Real World Labor (4th edition)

Edited by Ben Beckett, Kari Lydersen, Robert Ovetz, Kevin Van Meter, and the Dollars & Sense Collective

The fourth edition of Real World Labor is thoroughly revised and updated and provides up-to-date, accessible, and penetrating analysis of the most significant issues confronting workers and unions today, both nationally and globally.

With contributions from leading writers and scholars of the labor movement, this essential anthology introduces students and workers to current labor struggles and the challenges of forming a robust labor movement within a capitalist system. This edition also explains the role of unions and how to organize one, as well as what workers are fighting for and visions for the future.

As Kevin Van Meter, one of the editors of this book, notes in this edition’s introduction (“How to Use This Book,” available online here), “[t]hroughout this volume, you will find materials to help workers and students develop economic literacy and critical thinking, discover ways to organize, and envision the future. The book’s approach is an ecumenical one, based in real-world economics, and grounded in the mission to provide economic news and analysis to union members and workers in the United States and across the planet.”

Contributors include: Barry Eidlin, Alex N. Press, Jayati Ghosh, David Bacon, Nick French, and many more.

Praise for earlier editions of Real World Labor:

“For any labor studies course, Real World Labor is the most comprehensive and accessible book available today. Written by authoritative scholars of the labor movement in the United States and worldwide, no book compares to this work in its breadth of coverage and scope of analysis. This is the only collection that provides an in–depth overview of labor issues in an accessible manner to anyone interested in understanding the most significant issues facing workers and the contemporary labor movement. I highly recommend this book to all!" —THOMAS J. KRIGER, former provost, National Labor College

“Real World Labor, like decades of Dollars & Sense books, is bound to be a great guide to labor issues with a wide range of perspectives for both union members and students.” —LARRY COHEN, former president, Communications Workers of America

“Real World Labor is an antidote to the misinformation, false arguments, and faulty analysis so common in the mainstream media and among orthodox economists. An excellent classroom resource.” —MICHAEL YATES, author of Why Unions Matter and Associate Editor, Monthly Review

“Real World Labor is an ideal text both for newcomers to labor studies and to old hands. In one volume, it provides students with invaluable historical background, up-to-the-minute analysis of current labor politics, and many compelling stories about both workers being exploited and workers fighting back. Equally important, it provides an analytical framework for understanding the assault on labor over the past generation and how this has impacted the American economy as a whole.” —THAD WILLIAMSON, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Chapter 1: Workers On the Move
  • Introduction
  • 1.1 Union Democracy Stands Up
    Barry Eidlin
  • 1.2 The Chicago Teachers’ Strike 10 Years On
    Eric Blanc
  • 1.3 High-Octane Organizing at Starbucks
    John Logan
  • 1.4 A New Sense of Possibility
    Dan DiMaggio and Angela Bunay
  • 1.5 Battling Starbucks
    Saurav Sarkar
  • 1.6 Worker Power at Amazon: Success Could be MESSI
    Rand Wilson and Peter Olney
  • 1.7 Hollywood Is on Strike Against High-Tech Exploitation
    Alex N. Press
    
    
• Chapter 2: Capitalism Is the Issue
  • Introduction
  • 2.1 What Is Capital?
    Alejandro Reuss
  • 2.2 What Are Corporations?
    Alejandro Reuss
  • 2.3 Power, Wages, and Inequality
    Arthur MacEwan
  • 2.4 Shut Up and Work!: “Free” Labor and Unequal Freedom of Expression
    Zoe Sherman
  • 2.5 “Equal Pay” Is Not So Equal
    John Miller
  • 2.6 Globalization and the End of the Labor Aristocracy
    Jayati Ghosh
  • 2.7 Essential—and Expendable—Mexican Labor
    Mateo Crossa and James M. Cypher
  • 2.8 Management Rights, Workers Wronged
    Robert Ovetz and Kevin Van Meter
    
    
• Chapter 3: What a Union Is and How to Organize One
  • Introduction
  • 3.1 What Is Labor?
    Alejandro Reuss
  • 3.2 What Is a Union?
    Kevin Van Meter
  • 3.3 Resources for Organizing
    Kevin Van Meter
  • 3.4 Credible Strike Threats
    Robert Ovetz
  • 3.5 Turning the Workers’ Movement Around
    Robert Ovetz
  • 3.6 Millions of Workers Want a Union
    Eric Dirnbach
    
    
• Chapter 4: What We Fight For
  • Introduction
  • 4.1 Bubble Breakthrough
    Abdul Malik
  • 4.2 Battling Business-as-Usual Unionism
    Brian Walsh
  • 4.3 The Fight for $20 and a Union
    Martin J. Bennett
  • 4.4 “Migration is a Form of Fighting Back”
    David Bacon
  • 4.5 Essential, but Treated as Expendable
    Lin Nelson
  • 4.6 Race Inequality, Class Inequality
    Arthur MacEwan
  • 4.7 Taylor’s Digitial Stopwatch
    Robert Ovetz
  • 4.8 It’s About Power, Not Income Equality
    Robert Ovetz
  • 4.9 What’s Behind the Teachers’ Strikes
    Ellen David Friedman

• Chapter 5: Visions for the Future
  • 5.1 The Case for Nationalizing the Railroads
    Kari Lydersen
  • 5.2 Will There Be a Just Transition to Electric Vehicles?
    Nick French
  • 5.3 Lessons from the First Union Climate Strike in the United States
    Iris Altamirano, Greg Nammacher, and Priya Dalal-Whelan
  • 5.4 AI and the Future of Work
    Robert Ovetz
  • 5.5 We Should Demand Democratic Workplaces, but What Does That Mean?
    Kevin Van Meter
  • 5.6 The UAW Has Had a Big Year. They’re Preparing for an Even Bigger One
    Alex N. Press

Edition: 4th
Publication date: March 2024
ISBN: 978-1-939402-85-1
Pages: 259
Price: $43.50