Labour Unions

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Below are groups and resources (books, articles, websites, etc.) related to this topic. Click on an item’s title to go its resource page with author, publisher, description/abstract and other details, a link to the full text if available, as well as links to related topics in the Subject Index. You can also browse the Title, Author, Subject, Chronological, Dewey, LoC, and Format indexes, or use the Search box.
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Connexions Library

The Abolition of the State: Anarchist & Marxist Perspectives
Price, Wayne
Book
2007
Both Anarchists and Marxists believe that it will be possible to do away with the state. But what do they mean by that? What is the state, after all? What institutions, if any, would be necessary ...
All That Our Hands Have Done: A Pictorial History of Hamilton Workers
Heron, Craig; Hoffmitz, Shea; Roberts, Wayne; Storey, Robert
Book
1981
The story of working people in Hamilton's steel industry.
Alternative Press Annual 1983, The
Case, Patricia (ed)
Book
1984
Alternative Press Center
Organization
Annotated links to alternative points of view available on the Internet.
The American Socialist Movement: 1897-1912
Kipnis, Ira
Book
1952
A history of the American Socialist Party, which at its height had over 150,000 dues-paying members, published hundreds of newspapers, and won almost a million votes for its presidential candidate.
The American Worker
Romano, Paul; Stone, Ria
Book
1947
A description and analysis of the lives of American factory workrers after the Second World War, written by a young autoworker.
The American Working Class in Historical Persepctive
Glaberman, Martin
Article
1973
A review of Jeremy Brecher's Strike! (See CX6590)
The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution 1936-1939
Dolgoff, Sam
Book
1974
Examines the experiments in workers' self-management, both urban and rural, which took place in Spain during the revolution and Civil War.
An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto
Callinicos, Alex
Book
2003
An extended argument about what the anti-capitalist movement should stand for.
At the Lenin Shipyards: Poland and the Rise of the Solidarity Trade Union
Persky, Stan
Book
1981
A first-hand account of the rise of the Solidarity trade union in Poland.
'Be his payment high or low': The American Working Class in the Sixties
Glaberman, Martin
Article
1965
Whether workers win a particular struggle or are forced to retreat or manage to hold their own varies considerably with time and place and the particular relationship of forces in each factory. What r...
Beyond the Fields
Early, Steve
Article
2011
There is a strong historical link between the United Farm Workers in its heyday and myriad forms of progressive activism today. UFW alumni, ideas, and strategies have influenced Latino political empo...
Canada After Harper: His Ideology-fuelled Attack on Canadian Society and Values, and How We Can Resist and Create the Country We Want
Finn, Ed (editor)
Book
2015
Essays documenting the breadth and depth of the Harper government's attack on institutions, policies, and programs that embody values and principles shared by most Canadians: education, health care, w...
Canada Since 1960: A People's History: A Left Perspective on 50 Years of Politics, Economics and Culture
Gonick, By (ed.)
Book
2016
An account of the most important developments in Canadian history from the 1960s to today, seen through the eyes of Canadian Dimension magazine.
The Canadian Left: A Critical Analysis
Penner, Norman
Book
1977
The main focus of the book is the emergence and development of Canadian socialist thought. Penner examines the origins of the Communist Party of Canada and its ideological base and the beginings and d...
Das Capital, Volume 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production
Marx, Karl
Book
1867
Marx's great work sets out to grasp and portray the totality of the capitalist mode of production, and the bourgeois society that emerges from it. He describes and connects all its economic features, ...
The Changing Workplace: Reshaping Canada's Industrial Relations System
Drache, Daniel; Glasbeek, Harry
Book
1992
Describes how business, labour and government have organized the production of goods and services in Canada since 1945. Focusing on the industrial relations system and how it works, the authors call f...
A Chinese alternative: Social democracy by the union route
Dongfang, Han
Article
2014
Dongfang discusses how changing undemocratic Chinese business enterprises, through active labour unions, would also change the social structure of the country.
The Chinese Working Women's Network: Against The Current vol. 113
Ngai, Pun; Ming, Yang Lie
Article
2004
There is no doubt that China is growing rapidly in importance in the global economy. China has now surpassed the United States as the largest destination in the world for foreign investment. While man...
A Class Act: An Illustrated History of the Labour Movement in Newfoundland and Labrador
Gillespie, Bill
Book
1986
Gillespie records the men and women who struggled within an economic system they did not control to improve the lives of their families and their class.
Class Composition and the Theory of the Party at the Origin of the Workers-Councils Movement
Bologna, Sergio
Article
1972
Re-examines a crucial segment of labour history, the German workers' council experience, which bridges the classical socialist phase of the Second and Third Internationals, and the post-Keynesian peri...
Close the 49th Parallel Etc: The Americanization of Canada
Lumsden, Ian
Book
1970
The increasing Americanization of Canada is now evident to all, and it is also becoming evident that the elites in Canada have been anxious to avoid any confrontation of this fact or any examination o...
Columbia's Paramilitary Politics: Against The Current vol. 135
Gill, Lesley
Article
2008
In a surprise move in the early morning of May 13th, Colombian President Álvaro Uríbe announced the extradition of fourteen top paramilitary leaders to the United States, where they are charged with c...
Combatting Racism in the Workplace: A Course for Workers
Thomas, Barb; Novogrodsky, Charles
Book
1983
With the ultimate aim of combatting racism within the labour movement, the Cross Cultural Communication Centre, under the auspices of the Humber Collage for Labour Studies, ran a ten-week, 30 hour pil...
Combatting Racism in the Workplace Readings Kit
Thomas, Barb; Novogrodsky, Charles
Book
1983
Readings and case studies on fighting racism.
Connexions: Volume 3, Number 5 - September 1978
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1978
The Connexions Annual: Introductions to the directory & its sections
Diemer, Ulli
Article
1989
This Annual is dedicated to the idea that change is both necessary and possible. Its main intent is practical: to provide information about groups across Canada who are working at society's grassroots...
Connexions Annual Resource and Reading List
Article
1989
A short and selective list of resources on issues addressed in the Connexions Annual, such as environment, education, peace, interntional development, women's issues, urban issues, housing, human rig...
Connexions Library: Labour and Unions Focus
Website
2009
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on labour and unions.
A Contest of Ideas: Capital, Politics and Labor
Lichtenstein, Nelson
Book
2013
Compilation and updates of many of Lichtenstein's most provocative and controversial essays and reviews. The author offers perspectives on the relationship of labour and the state, the tensions that s...
Craft Unionism
Debs, Eugene
Article
1905
The old form of trade unionism no longer meets the demands of the working class. The old trade union has not only fulfilled its mission and outlived its usefulness, but that it is now positively react...
Critique of Syndicalist Methods: Trade-Unionism to Anarcho-Syndicalism
Bonanno, Alfredo M.
Article
1975
Bonanno's 1975 meditation on the means to be used in pursuit of the anarchist project. Emphasizes the utility of unions in propagating capitalist control of industry and agriculture.
Dakota Access Pipeline and the Future of American Labor
Brecher, Jeremy
Article
2016
As United States Energy Transfers Partners began building the Dakota Access Pipeline through territory sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, the tribe began an escalating campaign against the pipel...
DARE's Struggles in Rhode Island: Against The Current vol. 110
Buhle, Paul
Article
2004
Let's start in a scene from last summer that will be familiar, not exactly but approximately, to many older readers: the labor awards banquet. The setting is a "casino"— in the 1880s sense of a banqu...
Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement, and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America
Green, James
Book
2006
The story of the anarchosyndicalist militants accused of perpetrating the throwing of a bomb that killed police at a workers' rally at the Haymarket in Chicago on May 4, 1886.
The Demise of Andy Stern and the Question of Unions in Contemporary Capitalism
Goldner, Loren
Article
2010
A meaningful advance of workers’ struggles means bringing into existence class-wide organizations. Where those with such a perspective find themselves, by hook or by crook, in trade unions, the issue ...
Democracy for the Few
Parenti, Michael
Book
1988
How does the U.S. political system work and for what purpose? What are the major forces shaping political life and how do they operate? Who governs in the United States? Who gets what, when, how, and ...
A Dictionary of Marxist Thought
Bottomore, Tom
Book
1983
Eat Pray Love Strike: The Law of the Bargaining Table
Macaray, David
Article
2010
We admire underdogs, yet we do not rejoice when underdogs go on strike against corporate fat cats. We admire hard-workers, yet we do not embrace those who are, arguably, the hardest-workers among us ...
Equality Program
Article
1989
Everything's on the Line at AAM: Against The Current vol. 134
Feeley, Dianne
Article
2008
The strike of 3,600 UAW-represented workers at American Axle and Manufacturing plants in Michigan and New York has forced the idling of more than 40,000 workers in 30 GM plants and shut down a number ...
The Exploitation Explosion
Article
1991
Female workers in developing countries are undervalued and underpaid.
Facing Reality
James, C.L.R., Lee, Grace C., Chaulieu, Pierre
Book
1958
Inspired by the October 1956 Hungarian workers' revolution against Stalinist oppression, as well as the U.S. workers' "wild-cat" strikes (against capital and the union bureaucracies), the authors look...
Facing the Toyota "Pattern": Against The Current vol. 131
Feeley, Dianne
Article
2007
Highly praised as a “breakthrough” in the mainstream and business press, the new United Auto Workers contract at General Motors is a stunning retreat for the union, threatening the existence of most h...
Falling Behind: The State of Working Canada, 2000
Jackson, Andrew, Robinson, David, Baldwin,Bob, Wiggins, Cindy
Book
2000
An accessible collation of data and analysis, analyzed from a progressive perspective, about the social and economic realities of working people in Canada.
Fighting for Union Autonomy: Mexican Miners On Strike: Against The Current vol. 122
La Botz, Dan
Article
2006
On April 20 eight hundred state and federal police launched an assault on 500 striking workers who had been occupying a steel mill in Lázaro Cárdenas. Two were killed, five seriously injured and 40...
First Contract: Women and the Fight to Unionize
Conde, Carol, Beveridge, Karl
Book
1986
Looks at the "personal side" of the struggle of working women to organize themselves into unions and win first contracts.
From Iron Mines to Iron Bars
Garvey, John
Article
2010
Exploring some of the consequences of the long-term decline in union membership and the significant shift in membership towards public sector workers.
Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite
Levine, Bruce E.
Book
2011
Levine offers insights into the epidemic of political passivity in America and analyzes how major U.S. institutions have created helplessness and fatalism. He proposes ways of recovering dignity, ener...
Martin and Jessie Glaberman Collection: Papers, 1939-2001
Glaberman, Martin & Jessie
Unclassified
The papers of the Marxist radicals Martin Glaberman and Jessie Glaberman, now housed at Wayne State University.
Glaberman, Martin - Writings - Index
Glaberman, Martin
Article
Writings of Martin Glaberman (1918-2001).
Global Labour Calendar
Website
Calendar of trade union and labour-related events.
Globalizing the Left
Fryer, John
Article
1990
The Canadian trade union movement has to put greater emphasis on using its global ties to prevent multinational companies from shifting their operations to low wage countries.
The Great Transformation: The political and economic origins of our time
Polanyi, Karl
Book
1944
Polanyi analyzes the social and political upheavals that took place in England during the rise of the market economy. Polanyi contends that the modern market economy and the modern nation-state should...
Harlan County USA
Kopple, Barbara
Film
1976
An effort of 180 coal miners and their wives to strike for benefits at the Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine in Harlan County, southeast Kentucky in 1973.
Harper's Rule Breaking Rush to Crush Unions
Tieleman, Bill
Article
2015
Is there anything more undemocratic than Canada's most tainted organization -- the Conservative-controlled Senate -- breaking its rules and then overturning its own Conservative Speaker's ruling, all ...
Higgins, Jim - Writings - Index
Higgins, Jim
Article
Writings of Jim Higgins (1930 – 2002).
How the Unions Killed the Working Class Movement
Stratman, Dave
Article
2006
An analysis of how the vertical integration of unions disempowers workers and forces them to use captilist systems such as courts instead of relying on friendship and solidarity.
How to Jump-Start Your Union: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers
Labor Notes
Book
2014
How to Jump-Start Your Union tells how activists transformed their union and gave members hope. Readers will learn how to run for office, work with their communities, build stewards' networks, train n...
Imperialism, Nationalism, and Canada.
Heron, Craig (ed.) Introduction by John Saul and Craig Heron
Book
1977
Interpretations of Canada's status in the system of world imperialism and the internal dynamics of class, race, and region within the Canadian national state.
India's Autoworkers Behaving Like the Old UAW: The Real Deal
Macaray, David
Article
2011
While it's true that international banks and corporations have their slimy tentacles in everything from foreign governments to foreign armies, the world's workers have two weapons of their own. One i...
Industrial Workers of the World: Connexipedia Article
Article
The IWW contends that all workers should be united as a class and that the wage system should be abolished. They may be best known for the Wobbly Shop model of workplace democracy, in which workers el...
An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism
Moody, Kim
Book
The author, a union organizer and activist, details the decline of the American union movement.
An Interview with Patricia Campbell: Against The Current vol. 123
Finkel, David
Article
2006
Patricia Campbell is President of the Irish Independent Workers Union (IWU), an independent trade union and social movement in both the north and south of Ireland. She is a deputy editor of the journa...
It's Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor
Macaray, David
Book
2009
Most of the labor essays included here were written over the last seven years and appeared originally in various publications, including CounterPunch, The Exception Magazine, Liberalati, Los Angeles T...
The Junk Food Economy
Gill, A. Paul
Article
1992
Young people entering the workforce face a junk food economy.
Just Another Cog in the Machine
Wood, John (Director)
Film/Video
2009
Using wordplay & a photocopier to promote starting a union.
Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution: Volume II: The Politics of Social Classes
Draper, Hal
Book
1978
Draper ranges through the development of the thought of Marx and Engels on the role of classes in society.
Knights of Labor: Connexipedia: Article in the Canadian Encyclopedia
Article
The major labour reform organization of the late 19th century in the United States.
The "Labor Aristocracy" and Working-Class Struggles: Consciousness in Flux, Part 2: Against The Current vol. 124
Post, Charles
Article
2006
Whatever the theoretical and empirical problems with the economics of the labor aristocracy thesis, its defenders still claim that well paid workers have generally been more reformist and conservative...
Labour Gains, Labour Pains: 50 Years of PC 1003
Gonick, Cy; Phillips, Paul; Vorst, Jesse
Book
1994
This book is comprised of 4 parts: Historical Context, Origins and Evolution of the Fordist Accord, Case Studies, International Comparisons.
Labor on the Ropes: Against The Current vol. 135
Leyshon, Traven
Article
2008
In U.S. Labor in Trouble and Transition, Kim Moody focuses on why the organized labor movement went into decline and points to potential signs of revival. The author’s explanation begins with the wors...
Labor Politics in Action, 1901-1911: The Union Labor Party of San Francisco: Against The Current vol. 81
Perry, Hayden
Article
1999
In 1900 San Francisco had an organized labor movement that reflected the unique development of this metropolis of the West. San Francisco did not experience the slow and steady growth of Chicago and o...
Labor Scores at Verizon: Against The Current vol. 89
Douglas, Rachel
Article
2000
On August 6 87,000 members of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) struck Verizon Communications in twelve states from Maine to Vir...
Labour WebRing: hub
Website
Featuring trade unions/trade unionists, labour/labor organizations and union activists worldwide.
Labor's Disaster at American Axle: Against The Current vol. 137
Feeley, Dianne
Article
2008
The 87-day strike earlier this year at American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM) ended in a rout that has devastating implications for the organized U.S. labor movement. Begun on a snowy morning early Febru...
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder
Lenin, V. I.
Book
1918
Lenin's repsonse to ultraleftists who advocate 'no compromises' and refuse to work in 'reactionary' trade unions and parliamentary elections.
Let's Be Practical
Stratman, Dave
Article
1997
Building a movement to destroy capitalism and create a society which truly reflects the aspirations of most people, though it may sound scary, is actually more practical than trying to reform a union.
Life After Death for Labor?
Cohen, David
Book
2015
A review of Stanley Aronowitz's book "The Death and Life of American Labor: Toward a New Workers’ Movement."
Life Support for Labor?
Schafer, Meredith
Article
2015
The Debate Over how to save the labour movement suffers from a serious deficit of books written by organizers. Rarely do we get an entire book by someone who has been organizing for four decades, and ...
Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global
Mason, Paul
Book
2010
Mason realtes a series of struggles for worker and human rights over the past two hundred years and compares them to current struggles.
Loosing Another Round: Against The Current vol. 135
The Editors
Article
2008
The strike at American Axle, which we reported on in ATC 134, ended when workers voted to go back under a concessionary agreement. The 25% who voted no didn’t feel they were close to winning but they ...
Luxemburg, Rosa - Writings - Index
Luxemburg, Rosa
Article
Writings of Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919).
Marxism and the Trade Unions
Draper, Hal
Article
1970
Draper argues that essentially, no Marxist group has ever carried on any systematic revolutionary work in trade unions.
Marxism vs. Anarchism Part 5: From 1848 to the Bolshevik Revolution
Seymour, Joseph
Article
1996
Seymour analyzes the syndicalist movements - which emphasized that the main obstacle to social revolution lay in the organizational weakness of the anarchist movement and the disorganization of the wo...
The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions
Luxemburg, Rosa
Book
1906
Luxemburg writes that "the mass strike in Russia [in 1905] has been realised not as means of evading the political struggle of the working-class, and especially of parliamentarism, not as a means of j...
Mining History Written in Blood
Sandronsky, Seth
Article
2018
Domestic coal mining history above and below ground lives on the pages of Written in Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian War of Extraction edited by Wess Harris (PM Press, 2017). The anth...
Monographs on the Portuguese
Article
1975
A collection of analytical essays on the Portugese immigrant community in Toronto.
The No-Nonsense Guide to Class, Caste & Hierarchies
Seabrook, Jeremy
Book
2002
Concentrates mainly on the history of social hierarchy in Western civilization, and particularly the struggles of the working class.
Notes from a Revolution Dying: Against The Current vol. 134
Pirani, Simon
Article
2008
In June 1922, five years on from the Russian Revolution, a group of Moscow communists gathered to discuss a letter by Vladimir Petrzhek, an auto worker, tendering his resignation from the communist (o...
On the CP-USA and the Unions
Haberkern, Ernie
Article
1997
Trade union officialdom, especially its top layers, not only defends the rights of the employer against those demands of the members that can't be met at a given time; it also, and at the same time, d...
On the Labor Bureaucracy
Post, Charlie
Article
1997
The job of socialists today, as in the past, is to help organize a rank-and-file movement within the unions that is critical of the methods of bureaucratic business unionism and promotes militancy, so...
On Unions and the Class Struggle
Article
1969
Written during the wave of workers' struggles known as the Italian hot autumn of 1969, when the autonomous struggles of the working class reached an unprecedented level, laying bare the character and ...
One Big Union: Connexipedia: Article in the Canadian Encyclopedia
Article
In 1919 delegates from most union locals in western Canada met at the Western Labour Conference in Calgary and proclaimed support for the Bolshevik and other left-wing revolutions. They decided to con...
The Other Israel: The Radical Case Against Zionism
Bober, Ari (ed.)
Book
1972
A collective effort by a small group of Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel to penetrate the dense net of illusion and myth that dominates the thinking and feeling of most Israelis and, at the same tim...
Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - September 10, 2015: Labour Day issue
Diemer, Ulli (editor); Rickwood, Darien Yawching (production)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
2015
Labour Day issue, with articles examining the relentless pressure put on workers to work ever longer hours, at the cost of their health and family life; anti-worker legislation, Zapatista popular educ...
Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - January 16, 2016: Working class organizing
Diemer, Ulli (ed.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
2016
Working to change things for the better, fighting to prevent things from getting worse, remembering the past to illuminate possibilities for the future: as always, that is the focus of Other Voices. I...
Out of the Driver's Seat: Marxism in North America Today
Article
1974
Outlines the political perspective of the Windsor-based Labour Centre in the wake of divisions in the Centre in 1974. Issues explored include the nature of the working class, women in the working clas...
Pannekoek, Anton - Writings - Index
Pannekoek, Anton
Article
Writings of Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960).
Pay Cheques & Picket Lines: All About Unions in Canada
MacKay, Claire; Illustrated by Peters, Eric
Book
1987
A children's book which explains what unions are, how they came to be, and why they exist.
A People's History of the United States: 1492 - Present
Zinn, Howard
Book
1995
Zinn's history includes those most ignored by typical American textbook history, including Indians, blacks, women and workers.
Plunderbund and Proletariat: A History of the IWW in B.C.
Scott, Jack
Book
1975
A history of working class struggle from the workers' perspective.
Preface to Martin Glaberman's Four Essays on the Working Class
Diemer, Ulli
Article
1975
Glaberman insists that the working class is not merely a victim of capitalism. Working people are active participants in creating their own consciousness, their methods of struggle and their own histo...
The Press and the Class Struggle: Against The Current vol. 131
Eidlin, Barry
Article
2007
Early on the morning of August 19, 1997, the U.S. labor movement experienced something it had rarely known in recent years: a victory on a national scale. After two weeks out on strike, over 185,000 m...
Promoting your union: Six strategies to get more organizing leads and union members
Mann, Jason
Book
Promoting Your Union is a book to help union organizers get more organizing leads, create outreach plans to bring in new members and build the power of their unions. The ideas in this book are based o...
A Proposal to American Labor: 'Open source unionism' could reinvigorate American labor in the age of the Internet
Freeman, Richard B.; Rogers, Joel
Article
2002
The authors posit that union membership is too restricted by the requirement that unions have majority support in the workplace. They believe that pro-union workers who are a minority in their workpla...
Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement
McAlevey, Jane
Book
2014
Today, fewer than 7% of American private-sector workers belong to a union and public employee collective bargaining has been dealt devastating blows in Wisconsin and elsewhere. This book argues that l...
Rank and File: Personal Histories of Working Class Organizers
Lynd, Alice; Lynd, Staughton (eds.)
Book
1973
A collection of stories and recollections from labour movement organizers.
Relentless Persistence: Nonviolent Action in Latin America
McManus, Philip and Schlabach, Gerald (ed.)
Book
1991
There is in Latin America a tradition of "firmeza permanente," relentless persistence, which has enabled the people to preserve parts of their culture during five centuries of conquest and oppression.
A Reluctant Memoir of the '50s and '60s: Against The Current vol. 134
Le Blanc, Paul
Article
2008
I have been asked to write a memoir that would give a sense of the old left/new left realities of the 1950s and ‘60s. That seems quite odd to me (why would I be writing such a thing?), until I look in...
A Reply to Nelson Lichtenstein: Assessing Union Leaderships
Goldfield, Michael
Article
1997
What is the relation of even the most liberal bureaucrats to capital (why do they inevitably downplay the fight for equality, why are they so much in favor of collaboration, corporatist approaches, in...
Review Essay: Reutherism Redux: Against The Current vol. 112
Early, Steve
Article
2004
Despite stepped-up union recruitment, farm workers and poultry processors still haven't taken over the AFL-CIO. But the old guard's fear of being swamped by low-wage workers—expressed by this AFT del...
Revolutionary Centennial: Guyana's 1905 Rebellion: Against The Current vol. 114
Westmaas, Nigel
Article
2005
1905 was a landmark year in the history of Guyana, as it was for several places around the world. In Russia, the Tsar and his troops shot workers delivering a petition in St. Petersburg. In Bengal t...
Revolutionary Unionism
Debs, Eugene
Article
1905
Speech at Chicago, November 25, 1905
Rosa Luxemburg: Abridged Edition
Nettl, Peter
Book
1966
A biography of Luxemburg by a British academic.
Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings
Luxemburg, Rosa (edited with an introduction by Robert Looker)
Book
1972
A selection of Rosa Luxemburg's writings which highlight her outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of revolutionary socialism.
The Rosa Luxemburg Reader
Luxemburg, Rosa. [Anderson, Kevin; Hudis, Peter (eds.)]
Book
2004
A definitive one-volume collection of Luxemburg's writings.
Rosa Luxemburg Speaks
Waters, Mary Alice
Book
1970
A selection of speeches and writings by Rosa Luxemburg.
Saskatchewan Federation of Labour
Article
1978
A paper on government spending, wealth distribution, inflation and a variety of other related topics.
Selections from the Prison Notebooks
Gramsci, Antonio
Book
1951
Gramsci's Notebooks cover a wide range of subjects including history, culture, politics, and philosophy.
Seven News
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1970
Seven News (7 News) was a community newspaper published in the area of Toronto east of downtown which at the time was known as Ward 7. Seven News was published from 1970 to 1985. Seven News is no long...
A Short History of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party: Challenging the Two Parties of Capital
Anfinson, Graeme
Article
2014
Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party was the most successful labor party in United States history. The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Association, a grouping of associated unions and farmers, provided the organic c...
The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
Gitlin, Todd
Book
1987
One of the best books on the Sixties in the U.S., bringing to life the political and cultural currents, including especially the music, which raged during that decade, and setting them in historical c...
The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada 1914-28
Allen, Richard
Book
1973
An account of the movement within Canadian protestantism which sought to revive the neglected social dimensions of Christianity and to involve the church in social action.
Socialism and Revolution
Gorz, Andre
Book
1967
Representative democracy in every industrially advanced country is in a state of profound crisis. But we have been accustomed for so long to accept democracy in the form of its outward appearances and...
The Socialist Register 1964: Volume 1: A Survey of Movements & Ideas
Miliband, Ralph; Saville, John (ed.s)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1964
The Socialist Register 1966: Volume 3: A Survey of Movements & Ideas
Miliband, Ralph; Saville, John (eds.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1966
The Socialist Register 1968: Volume 5: A Survey of Movements & Ideas
Miliband, Ralph; Saville, John (eds.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1968
The Socialist Register 1976: Volume 13: A Survey of Movements & Ideas
Miliband, Ralph; Saville, John (eds.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1976
The Socialist Register 1980: Volume 17: A Survey of Movements & Ideas
Miliband, Ralph; Saville, John (eds.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1980
The Socialist Register 1984: Volume 21: The Uses of Anti-Communism
Miliband, Ralph; Saville, John (eds.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1984
Socialist Register 1996: Volume 32: Are There Alternatives?
Panitch, Leo (ed.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1996
Socialist Register 2013: Volume 49: The Question of Strategy
Serial Publication (Periodical)
2013
This, the 49th volume of the Socialist Register examines the choices faced by the left today, the models of strategy available to it, and the innovations that are being made by groups as they organize...
Soft Sell: Quality of Working Life Programs and the Productivity Race
Wells, Don
Book
1987
Quality of Working Life is a grab-bag of programs that promise workplace improvements and greater job satisfaction in exchange for increased productivity on the part of Canadian workers. But, says Don...
Solidarity (Polish trade union): Connexipedia Article
Article
A Polish trade union federation founded in September 1980, the first non-communist party-controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country.
South African trade union congress supports CUPE boycott of apartheid Israel
COSATU
Article
2006
South African workers will never forget the support given by the Israeli state to the apartheid South African regime. In the same way we will never forget the thousands of acts of solidarity of ordina...
Spontaneity and Organization: Some Comments
Montgomery, David
Article
1973
A contribution to a symposium on Jeremy Brecher's book Strike!
Ssangyong Motors Strike in South Korea Ends in Defeat and Heavy Repression
Goldner, Loren
Article
2009
The hard-right Korean government is signaling with these measures -- its latest and most dramatic "take no prisoners" victory over popular protest in the past year and a half -- its intention to steam...
The State of the World Atlas
Kidron, Michael
Book
1981
Strike!: The True History of Mass Insurgence from 1877 to the Present
Brecher, Jeremy
Book
1972
A history-from-below that brings to light strikes as authentic revolutionary movements against the establishments of state, capital, and trade unionism.
The Strike and Its Enemies
Ackerman, Seth
Article
2012
Like the progressive labour bureaucrats, today’s generation of young radicals have spent all of their formative years living in the era of capitalist realism — the era of There is No Alternative. And ...
Strike Lessons from the Last Twenty-Five Years: Walking Out and Winning: Against The Current vol. 124
Early, Steve
Article
2006
Labor's strike effectiveness and organizational strength have long been connected. Throughout history, work stoppages have been used for economic and political purposes, to alter the balance of power ...
The Struggle at Peugeot in France
Chatroussat, Jose
Article
2013
When the management of the PSA Peugeot Citroën group announced, in early July 2012, that it was eliminating 8,000 jobs and closing the Aulnay plant near Paris (3,000 employees) in 2014, it caused a sh...
They Are Still Killing Trade Union Leaders: Global Capital's Death Squads and Night-Riders
Macaray, David
Article
2012
Question: So what happens these days in developing countries when a prominent, charismatic union activist - with the courage to stand up to sinister, government-supported business groups who have, on ...
Thinking Union: Activism and Education in Canada's Labour Movement
Martin, D'arcy
Book
1995
Examining activism and education in Canadian labour, it's both a personal memoir and a guide to labour education. Martin explores and explains union culture, mergers and internal splits, the mechanics...
Tony Mazzocchi Lives: Blue-Green Organizer Takes Up 'Just Transition' Mantle
Hand, Mark
Article
2015
Union and environmental activist Alex Lotorto believes environmentalists should be working more closely with organized labour and following the advice of some of labour's more enlightened leaders.
Toronto's Poor: A Rebellious History
Palmer, Bryan D.; Heroux, Gaetan
Book
2016
Toronto’s Poor reveals the long and too often forgotten history of poor people’s resistance. It details how the homeless, the unemployed, and the destitute have struggled to survive and secure food an...
Tracking Harper's 9-year-long assault on unions
Manek, Haseena
Article
2015
Stephen Harper has been Prime Minister of Canada for almost a decade. In that time, the system of protections that were put in place by decades of advocacy by labour organizations and unions has been ...
The Trade Union Movement of Canada, 1827-1959
Lipton, Charles
Book
1967
An account of trade union evolution as a whole for the period 1827-1959, as well as an ouline of continuing sphere's of Labour's effort, such as organization of the unorganized, the fight for better c...
Trade Unionism
Pannekoek, Anton
Article
1936
The narrow field of trade union struggle widens into the broad field of class struggle. But now the workers themselves must change. They have to take a wider view of the world. From their trade, from ...
Trade Unions Bread & Roses The trade union revival: New Internationalist December 2001
Serial Publication (Periodical)
2001
A look at some of the facts and issues regarding trade unions and what they have done for people in various parts of the world.
Trade Unions: International Solidarity in Action
Pilichowski, Christian
Article
2012
International solidarity can be understood as cooperation between trade-union organisations that, by their nature, share the same objectives because they represent the workers of their countries. It t...
A Troublemaker's Handbook: How to Fight Back Where You Work -- And Win!
La Botz, Dan
Book
1991
An organizing manual for workers dealing with both major issues and everyday problems in the workplace.
A Troublemaker's Handbook 2
Slaughter, Jane (ed.)
Book
A manual for workers who want to take control over their lives at work. In hundreds of first-person accounts, workers tell in their own words how they organized and struggled to do that.
25 Years After the Gdansk Uprising: Against The Current vol. 121
Weissman, Suzi
Article
2006
Suzi Weissman interviews David Ost. The occupation of the Gdansk shipyard by Polish workers in 1980, demanding recognition of their independent trade union Solidarnosc, rocked the Eastern bloc and ins...
UFCW: Strategy of Appeasement
Wetzel, Tom; Edwards, Jake
Article
1986
A Union Defeated at United Air Lines: Against The Current vol. 134
Miah, Malik; O'Rourke, Terry
Article
2008
The April 1 certification of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) was no April Fool’s joke for the 8600 eligible mechanic and related United Airlines (UAL) employees who voted in the March...
Union Security: UAW Statement to Ontario Government
Article
1978
A statement by the United Auto Workers union to the Conservative government.
Union Woman
Article
1979
Organized Working Women (OWW) provides resources and information for women in the labour movement.
Unions Against Revolution
Munis, G., Zerzan, J.
Book
Unions -- as well as employers -- stand in the way of workers' political freedom. Labour militants who become union leaders enforce industrial discipline just as Lenin and Stalin advocated. In the pam...
Unions and Free Trade: Solidarity vs. Competition
Moody, Kim; McGuinn, Mary
Book
1992
This handbook details the effects of free trade on workers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It argues that solidarity, not competition, is the only long-term strategy for unions. It includes case studi...
Unions and the Road to Socialism
Fisk, Milton
Article
2015
The familiar model of union struggle has been ineffective in attempts to change capitalism. I will try to explain why unions have not shaken capitalism's foundations. The explanation will point to the...
Unions with Leaders Who Stay on the Job (a.k.a. Class War Lessons)
Weir, Stan
Article
Stan Weir writes about direct action and on-the-job union leadership as a merchant marine in the 1940s.
Us and Them: Building a just workplace community
Sutherland, John R. (ed.)
Book
1999
U.S. Labor's Subterranean Fire: Against The Current vol. 131
Post, Charlie
Article
2007
The broad outlines of the crisis of the U.S. labor movement -— sharply declining union density, concession bargaining, failures to organize the growing non-union manufacturing and service sectors, the...
U.S. Strikes Drop Dramatically
Article
1992
A decade of Reaganism has left employers in a position to destroy unions without fear of significant political and public retribution.
What Happened - and Didn't: Behind New York's Transit Strike: Against The Current vol. 124
Downs, Steve
Article
2006
Early on December 20, 2005, Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, representing some 33,000 of New York City's subway and bus workers, called a strike. When dawn broke, there was no public transport...
What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
Frank, Thomas
Book
2004
Explores the rise of conservative populism in the United States through the lens of Frank's native state of Kansas. According to his analysis, the political discourse of recent decades has dramaticall...
What's the Matter With That Union Boss?: The Real Yes Men
Engler, Yves
Article
2013
Why do the most right-wing politicians and corporate news outlets always use the term “union boss”? Because the worst thing they can think of is to say the leader of a labour organization acts like a ...
When the UAW Was Young: Against The Current vol. 131
Feeley, Dianne
Article
2007
An interview with Erwin and Estar Baur.
Who Advocates Spontaneity?
Brecher, Jeremy
Article
1973
The working class can come to understand its power to act only by acting.
Why Bosses Hate Unions
Henwood, Doug
Article
2015
Unions vastly improve the wages and working conditions of their members. No wonder they're still under attack.
Why Unions Matter: 2nd Edition, 10th Anniversary Update
Yates, Michael
Book
Shows why workers need unions, how unions are formed, how they operate, how collective bargaining works, the role of unions in politics, and what unions have done to bring workers together across the ...
The Winter of our Discontent: Experiences Organizing Nursing Homes
Burcher, Betty; Donner, Lissa
Article
1973
An account by two nursing home workers describing their jobs and their successful efforts to organize unions at their workplaces. Published in Issue #2 (1973) on the New Tendency newsletter.
Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back
Yates, Michael D.
Book
2012
A collection of essays describing the working class uprising that occurred in Wisconsin, in February and early March of 2011.
Wobblies & Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Theory
Lynd, Staughton; Grubacic, Andrej
Book
2008
Wobblies and Zapatistas offers readers an encounter between two generations and two traditions. Staughton Lynd and Andrej Grubacic meet in dialogue in an effort to bring together the anarchist and Mar...
Women's Trade Union League: Connexipedia Article
Article
A U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women formed in 1903 to support the efforts of women to organize labour unions and eliminate sweatshop conditions.
Workers of America, Unite! Racism is a Trade Union Issue
Finamore, Carl
Article
2015
The American working class is the most powerful in the world, is the most productive in the world and we operate the largest and most profitable economy in the world. American workers are also represe...
The working class, trade unions and the left: the contours of resistance
Vernell, Sean
Article
2013
Vernell talks about the attacks of the British government to stabilise capitalism, as well as the response of the working class.

Connexions Directory of Groups & Websites

Against the Current
Bi-monthly magazine oriented toward movements for social and economic justice; radical, socialist and feminist in orientation.
Arusha Cross-Cultural Centre
Stimulate reflection and action by Canadians to promote equitable development of peoples at home and abroad, and communication and understanding among people of different cultures.
Briarpatch
Briarpatch is Saskatchewan's independent alternative newsmagazine committed to building a socialist society. We provide an open forum for disadvantaged peoples and support progressive movements workin...
Bureau of Public Secrets
Articles from a Situationist perspective.
Canadian Dimension
Canadian Dimension is published by, for and about activists in the struggle for a better world, covering women's issues, aboriginal issues, the environment, labour, etc. in ways not found in the mains...
Confederation of Canadian Unions
To promote the study, defense and development of the economic, social and moral interests of all workers in Canada. The CCU is building a democratic labour movement, where rank and file members reall...
Connexions Information Sharing Services
Connexions provides information and services for advocacy groups, voluntary and non-profit organizations, and individuals, who are working for social and economic justice, environmental responsibility...
History & Policy
History & Policy: * Demonstrates the relevance of history to contemporary policymaking * Puts historians in touch with those discussing and deciding public policy today * Increases the influence of...
Labor Network for Sustainability
Labor Network for Sustainability is dedicated to engaging trade unions, workers and their allies to support economic, social, and environmental sustainability. From our perspective, efforts to engage...
LaborNet
Global online communication for a democratic, independent labor movement.
Labour Capital & Society
An interdisciplinary, bilingual, refereed journal on labour issues concerning the regions of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East.
Labour/Le Travail
A bilingual journal holding no rigid position on the definition of labour. The editorial board hopes to foster imaginative approaches to both teaching and research in labour studies through an open ex...
LabourStart
A major site with information about labour activities throughout the world.
Libcom.org
Resource for all people who wish to improve their lives, their communities and their working conditions. We want to discuss with one another, learn from experiences of the past and develop strategies ...
Marxists Internet Archive
Large archive of the writings of Marx and Engels and of others in the Marxist tradition. Searchable.
News and Letters
An organization of Marxist-Humanists standing for the abolition of capitalism, both in its private property form and ins its state property form. We stand for the deveopment of new human relations; wh...
Ontario Coalition for Social Justice
A provincial network of organizations and local community based coalitions dedicated to development of a people-oriented society. Justice and jobs, we can have both.
Our Times Publishing
Independent Canadian labour magazine.
People's Voice
The latest on the fightback from coast to coast. News the corporate media won't print.
Socialist Action
To educate and organize in favour of the socialist transformation of Canada and the world, to build a revolutionary party of working women and men to fight for a world without racism, sexism, war, exp...
Socialist Worker
Monthly newspaper of the International Socialists in Canada.
Society for Socialist Studies
The society's purpose to facilitate and encourage research and analysis in Canada with emphasis on socialist, feminist, ecological, and anti-racist points of view.
Sources
Sources specializes in collecting, indexing, and disseminating information to help journalists, editors, and researchers quickly reach articulate experts and spokespersons who can provide background i...
This Magazine
This Magazine tells you what's happening and why. News across Canada, award-winning investigations, columnists, fiction, poetry, comics, more!
Trotskyist League
Works to build a revolutionary internationalist workers party to fight for socialist revolution.
Workers' Vanguard
Newspaper of the International Communist Leage (Fourth Internationalist).

Sources Experts & Spokespersons

Sources Library

An Experiment in Democracy - Book Review
La Botz, Dan
1999
Organizing Dissent: Unions, the State, and the Democratic Teachers' Movement in Mexico by Maria Lorena Cook. (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996). Photographs, ap...
Finding Answers
The Essential Guide to Gathering Information in Canada
Tudor, Dean
1993
Outlines the essentials of how to find and use information.
First and Foremost in Community Health Centres
The Centre in Sault Ste Marie and the CHC Alternative
Lomas, Jonathan
1985
The story of Canada's first community health centre, an initiative of the United Steelworkers of America, which opened its doors in 1958.
How to Keep Union Records
Nash, Michael (ed.)
2010

From the Connexions Archives

Against the Current
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1986
Bi-monthly magazine oriented toward movements for social and economic justice; radical, socialist and feminist in orientation.
Canadian Union News Vol. 7, #1.
Periodical profile published 1979
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1979
This issue of the quarterly news tabloid examines the Postal Strike, a strike by 1,000 members of the York University Staff Association and the seventh conference of the B.C. Council of the Confederat...
Ideas and Action
Periodical profile published 1981
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1981
Archive of some articles published in Ideas and Action, a radical paper published by the Workers Solidarity Alliance from 1981 to 1997.
International Labor Rights Forum
Website
An advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide.
LaborNet
Website
Exists to build a democratic communication network for the labor movement.
Labour in an Affluent Society
Fox, Steve; Kissinger, C. Clark; Mull, Brenda
Article
Put together by the Radical Education Project, this paper includes the following articles: "WILDCAT: anatomy of a work stoppage" by Steve Fox; "THE BRUNS STRIKE: a case study of student participation ...
Labour's Side
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1981
Labour's Side is a newsletter published four times a year by the Nova Scotia Labour Research and Support Centre "to inform our readers about labour struggles in the province."
LabourStart
Website
A major site with information about labour activities throughout the world.
Marxists Internet Archive
Website
Large archive of the writings of Marx and Engels and of others in the Marxist tradition. Searchable.
News and Letters
Serial Publication (Periodical)
Articles from a Marxist-Humanist perspective.
The Newsletter
Periodical profile
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1973
Newsletter published in 1973 and 1974 by the New Tendency, a loose collaboration of independent leftists primarily based in Toronto, Windsor, Winnipeg, and Kitchener-Waterloo. Articles dealt with work...
The Red Menace
A libertarian socialist newsletter
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1975
Articles on topics such as socialism, Marxism, anarchism, work, popular education, organizing, wages for housework, Leninism, bureaucracy, hierarchy, jargon, prostitution, obscenity, science fiction, ...
SORWUC - Service, Office And Retail Workers Union of Canada
Organization
1981
One of the primary goals of SORWUC - Service, Office and Retail Workers Union of Canada is organizing the unorganized.
SORWUC -- Service, Office and Retail Workers Union of Canada
Organization profile published 1983
Organization
1983
Union Art Service
Organization profile published 1986
Organization
1986
Union Woman
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1983
Union Women
Periodical profile published 1980
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1980
Women And Unions - Special Issue Of Resources For Feminist Research/Documentation
Sur La Recherche Feministe. - Periodical profile published 1981
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1981
Resources for Feminist Research (formerly the Canadian Newsletter of Research on Women) is an interdisciplinary, international periodical of research on women and sex roles.