to the period before and after the proletariat has won political power.
Opportunist quotation of this passage ignores the whole context of the work. The CPUSA will quote it to justify their completely opportunist positions in relation to the Democratic Party, ignoring literally everything else about this book. I'm sure if the CPUSA bothered to actually have study groups on this work at all, they'd just want people to read this small paragraph over and over again, and ignore everything else. Such as this passage:
>We are waging a struggle against the “labour aristocracy” in the name of the masses of the workers and in order to win them over to our side; we are waging the struggle against the opportunist and social-chauvinist leaders in order to win the working class over to our side. It would be absurd to forget this most elementary and most self-evident truth. Yet it is this very absurdity that the German “Left” Communists perpetrate when, because of the reactionary and counter-revolutionary character of the trade union top leadership, they jump to the conclusion that . . . we must withdraw from the trade unions, refuse to work in them, and create new and artificial forms of labour organisation! This is so unpardonable a blunder that it is tantamount to the greatest service Communists could render the bourgeoisie. Like all the opportunist, social-chauvinist, and Kautskyite trade union leaders, our Mensheviks are nothing but “agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement” (as we have always said the Mensheviks are), or “labour lieutenants of the capitalist class”, to use the splendid and profoundly true expression of the followers of Daniel De Leon in America. To refuse to work in the reactionary trade unions means leaving the insufficiently developed or backward masses of workers under the influence of the reactionary leaders, the agents of the bourgeoisie, the labour aristocrats, or “workers who have become completely bourgeois” (cf. Engels’s letter to Marx in 1858 about the British workers [26]).
So the CPUSA ignores the labor aristocracy thesis, put forward here by Lenin and in many other works of his, to strip one passage completely out of context in order to justify their own diligent service to the 'American' labor aristocracy, turning themselves into "labour lieutenants of the capitalist class" in the process.
The work is essentially an attempt to get "Left" communists on board a program of actually fighting the leaders of the labor aristocracy. It is not a pamphlet about how to merge yourself into them, which is how the CPUSA would prefer to read this work.
On the other side of the 'pond', this work is also read literally by 'British' Trotskyism to justify their opportunism in relation to the Labour Party, but again, the 'British' Trotskyites read this work in a completely opportunist fashion.
Lenin only opposes dual unionism in the cases were it is still possible to openly attack the opportunist leadership of the bourgeois unions. This Lenin believed was still possible at the time in the UK, which is the only reason he actually opposes dual unionism. Why make your own union when you have freedom of criticism to point out that the leadership of the unions are "labour lieutenants of the capitalist class"?
It is, in my estimation, that such a period has long since passed in the vast majority of the West. This advice is still useful to those communists on the margins of the imperialist world, or in the Third-World. Revolutionaries in India, for instance, should be able to utilize the advice contained in here to advance the struggle against the opportunists in the labor movement there.
It is also worth pointing out that virtually no communist group in America actually does anything like this. Literally almost all of them are seeking a way to merge themselves into the leadership of the labor aristocracy. A handful of Trotskyite groups, like the SEP, will make some noise here and there, but don't really produce any useful analysis that could be utilized by Third-World revolutionaries in the labor movement to use as political ammunition. Myself, I recommend people read books like Kim Scipes' AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?, combined with a serious understanding of imperialism, to realize just how profoundly corrupt the Western labor movement is, to such an extent that it is basically nothing but an arm of imperialism, an arm that should be vigorously opposed by the revolutionaries in the Third-World labor movement at all costs.
For the McJobs career depression and rage, I found two books helpful. The Murdering of My Years by anarchist Mickey Z will show you that you are not alone. The Lifelong Activist will give you some direction and focus, especially if you are willing to compromise a bit.
Also, an open minded liberal therapist can go a long way. If you are worried about privacy (pdf), ask them to not use any written notes, watch your words and only open up to them 85%. If you can't afford therapy, read the Lifelong Activist and give it a few years. What ever you end up doing, take care of yourself.
Socialism/Communism
A People's History of the World
Main Currents of Marxism
The Socialist System
The Age of... (1, 2, 3, 4)
Marx for our Times
Essential Works of Socialism
Soviet Century
Self-Governing Socialism (Vols 1-2)
The Meaning of Marxism
The "S" Word (not that good in my opinion)
Of the People, by the People
Why Not Socialism
Socialism Betrayed
Democracy at Work
Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (again didn't like it very much)
The Socialist Party of America (absolute must read)
The American Socialist Movement
Socialism: Past and Future (very good book)
It Didn't Happen Here
Eugene V. Debs
The Enigma of Capital
Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism
A Companion to Marx's Capital (great book)
After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action
Capitalism
The Conservative Nanny State
The United States Since 1980
The End of Loser Liberalism
Capitalism and it's Economics (must read)
Economics: A New Introduction (must read)
U.S. Capitalist Development Since 1776 (must read)
Kicking Away the Ladder
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
Traders, Guns and Money
Corporation Nation
Debunking Economics
How Rich Countries Got Rich
Super Imperialism
The Bubble and Beyond
Finance Capitalism and it's Discontents
Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
America's Protectionist Takeoff
How the Economy was Lost
Labor and Monopoly Capital
We Are Better Than This
Ancap/Libertarian
Spontaneous Order (disagree with it but found it interesting)
Man, State and Economy
The Machinery of Freedom
Currently Reading
This is the Zodiac Speaking (highly recommend)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005QSBW8A
You guys should really Read Shipler's "The Working Poor" if you want to know how dicked you are in America if you're stuck in the minimum wage ~ mw+ $2.50 loop.
1848: Year of Revolution by Mike Rapport.
Well, it is a very large union with many different locals so it isn't fair to dismiss it out of hand. There are certainly some good locals with good politics and a good approach to organizing.
Overall, and especially at the highest levels, the union is very corporate and extremely into doing the bidding of shitty milquetoast Democrats. I think it makes sense for unions to engage politically, but they are very wedded to the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. Hillary's slogan, Stronger Together, was literally directly lifted from SEIU. There was scandal in a number of big locals when the union endorsed Hillary, as she has been no friend to labor (serving on Walmart's board, etc., etc.).
In addition, the union is overall not interested or invested in real worker struggle. Again, there are a few locals that go against this, such as 1199 New England, but in general the union is heavily against striking or industrial action. It greatly favors corporate partnership agreements, where the union creates pro-business preconditions to any collective bargaining agreement which effectively put certain things workers might want off the table so as to induce corporations to go easier on union organizing. It's a strategy that maybe made sense at one point but it severely limits the effectiveness of the union in being a real vehicle for worker power long-term.
I can talk more about this if folks want, just PM me. If you are really interested I would highly recommend two books by Jane McAlevey, a labor organizer and leader who served as director of Nevada's big SEIU local. She has real-life examples of the problems with SEIU but also talks about the good things workers have been able to accomplish within it. They are both good books - Raising Expectations (And Raising Hell) and No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age - but I would recommend the first very highly.
EDIT: I do want to say that if you are looking to organize, it is worth calling them. I think I am probably too cynical from direct involvement in a lot of organizing, and I want to be clear that my views are just that. This current moment for the labor movement is probably the worst it's been in since the Red Scare at least, and a lot of big unions are just turtling up and trying to weather the storm. SEIU, to its credit, has still prioritized organizing and spends a lot of money on organizing efforts even if they won't lead to obvious wins for the union. Also, they do have a lot of resources which can be very helpful to being successful at organizing. The IWW is cool, but it is tiny (less than 3,000 members globally, most of whom are at-large members whose membership has nothing to do with working anywhere, which is fine but very different than most unions) and it has no resources. There are cool things going on with it, but if you are looking for a more traditional union organizing effort where you will get support in building an organizing committee and moving to an election and then negotiating a collective bargaining agreement, I would call SEIU or another large union that has some involvement in your industry.
Soooo I guess I basically just walked back my initial comment. Shit's complex, everyone.
Another good source for any interested readers - 1848: Year of Revolution. However, the book assumes very good general knowledge of European history of that period, so a casual reader without good knowledge of European history will probably be lost.
Any good labor economics textbook will cover this is some detail. For example Borjas:
>It has long been recognized that unions can arise and prosper only under certain conditions. Because the free entry and exit of firms into the marketplace reduce profits to a normal return on investment (that is, zero excess profits), unions can flourish only when firms earn above-normal profits, or what economists call "rents." In effect,
unions provide an institutional mechanism through which employers share the rents with workers.
. . . . .
>In general, workers are more likely to support unionization when the union organizer can promise a high wage and a small employment loss. Moreover, because there are additional costs to joining a union (such as union dues), the worker will be more likely to support unions when these costs are small. These factors generate the "demand" for union jobs.
>The demand for union jobs is not the sole determinant of the extent of unionization in the labor market. The ability of union organizers to deliver union jobs depends on the costs of organizing the workforce, on the legal environment that permits certain types of union activities and prohibits others, on the resistance of management to the introduction of collective bargaining, and on whether the firm is making excess rents that can be captured by the union membership. These forces, in effect, determine the "supply" of union jobs.
>The extent of unionization observed in the labor market is determined by the interaction of these two forces. As a result, the unionization rate will be higher the more workers have to gain by becoming unionized and will be lower the harder it is to convert jobs from nonunion to union status. This "cost-benefit" approach helps us understand differences in unionization rates across demographic groups, across industries, and over time.
. . . . .
>There are also sizable differences in unionization rates across private sector industries, with workers in construction, manufacturing and transportation being the most likely to be unionized, and workers in agriculture and finance being the least likely. The available evidence,in fact, suggests that workers employed in concentrated industries, where most of the output is produced by a few firms, are more likely to be unionized. This result is consistent with our cost-benefit approach to understanding differences in unionization tares. Ater all, firms in concentrated industries earn excess profits due to monopoly power, so unions have a good chance of extracting some of the rents for the workers. Moreover, the goods produced by highly concentrated industries tend to have few substitutes, implying that the elasticity of demand for the output is small. As we saw in Chapter 4, low elasticities of output demand imply relatively inelastic labor demand curves. THese two forces suggest that unions can offer workers in these industries large wage gains without a corresponding loss in employment.
>Unionization rates are also much higher among blue-collar workers (such as production workers and laborers) than among white-collar workers (such as managers, professionals, and persons in sales jobs). Blue-collar workers are likely to be a more homogeneous group and hence are probably easier to organize. In addition blue-collar workers tend to have less amenable working conditions
and would react more favorably to the union's promised employment contract.
Friends can help you cope. If your issues/politics isolate you, make sure to build up a good support network of friends. Anarchist friends are best, but non-anarchist friends are way better than none at all. Therapy (expensive, but worth it) and support groups (often free) helped me a lot. If you do therapy, find one that is a liberal/radical sympathizer, ask them to not take any notes and feel free to not disclose certain things. Find things that inspire you and give you hope - Homage to Catalonia, Les Miserables, V for Vendetta (i know, not really anarchist), The Matrix, Fight Club, anarchist/activist documentaries, pretty much anything on Netflix's "Fight the System Movies", Chomsky talks, vids from Snowden, Assange, etc. Democracy Now is a good way to catch the news five days a week without a ton of toxic emotional bs.
If you have meds that help and that you like, make sure to take them regularly. If you're anti-meds, then make sure to live daily life in a way that doesn't make you your own worst enemy. Find other people, even in books, that have figured out how to cope and do what they do - here is some cool reading if you're an introvert reader like me - The Murdering of my Years, Lifelong Activist (reformist but useful), also here's a cool random vid on Time Management For Anarchists. Best of luck. Post back here if things ever get super rough, we're here for you. <3
Here is a definitive three-volume history on the CNT during the Spanish Civil War.
Other books:
Anarchism and Workers' Self-Management in Revolutionary Spain
Bookchin's The Spanish Anarchists
The Revolution and the Civil War in Spain
Philosopher Elizabeth Anderson of the University of Michigan and author of Private Government talks about her book with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Anderson argues that employers have excessive power over employees that we would never accept from government authority. Topics discussed include the role of competition in potentially mitigating employer control, whether some worker rights should be inviolate, potential measures for empowering employees, and the costs and benefits over time of a relatively unregulated labor market.
David Montgomery - Fall of the House of Labor
David Montgomery - Worker's Control in America
There are several compendiums of interviews done with him, often where he has replied in writing, that cover a spectrum of his interests; I have Language and Politics, amongst some of his more specific works.
You might also look on YouTube for some of his speeches and interviews if you want a flavour without much reading.
EDIT: I'm now watching Conversations with History: Noam Chomsky: "UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler is joined by linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky to discuss activism, anarchism and the role the United States plays in the world today."
The right to be lazy.
Cuando escuché que querían realizar una película en Netflix de I Heard you paint houses de Charles Brandt fui a buscarlo al amazon kindle. Está muy bueno.
Probablemente lea Brotopia de Emily Chang, se ve muy interesante.
Estuve en un shopping spree de amazon y compré como 15 que pienso leer en este año
In short, yes and no. Labor law not to empower workers, but really to keep unions in check. Especially with regards to marginalized workers, the only real form of protection is direct work place organizing. It is a good thing to be aware of when organizing in the US, but ultimately all power comes from workers on the job anyway. There is a really good book on the subject called Labor Law for the Rank and Filer. Here is copy of the pdf
I probably shouldn't be recommending books that I haven't read yet myself but Labor and Monopoly Capital has been on my book list for quite some time and is supposedly very good. Maybe we'll read it at the same time.
To quote the first paragraph of the introduction to the new edition:
>Work, in today's society, is a mystery. No other realm of social existence is so obscured in mist, so zealously concealed from view ("no admittance except on business") by the prevailing ideology. Within so-called popular culture -- the world of TV and films, commodities and advertising -- consumption occupies center stage, while the more fundamental reality of work recedes into the background, seldom depicted in any detail, and then usually in romanticized forms. The harsh experiences of those forced to earn their living by endless conformity to boring machine-regulated routines, divorced from their own creative potential -- all in the name of efficiency and profits -- seem always just beyond the eye of the camera, forever out of sight.
I mean holy shit what an opening! Immediately there is so much of what's already been brought up.
This compilation looks good. There's also the classic Chomsky Reader which was my introduction.
Chomsky can be a lttle tough to read, especially the later stuff. The earlier books are quite readable, but starting in the mid-80s it get a bit tougher. He's really at his best in spontaneous interviews. Here is a transcript of an early talk he gave, it lays out his personal political philosophy and its roots very clearly.
This book is my own personal favorite, a big collection of transcripts covering just about everything, even some linguistics.
Yeah no problem. While Blum's work shows the effect of anti-communist efforts and policies by US, it's not really a guide on ideology; it's an account of what happened and why. If you are interested in leftist ideology i would recommend the ABCs of socialism which provides laymen's terms answers to questions of socialist government structure (e.g. how authoritarianism can find it's way into the fray) and economics.
Also, anything by Noam Chomsky, Mike Davis, or Naomi Klein are usually very insightful for modern day analyses of power, politics, and economics. I've got a long list if you want anymore suggestions, mostly from the perspective of critiquing power (from the right or the left) and it's effects on societies
edit: also check out the Chapo Trap House podcast for cathartic sessions of shitting on asshole politicians across the spectrum and highlights of funny/bizarre political takes
Well, hey; lookie what I just stumbled across while up until 2 am multitasking at 3 strands of unpaid work. There are writers demanding the right to be lazy, in those very terms...
https://www.amazon.com/Right-Be-Lazy-Essays-Lafargue/dp/1849350868/185-6126696-2817951
(Nonetheless, I still object to the phrase as a description -- especially the title description -- of the demand for UBI.)
The Fall of the House of Labor by David Montgomery
Noam Chomsky calls this man the greatest labor historian. Here's his book that covers the real start of the labor movement, up until the US government becomes scared of the labor movement, and largely the IWW, and crushes it.
From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend by Priscilla Murrolo, A. B. Chitty, and Joe Sacco
Another general book on unions in the US.
History of the Labor Movement in the United States: The Industrial Workers of the World by Philip S. Foner
Philip S. Foner has written more than 8 extensive books on the history of labor in the US. Here's his book on the IWW.
The Industrial Workers of the World: Its First 100 Years by Fred Thompson
This one comes from the IWW itself.
Here's chapter 13 of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, titled A Socialist Challenge. He concentrates on the beginning of the 20th century as a whole, and the role that socialist organizations like the IWW played. But it's a beautiful introduction to the names and events you may dig more deeply into with the other books. You can read the entire book on that website, and you should if you haven't. It is required reading for any socialist who wants to understand the history of the US.
Finally, here is Labor History Links, the most extensive labor history website ever created. The amount of information and primary documents here is staggering. You can click on the chronological tab at the top, and it will take you to the page with links to pieces of labor history throughout the development of the US. Search for the IWW in your browser or any related terms, and have a blast.
> unironic corporate bootlicker
Ugh...looks like they need to read this
Undergrad-wise, I know of Borjas and the book my boss wrote.
Great book on the subject if you're interested in reading more http://www.amazon.com/Death-Haymarket-Chicago-Movement-Bombing/dp/1400033225
Borjas’s textbook is what I used in undergrad, and I think it’s fairly good. It only requires an understanding of principals, though an understanding of intermediate micro would be better. Also, the older editions are very cheap.
> It seems horrible to think that I might have to decide between a career I want and a career that treats me well, and that no one seems to be willing to change the problem, or even acknowledge that it exists.
Hey, if it makes you feel better I moved across the country to a dev hub, met my idols, interviewed to companies I never thought I'd interview with, went to GDC several times, made lots of wonderful industry connections/friends, etc before I realized how fucked the industry really is.
Truthfully, the working conditions across the board while worse compared to every other tech industry, usually aren't "Rockstar bad". Sure, working 60 hours a week for a month or two out of the year sucks but it isn't too outrageous and can be an easy pill to swallow when you are young and love the game you are working on.
The real killer for me was the complete lack of career stability for designers, especially at entry/mid level. So many of my design peers literally spending years trying to break in with awesome portfolios just for the chance to get a 3-6mo contract with a studio that was a thousand miles away. The ones with 3-5+ years of experience still getting regurgitated through contract after contract, needing to move cross country every year after long months of unemployment just to get the next gig. Hell, an EA rep even told me that one of their experienced frostbite level designers spent 5 years moving around the globe every year to different EA studios on contracts before they finally got the guy a full time position somewhere. Granted, designers have it way worse than programmers (5X less jobs, literally - plus you are genre locked to whatever is in your portfolio), but similar tales kept popping up across all disciplines in my experiences.
Then you had the job stability horror stories. Project manager I met moved across the country to get a job at (popular "stable" large gaming company) in a city she knew no one, then laid off after 2 months when they decided to downsize. Everything that happened with Telltale, including the people who were hired a week before their closure. ANOTHER person I know also moved cross country for a job that stopped existing two months in, dropping everything for this job!! (this is a surprisingly common occurrence). Fun stories from devs I don't know like that one guy on twitter talking about how back in the THQ days he moved to NYC for his new job only to find that on the first day they forced him to sign a contract saying his pay would be lower and he'd get no benefits. Pretty much forced to sign because what else are you going to do after being on the job market for months since your last games gig?
Most of this is stuff you don't care about when you're a wide eyed kid fresh out of college at 22, with no friends or ambitions beyond what your career might provide for you in the next decade. Most of it you might care about but not enough to toss aside for a chance to be in the industry. But hardly anyone makes it through the industry for more than a decade for a reason. The moment you have a reason to plant roots (love, friends outside of work, great location, a home, some hobby, etc) is the moment being in the industry starts becoming impossible. It also starts becoming painfully obvious how much more maturely ran every other tech company/industry is, and how much less abuse you have to deal with. Granted, not every game company is bad and there are some awful tech companies too - but you cannot deny that the job market for other tech industries is so good that you'll be able to easily job hop your way into a company that works great for you, and that across the board pretty much every other industry isn't ran so poorly. It's much more a roll of the dice when it comes to games, and you kind of just have to take whatever is out there when people hire.
The only people I know who are happily in the industry longer than 10 years qualify for the following:
I've moved on from making games my career of choice, which was really hard for me to do since I spent most of my life preparing for it more or less. But it also sucks seeing all of my game dev friends I've gotten to know over the years suffer and live awful lives. If it wasn't the death march crunch, it was the constant job anxiety, toxic workplaces, or the needing to move every 6-12mo for the next job.
If you're not familiar, and have any interest, I found this to be a good but accessible overview
https://www.amazon.com/1848-Year-Revolution-Mike-Rapport/dp/0465020674/
It's a fascinating period, revolutions throughout Europe. Similar to the Arab Spring, and about as successful.
In the early 20th century when unions reached the zenith of their power, they got an 8 hour workday, 5 day work week, and protection and benefits for specific groups of workers.
Today, they negotiate for delayed deportation of jobs to Mexico and Indonesia. Today they are at the mercy of the corporations they once were able to call tens of thousands of people to strike against.
Sure, you pay your dues but your wages have been going down every single year for 35 years, meanwhile early in the 20th century they were going up as were benefits. So you tell me whose money was put to better use?
Your dues go to groups that represent business interests but with a human face on them--don't totally destroy our worker base, just delay their destruction as opposed to totally destroying it as the CEOs would prefer for their costs.
If you are interested in reading up on it, there's a great book on it called Fall of the House of Labor by one of the leading historians of American labor, David Montgomery. It ends around the early 1920s because that's when they saw most of their leaders jailed, killed, disenfranchised, and attacked by the culture in general when previously they were organizing points for major social movements and revivals.
Our unions today are paltry and useless compared to ones that existed decades ago and you're frankly getting fucked raw, they're more like a holding position than a serious collective bargaining unit that progressively earns better conditions for everyone.
You think the US government's demonization of anarchists only started 100 years ago? Naw, it started way before that. See: the Haymarket Affair. Also, this is a great book on the whole event, which was a huge deal at the time and international news. It's also legitimately one of the best books I've ever read.
You can start by talking to coworkers that have the same issues at work that you do. In addiction and abuse treatment, I imagine there are many. Get a committee of people together and reach out to a union in that field, I think this would be SEIU in NNJ, but I don't know. They'll get you started on the organizing process.
Alternatively, I'm sure in your area of the country there are union employers in that field. Try to seek them out and run for office in your local. The labor movement needs passionate activists right now.
This is also a good (and short) book: https://www.amazon.com/Labor-Law-Rank-Filer-Solidarity/dp/1604864192/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1484749119&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=gross+labor+law
Scargill had plenty of issues of his own but the memory we have of him has been forever distorted by the lies and slanders of the Mirror and the Security State.
Why would companies learn by firing their employees? Companies think they've resolved the situation when they fire an employee. See every CISO officer being fired after a breach ever - and nothing changes.
Nobody goes into work to make a mistake. I'd bet given the training they had, both of those people thought they were doing the right thing, and that anyone else who'd been through the same training with no IT background would have agreed. the book The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error is very good on this topic.
If you fire someone every time they make a mistake, nobody will ever learn. Only when someone who's already made a mistake comes up against the same situation again and does it right can you be sure you've improved as an organisation. If you don't change anything else and just fire people you haven't resolved anything and it's just a matter of time until it happens again.
This book looks interesting as a sort of First-Worldist understanding of the global labor movement. It is clear, at least from this summary, that the author denies the labor aristocracy thesis. To quote the summary:
>One reason lies in the withering of labor movements across the North, and a belief in some circles, flowing from that withering, that the working class is shrinking and perhaps ceasing to be an instrument of social change. In part such viewpoints are due to a failure to see office workers in “white-collar” professions to be part of the working class. (Surplus value is extracted from them just the same.)
The summary here is clear: people working in New York office buildings for $15 an hour are being exploited. Not just exploited, but having "Surplus value...extracted from them just the same." An extraordinary statement, that basically completely ignores Marx's own comments on productive and unproductive labor in the Gundrisse:
>A. Smith was essentially correct with his productive and unproductive labour, correct from the standpoint of bourgeois economy. [45] What the other economists advance against it is either horse-piss (for instance Storch, Senior even lousier etc.), [46] namely that every action after all acts upon something, thus confusion of the product in its natural and in its economic sense; so that the pickpocket becomes a productive worker too, since he indirectly produces books on criminal law (this reasoning at least as correct as calling a judge a productive worker because he protects from theft). Or the modern economists have turned themselves into such sycophants of the bourgeois that they want to demonstrate to the latter that it is productive labour when somebody picks the lice out of his hair, or strokes his tail, because for example the latter activity will make his fat head – blockhead – clearer the next day in the office.
Marx is clear: people hired to pick the lice out of the fat blockheads of the capitalist class do not produce surplus value. Any argument put forth to substantiate this idea is "horse-piss," in Marx's own words.
But enough about that. This work, written by New York professor Immanuel Ness, is basically a First-Worldist attempt to atleast grapple with the state of the global labor movement in some fashion. It is interesting then, that instead of attacking the imperialist institutions of the AFL-CIO and the ITUC, the author instead chooses as his target the Chinese, Indian, and South African labor movements.
After having read works like Kim Scipes' AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?, Don Thompson and Rodney Larson's Where were you, brother? An account of trade union imperialism, and Beth Sims' Workers of the World Undermined: American Labor's Role in U.S. Foreign Policy (among others), it is clear to me that this is not only a wrongheaded approach, but that the institutions professor Ness sets his targets on are actually the only forces opposing the imperialist trade unions of the West.
For instance, the leaders of the COSATU themselves understand the nature of the imperialist trade unions of the West, whereas professor Immanuel Ness seems to implicitly deny it. To quote from Divided World Divided Class:
>According to Thomson and Larson, the recipients of ICFTU funding demonstrate “an increasingly visible identity of interest between the international work of western trade union centres and the foreign policies of their governments.” Thus, for over half a century, *the ICFTU has committed itself to maintaining the imperialist status quo: from the 1950s, when the ICFTU supported US aggression against Korea, to more recently, when, alongside the International Labor Organisation and the AFL-CIO and through ORIT, it facilitated a destabilization campaign against the elected Haitian government and, subsequent to the latters overthrow, ignored massive persecution against public sector workers between 2004 and 2006.
>Cognisant of this fact, in 2010, COSATU (the Congress of South African Trade Unions, representing the country’s biggest trade unions) issued a statement directly criticising the Northern constituents of the ICFTU for their complicity with imperialisms oppression of the Third World:
>It is now even clearer that the designs of the global political economy are such that all structures and institutions in the north serve and reinforce the agenda of the global ruling class. In this regard, even trade unions see their main responsibility as, first and foremost, about the protection of the capitalist system, except questioning its excesses. They scorn every attempt to question its legitimacy and call for its challenge. It was deliberately designed by imperialism that they must see their future as tied to the existence and success of the system. This is why they defend with passion all that is seen to threaten the core elements of the system. The defence of the global markets and trade system that furthers our underdevelopment, the interests of their ruling classes in the Middle East, and their unfettered control over the international trade union movement and its related systems, all help to sustain the dominant system and protect it from those who are its victims and would want to see it removed. This is the basis for the ideological and political choices made by our comrades in the north in pursuing the trade union struggle.
So a First-World labor scholar writes a book which implicitly denies the labor aristocracy thesis, in order to attack actually revolutionary trade union movements around the globe.
That this thing could be published just shows the depths of the utter and complete bankruptcy of First-Worldism.
I am going to get a copy of this book, and compare it to AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?. Hopefully we can use this book to help discover when the LGBTQ movement entered in the American Labor Aristocracy.
> I would love to see how a truly free economy would perform.
The closest we've come is late 19th century United States. The market was prone to such wild gyrations that the business community and government began to understand it needed to be administered to maintain a steady flow of profits and output.
It's well documented in this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Fall-House-Labor-Workplace-1865-1925/dp/0521379822
http://janemcalevey.com/interview-with-brian-lehrer-on-nycs-npr/920/2016/11/
https://www.amazon.com/No-Shortcuts-Organizing-Power-Gilded/dp/019062471X
Almost finished reading this. It's giving me heart palpitations in some parts, it's that good. THINGS CAN CHANGE. It is hard work, and it never stops, but we have the power to fight.
You keep saying wrong but you offer nothing but trite rehashed claims to authority and the offer to go to a more "suitable forum" that is just a circlejerk, as I predicted you have nothing to offer this discussion.
Anarchism of any legitimate claim to the ideology has no model that is viable beyond a city state. Murray Bookchin explicated this in the The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, with the allusion of leaders in the CNT following almost ascetic forms of living to abjure themselves of vice and common men who became depraved and vicious libertines which is what they took away from the "Idea".
Freeloader's Paradox in evolutionary biology for one, since the 1970's no communal society is stable because freeloaders will quickly upset the system's balance.
What I have said, in saying that any anarchistic political system must be inured under a system fundamentally based upon volunteerism, consensus building or other flaky ideas stands. Social contracts are impossible in anarchistic societies as they are unenforceable.
Syndicalism to me meant one world, one government, one union for each trade.
What I'm afraid of is that I am talking to someone who got lost from their circlejerk, has an idea that because everyone agrees with him on his subreddit that he is some sort of autodidactic genius but is really someone who can't see the forest for the trees.
Some excerpts from Elizabeth Anderson's Private Government:
> [...] Aggregate statistics are hard to come by, because complaints
about employer abuse and oppressive working conditions
are so diverse, and crossindustry
surveys on qualitative
issues are expensive and rare. Moreover, academic research on
labor is marginalized and underfunded, as workers themselves
are. Here are some indications.
>Among restaurant workers,
90 percent report being subject to sexual harassment.^^19 Between
2007 and 2012, the Department of Labor conducted
more than 1,500 investigations of garment factories in Southern
California, discovering labor violations, including “sweatshoplike
conditions,” 93 percent of the time.^^20 A recent study of
workers in the poultry industry found that the “vast majority”
were not allowed adequate bathroom breaks. Many are
forced to wear diapers. Employers threaten to fire workers
who complain, indicating that their free speech as well as their
basic physiological needs and dignity are infringed by their employer.
^^21 This is just one part of a long and continuing struggle
by workers in the United States to gain the right to use the
bathroom at work— a right workers in other rich countries have
long taken for granted.^^22
>A recent study, based on a survey of managers and employees,
estimates that about seven million workers have been pressured
by their bosses to favor some political candidate or issue,
by threats of job loss, wage cuts, or plant closure.^^23 OSHA relies
on employers to report the millions of cases of worker injuries
and thousands of deaths suffered by workers each year. [...] a Government Accounting Office
study found that 67 percent of occupational health practitioners
observed “worker fear of disciplinary action for reporting an
injury or illness.”^^24 Both workers’ safety and their freedom of
speech are thereby compromised by dictatorship at work. The
same report also finds that more than onethird
of occupational
health practitioners were pressured by employers to underdiagnose
and undertreat worker injuries so as to avoid reporting
requirements (as minor injuries do not have to be reported to
OSHA).^^25
>Employers unilaterally determine work schedules, with no
employee input for half of all early career employees. The results—
including unpredictable schedules (41 percent of workers), fluctuating
and short-notice on-call
and split-shift
work (where
employees are sent home and called back the same day)— wreak
havoc with the private lives of workers: they can’t arrange child
care, can’t clear their schedules to take college classes or take on
a second job needed to cover necessary expenses, and are left
with unpaid junk time on their hands in the middle of the day,
often hours from home, and with no opportunity to spend it with
friends and family.^^26
>Walmart, which employs nearly 1 percent of the U.S. labor
force (1.4 million workers), is notorious for assigning unreliable
schedules to workers. Yet, it is telling that OURWalmart, a
non-union workers’ organization dedicated to improving working
conditions at Walmart, stands for Organization United for
Respect: members are concerned not simply with wages and
hours, but with being treated respectfully. A leading complaint
of Walmart workers is rude and abusive managers, who scream
at and harass them to get them to work harder. This abusiveness
may be due to the fact that lower-level
managers themselves are assigned work goals without any consideration of what it takes
to meet them, and are constantly harassed by upper management
for not working hard enough.^^27
>This doesn’t even describe the very bottom of America’s
wage labor system. That is occupied by immigrants, both with
visas for low-wage
work and undocumented. Often the former
are forced by their employers to stay past their visa expiration,
because those same employers have confiscated their passports
and threatened them with arrest or worse. One U.S. State Department
investigation found that “30 percent of migrant laborers
surveyed in one California community were victims of
labor trafficking and 55 percent were victims of labor abuse.”^^28
Given that there are many million migrant and/or undocumented
workers in the United States, it is reasonable to suppose
that the number of victims range from the hundreds of
thousands to a few million. Abuses include fraud, being forced
to work without pay, rape and sexual harassment, beatings,
torture, confinement to the workplace and to squalid housing
for which extortionate rent is charged, exhausting hours, isolation,
religious compulsion, and psychological manipulation
and intimidation.^^29 Affected industries include “hotel services,
hospitality, sales crews, agriculture, manufacturing, janitorial
services, construction, health and elder care, and domestic service.”
^^30 Oh, and also restaurants.^^31 This list of industries, which
collectively employ tens of millions of workers, is telling. Cutting
across diverse sectors of the economy, it indicates not only
where vulnerable immigrants, but where U.S. citizens working
in the same places, are liable to suffer serious assaults in their
autonomy, standing, and esteem.
> [...] Wage theft is pervasive among
low-wage
construction, restaurant, garment, nursing home,
agriculture, and poultry workers, and affects many middleclass
workers as well.^^36 One estimate from a business- funded
think tank indicated an annual wage theft tab at $19 billion in
2004. Another
estimate puts the tab at $50 billion in 2014, affecting two thirds
of workers in low-wage
industries, costing them nearly 15 percent
of their total earnings. This is more than three times the
amount of all other thefts in the United States.^^38
BuT iNEquAliTY UndEr cApITaLiSm ISn'T a pRObLeM
What if the hand you're dealt doesn't give you access to adequate funds or transportation necessary to make healthier eating choices?
If your answer is something like "Then work harder and get a better job! Bootstraps, grr!" then you should really check out this book: The Working Poor by David K. Shipler