John Steinbeck    1936    274p    MMPB With only a few weeks to pick the apples before their spoil, tensions run high and boil over after migrant workers go on strike right as the apple-picking season begins. $1-5 Other works involving john steinbeck, labor struggles

Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983 Barbara Kingslover    1989    213p    5 x 8 Hundreds of families held the line in the 1983 strike against Phelps Dodge Copper in Arizona. After more than a year the strikers lost their union certification, but the battle permanently altered the social order in … Continue reading Holding the Line →

For Leslie, the cost of living —and loving— is getting higher and higher. She has become involved in a strange erotic triangle with Honor, a romantic young woman, and Bernie, a queer former street hustler. One reader had this to say: The book has an evocative earnestness to it that takes me back to women’s … Continue reading The High Cost of Living →

Philip S. Foner    1977    341p    5 x 8 Labor historian Foner’s take on the first generalized confrontation between labor and capital in the United States, which effectively shut down the entire railway system. $4-10 Other works involving philip s. foner, general strikes, sabotage, railroads, 1877, 1800s

The Life and World of Ben Reitman, Chicago’s Celebrated Social Reformer, Hobo King and Whorehouse Physician Roger A. Burns   2001   368p   6 x 9 Biography of “the hobo doctor” who road the rails and treated the elements of the working class many other physicians refused to, including performing abortions which were illegal … Continue reading The Damndest Radical →

Or, Songs for Lucy Parsons The May Day Orchestra   Vinyl   2009 “The ‘Folk Opera’ concerning the labor question” according to its liner notes, this is the debut release from The May Day Orchestra, a group started by Tim Rakel in 2008 to write historically-rooted albums with various musical accompaniment. Words for the songs … Continue reading May Day →

Rose Pesotta 1944 435p 6 x 8 Rose Pesotta was an anarchist, feminist labor organizer and the vice president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Born in Ukraine in the 1890s, Pesotta’s interest in Narodnaya Volya eventually lead her to anarchism. Arriving in New York City in 1913, Pessota found work in the garment … Continue reading Bread Upon the Waters →

Post-Political Politics Christian Marazzi & Sylvère Lotringer     2007     340p     7 x 10 ‘Most of the writers who contributed to the issue were locked up at the time in Italian jails…. I was trying to draw the attention of the American Left, which still believed in Eurocommunism, to the fate … Continue reading Autonomia →

A Pictorial History of the Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union H.L. Mitchell 1987 96p 8 x 11 Founded near Tyronza, Arkansas, in 1934 by 11 white and seven black workers, within five years the STFU was organizing all across the South and counting its members in the tens of thousands. Reviving old IWW traditions of workers’ … Continue reading Roll the Union On →

Work, Energy, War, 1973-1992 Midnight Notes Collective     1992     340p     6 x 9 Midnight Oil is a political journey through two decades of social struggles, ranging form the oil fields of the Middle East and Africa coal fields of Appalachia and the homes and neighborhoods of America and Europe. Tracing … Continue reading Midnight Oil →