If We Can Win Here: The New Front Lines Of The Labor Movement

[Excerpt] Do service-sector workers represent the future of the U.S. labor movement? Mid-twentieth-century union activism transformed manufacturing jobs from backbreaking, low-wage work into careers that allowed workers to buy homes and send their kids to college. Some union activists insist that there is no reason why service-sector workers cannot follow that same path. In If We Can Win Here, Fran Quigley tells the stories of janitors, fry cooks, and health care aides trying to fight their way to middle-class incomes in Indianapolis. He also chronicles the struggles of the union organizers with whom the workers have made common cause. The service-sector workers of Indianapolis mirror the city\u27s demographics: they are white, African American, and Latino. In contrast, the union organizers are mostly white and younger than the workers they help rally. Quigley chronicles these allies’ setbacks, victories, bonds, and conflicts while placing their journey in the broader context of the global economy and labor history. As one Indiana-based organizer says of the struggle being waged in a state that has earned a reputation as anti-union: If we can win here, we can win anywhere. The outcome of the battle of Indianapolis may foretell the fate of workers across the United States

Prescription for the People: An Activist\u27s Guide to Making Medicine Affordable for All

[Excerpt] Because every cure starts with an accurate diagnosis, in this book I explain how and why the current medicines system is dysfunctional and corrupt. We all want both affordable medicines and innovation in research and development, so I explain the proven approaches to accomplishing that balance. Most of us reject the status quo of corporations making record-breaking profits on medicines that are priced out of the range of the sick and the dying, so I set out the moral and rights-based foundation of the case for universal access to medicines. Finally, if you want to take action and speak out for access to medicines—and I sincerely hope you do—the conclusion to this book is devoted to helping you get started

Re: Lies, damned lies, and health inequality measurements: understanding the value judgments

No abstract available

LRR Focus: We Need to Get Together More

[Excerpt] Luvernel Clark is shop steward of ACTWU Local 1742 in Knoxville, Tennessee and chairperson of the Tennessee Industrial Renewal Network\u27s Maquiladora Committee which participated in a worker exchange to Mexico in the summer of 1991. She works at Allied Signal, in a plant that had 3000 employees in 1971, but today has less than 400, The jobs were sent by Allied first to a non-union greenfield location in Greenville, Alabama in 1982, and from there to Agua Prieta, Mexico. Fran Ansley, associate professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law and member of the TIRN delegation, interviewed Clark for Labor Research Review