Workers' Rights

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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 Birth of a Holiday: The late Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm recounts the origins of International Workers' Day.
Hobsbawm, Eric
Article
2017
The history of the fight, by the working class, for a holiday for the working class.
The burden of slavery: New Internationalist August 2001 - #337
Serial Publication (Periodical)
2001
Discusses a brief history of slavery in different parts of the world, and its existence in the presence. Outlines ways for people and the government can contribute to end slavery.
Chinese Workers' Resistance: Against The Current vol. 111
Diamond, Norm
Article
2004
Norm Diamond interviews Tim Pringle, who lives in Hong Kong, where he participates as an observer and also as a member of the editorial board of the Chinese-language magazine Globalization Monitor.
Collective Bargaining Course Book
OPSEU Education Dept.
Book
1979
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...
Common Sense for Hard Times: The Power of the Powerless to Cope with Everyday life and Transform Society in The Nineteen Seventies
Brecher, Jeremy; Costello, Tim
Book
1976
Presents a vision of society as it is and as it could be. Putting the problems of contemporary daily life in historical perspective, it reveals that they have their roots in the way our society is org...
Connexions Library: Labour and Unions Focus
Website
2009
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on labour and unions.
Debt Bondage Or Self-Reliance: A Popular Perspective on the Global Debt Crisis
Book
1985
Describes the effects of international debt on workers, the unemployed, and peasants who neither asked for or benefit from such debt. It describes the growing number of people's movements in Canada an...
The Exploitation Explosion
Article
1991
Female workers in developing countries are undervalued and underpaid.
Fernandez, Irene: Connexipedia: Right Livelihood Award Winner
Article
Malaysian advocate for the right of women, migrants, and poor workers. (Born 1946).
Fightback in Korea
Elich, Gregory
Article
2015
In a climate of increasing repression, the Park Geun-hye government in South Korea is launching the latest in its series of attacks on working people. A retrograde labour reform plan is being set in m...
Fighting Back on the Job
Santoro, Victor
Book
1984
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...
Fighting the Flexible Firm
Sennett, Richard
Article
2000
The shift towards the short term is a result of changes within the operation of capitalism. Let us be clear about this: it is not about technology, it is not about innovation, it is about capitalism a...
Fighting the Wal-Mart Plague: Against The Current vol. 118
Miller, Karen
Article
2005
Liza Featherstone offers a devastating portrait of rampant sex discrimination at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Women working for the company at all levels — from cashier positions to the highest levels of cor...
The Flint sit-down strike, 1936-1937: Jeremy Brecher
Steven
Article
2013
210,000 auto workers joined the American Federation of Labor (A.F.L.) to take part in the strike but the A.F.L leadership however wanted no part in a strike, and managed to postpone it again and again...
Getting the Balance Right: Gender Equality in Journalism
Article
2009
Gender equality in journalism.
How People Get Power: Organizing Oppressed Communities for Action
Kahn, Si
Book
1970
A book about community organizing, written for organizers.
Is that an archive in your basement... or are you just hoarding?: Sources News Release
Article
2012
Are you an 'accidental archivist'? Have you been saving the publications and documents produced by the social justice projects you've been involved in? Then Connexions would like to hear from you.
Justice for All: the Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt: A Report by the Solidarity Center
Book
2010
A report on recent workers' struggles in Egypt, against falling wages, oppressive working conditions, and violations of workers' rights, in the face of an authoritarian and repressive government.
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.
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...
The Labor Wars
Lens, Sidney
Book
1973
A survey of landmark events in the U.S. labour movement.
Life After Death for Labor?: The Death and Life of American Labor: Toward a New Workers' Movement (Book Review)
Cohen, David (Reviewer); Aronowitz, Stanley (Author)
Article
2015
In his new book, veteran labour activist/academic Stanley Aronowitz offers a critique of what is wrong with the labour movement in the United States, as well as a 10-point manifesto for the steps "Tow...
Manifestos, Programs, Visions: Selected Manifestos - Political Statements - Programs
Website
1649
A selection of left manifestos, programs, poltical statements and visions from the 1600s to today.
The Miners' Hymns
Morrison, Bill (director)
Film/Video
2010
The ill-fated coal mining communities in North East England are the subject of this inspired documentary by multi-media artist Bill Morrison.
Morris Slavin: 1913-2006: Against The Current vol. 124
Phelps, Christopher
Article
2006
Morris Slavin, a historian of the French Revolution and one of the last remaining veterans of the American Trotskyist movement of the early 1930s, died on February 6 in Denver, Colorado, at the age of...
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Book
2001
Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them, inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any...
The No-Nonsense Guide to Fair Trade
Ransom, David
Book
2001
Ransom suggests that fair, environmentally-conscious trade is not only a viable alternative to unfair free trade, but that it is the way of the future.
Online Rights for Online Workers - Privacy at Work
Website
Deals with workers' right to privacy in the face of online surveillance by employers.
Organizing Unions
Cornish, Mary; Spink, Lynn
Book
1994
How to form or build a union. Shows how to strength organizing drives by responding to the concerns of all workers, including women, immigrant workers, people of colour, workers with disabilities, leb...
Organizing with Love: Lessons from the New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Campaign
Poo, Ai-jen
Article
2010
Great organizing campaigns are like great love affairs. You begin to see life through a different lens. You change in unexpected ways. You lose sleep, but you also feel boundless energy. You develop n...
Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - March 12, 2015: Organizing
Diemer, Ulli (editor); Khan, Tahmid (production)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
2015
The focus of this issue is organizing. How can we challenge and overcome entrenched structures of economic and political power? Our own source of power is our latent ability to join together and work ...
Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - May 7, 2015: Urban agriculture and local food production
Diemer, Ulli (editor); Rickwood, Darien Yawching (production)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
2015
This issue of Other Voices ranges widely, from increasing worker activism and strikes in China, to advances in battery technology that make it much easier and cheaper to store solar and wind energy fo...
Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - August 27, 2017: Official Enemies
Diemer, Ulli (ed.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
2017
Why and how do some countries become 'enemies'? How and why do governments and media work in tandem to demonize official enemies? Who are the people who live in those countries, what are their lives l...
Our Generation: Volume 10 Number 1
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1974
Our Generation: Volume 10 Number 3
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1974
Press Release: United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
Article
1978
A report on United Electrics concern with the use of SIN numbers on identification tags at the General Electric plant in Peterborough, Ontario.
Racism, capitalism and contradictions
Lapon, Gary
Article
2013
Workers under capitalism have a dual existence: both as collective producers struggling against capital for control of the workplace, for hours and wages, but also workers compete as each other.
Radical Perspectives on the Economic Crisis of Monopoly Capitalism
URPE/PEA Teach-In/Teach-Out Pamphlet Collective
Book
1975
A popular education pamphlet on the economic crises of monopoly capitalism.
Report from Dubai: Against The Current vol. 131
Francis, Vicky
Article
2007
Dubai — This gulf emirate is shaping up into a key tourist destination. For golf, luxury hotels and high-end shopping, it is firmly established as a key player in the Middle East region. Dubai’s geogr...
Resistance in China Today
Yu, Au Loong; Ruixue, Bai
Article
2012
Cases of Resistance in China continue to grow. Protests both large and small are extremely frequent. These range from workers’ protests against unpaid wages and demands for labor rights to protests ag...
Respect, not restraints, for workers in Thailand's seafood industry
McGill, Abby
Article
2015
A report on a year-long investigation into forced labour in the global seafood supply chain in Thailand.
The Road to Wigan Pier
Orwell, George
Book
1937
George Orwell's investigation of an English working class community in the 1930s.
The Russian Revolution Ninety Years After: Against The Current vol. 131
Mandel, David
Article
2007
The October Revolution of 1917 in Russia was the most influential political event of the 20th century. But since history is written by the victors, it is not well known that October was the opening sh...
Strikes, List of: Connexipedia Article
Article
The following is a list of deliberate absence from work related to specific working conditions (strikes) or due to general unhappiness with the political order (general strikes).
Theses of the Workers Opposition
Shliapnikov, Alexander
Article
1921
Advocated the role of unionized workers in directing the economy at a time when Soviet government organs were running industry by dictate and trying to exclude trade unions from a participatory role.
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.
Wal-Mart's Real Cost: Against The Current vol. 121
Figueroa, Meleiza
Article
2006
The long-brewing struggle between retail giant Wal-Mart and those concerned with reforming its corporate practices burst onto the mainstream consciousness of the American public this past November. An...
Workers' Councils
Pannekoek, Anton
Book
1941
Now the goal becomes distinct; opposite to the stronger domination by state-directed planned economy of the new capitalism stands what Marx called the association of free and equal producers. So the c...
Workers Hold the Keys
Chibber, Vivek; Farbman, Jason
Article
2017
In a discussion of the history and practice of socialist ideas, Chibber and Farbman discuss precarity and the changing composition of the working class, how socialists should think about unions, and h...
Workers' Liberation and Institutions of Self-management
Wetzel, Tom
Article
2006
Power can't be "abolished" any more than gravity can be. Rather, building a self-managing society means a shift from hierarchical structures that concentrate power at the top to new structures through...
Workers and Revolution in Iran: The Third World Experience of Workers' Control
Bayat, Assef
Book
1989
Industrial workers in Iran played a major role in the overthrow of the Shah. This account of the shuras, or factory councils, they set up throws new light on the Shah's defeat, and the consequent revo...

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.
Canadian Injured Workers Alliance
CIWA/ACVAMT conducts research and shares information about the experiences of injured and disabled workers. We share information regionally and nationally with our members, the public and the media. O...
International Labor Rights Forum
An organization dedicated to achieving just and humane working conditions for workers worldwide. They are committed to overcoming child labour, forced labour and other abusive practices. They promote...
Labor Notes
Labor Notes is a media and organizing project that has been the voice of union activists who want to put the movement back in the labor movement since 1979. Through our magazine, website, books, conf...
Maquila Solidarity Network/Ethical Trading Action Group
The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) is a labour and women's rights organization that supports the efforts of workers in global supply chains to win improved wages and working conditions and a better ...
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...
North-South Institute/L'Institut Nord-Sud
Provides policy-relevant research on the North-South issues of relations between industrialized and developing countries, in particular monitoring Canada's foreign policy role and its relations with t...
Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
A coalition of 133 community-based immigrant and refugee service agencies located throughout the province of Ontario.
Sawt el-Amel/The Laborer's Voice
An independent grassroots organisation founded by Palestinian Arab workers in Nazareth to defend and promote the rights of Arab citizens is Israel to work and social security. In order to reach its ob...

Sources Experts & Spokespersons

Sources Library

Canada-wide migrant worker coalition calls on Trudeau to MoVE for Real Change
Sources News Release
2015
Canada-wide migrant worker coalition calls on Trudeau to MoVE for Real Change. Newly launched Coalition for Migrant Worker Rights - Canada calls for end to discrimination against migrant workers.
Cheap clothing proves far too dear
The death of workers in Bangladesh are just the latest tragedy that springs from the west's addiction to fashion
Siegle, Lucy
2010
In Bangladesh one hundred workers died in a garment fire, a common occurence plaguing a workforce that already has the distinction of being the "most poorly paid in the world". The author investigates...
Fair Trade gold mining in the highlands of Peru
Crabtree, John; Condor-Vidal, Judith
2015
Most gold mining in Peru causes serious environmental damage, but there is one exception - a Fair Trade certified mine close to the world-famous Nazca Lines. Now it's up to us to demand Fair Trade gol...

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.
Cleaners' Action Newsletter
Periodical profile published 1979
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1979
Cleaner's Action is a monthly newspaper published in Portuguese, English and Spanish.
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 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, ...