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THE FUTURE OF WORK

AS/SOSC 1510 – 2017-18

REVIEWING MATERIAL ABOUT THE FUTURE OF WORK

Your review should be between 700 and 1000 words, or 3 pages to 4 pages in length.

In order to expand your knowledge and develop your critical reading and writing skills, you are asked to review one of the books or two of the films from the following list. You can select another book or set of films that deal explicitly with work and working conditions if you have it / them approved by your TA. If you chose to review films, note that you must review at least two films (totalling over 120 min of viewing time) that deal explicitly with work and working conditions (again, you MUST have them approved by your TA).

Please identify what you are reviewing by providing full bibliographic information at the TOP of your review -- eg. author, title, place of publication, publisher, and date -- or name of the film(s), director, country, date and running length (in minutes). At the end of the review you may need to provide a bibliography listing any other sources that you used – eg. reviews by other authors.

Your review should focus on what the book or films tell us about the future of work.

What did you learn that you found to be relevant to this course? Does it merely describe a problem, or does it point towards solutions? Be explicit. Your review you should not only describe or summarize the contents of the book, it should offer explicit insights about the future of work.

And finally, evaluate the quality of the work. A review is written for a specific audience – someone who has not read the book or seen the films but is interested in the subject matter – in this case, your TA.

Here are some tips or guidelines:

1. Don’t try to cover everything in the book or films.

2. After a brief summary of the contents, focus on what is relevant to this course. What lessons does it offer about the future of work? Organize the review around these lessons or insights about work, rather than follow the table of contents or repeat the storyline.

3. Illustrate your review with short paraphrased passages (phrased in your own words) or brief quotations from the work.

4. Discuss the chief strengths or weaknesses of the book or films. Maintain a critical balance (be fair-minded).

Also see York Library’s Academic Writing Guide - which includes a section on Reviews & Critiques

GRADING RUBRIC FOR REVIEWS

Name _____________________________

EVALUATION CRITERIA	WEIGHT	COMMENTS
INTRODUCTION - that includes the author / director, title, place of publication, publisher, year, # of pages /minutes, as appropriate. A brief description of the content; A brief description of reason for selection; A brief description of the author/director’s qualification.	25%
LESSONS ABOUT WORK Number of important points made that were relevant to this course? Quality of those points – do they merely describe a problem, or point towards solutions? Gives examples to illustrate key points	45%
ANALYTICAL / CRITICAL EVALUATION Is there a thoughtful evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of text / films. Does it point to other evidence or questions that seem to support or weaken the argument.	10%
STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION Is the review well organized? Is it well written (grammar, spelling, coherence, etc.) Is it formatted well? Uses proper citations for references? Good use of quotations?	20%

These materials are organized into the following categories:

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (a selection from the other categories)

WORK AND THE CAPITALIST ECONOMY / JOBS CRISIS

INEQUALITY AND THE WORKING POOR

MIGRANT LABOUR

IMMIGRATION AND RACIALIZED WORKERS

UNSAFE WORK / WORKING CONDITIONS

CLIMATE CHANGE / GREEN JOBS

WOMEN AT WORK

SECTOR BY SECTOR

VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE

ORGANIZING FOR ALTERNATIVES – LABOUR AND OTHER SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

FILMS AND VIDEOS

RECENT BOOKS

You might find this list interesting...

After the Sands: Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians

By: Gordon Laxer, Douglas & McIntyre, October 2015 ISBN 978-1-77162-100-7

Paperback 6" x 9" 288 pages Environment and Politics $24.95 CAD

Hailed as “a myth-destroying blockbuster book” by Ralph Nader, After the Sands outlines a vision and road map to transition Canada to a low- carbon society: a plan lacking within all of Canada’s major political parties.

Despite its oil abundance, Canada is woefully unprepared for the next global oil supply crisis. Canada imports 40 percent of its oil, yet—unlike twenty-six of the other twenty-eight international energy agency members—has no strategic petroleum reserves to meet temporary shortages. Canadians use 27 to 39 percent more oil per capita than other sparsely populated, northern countries like Norway, Finland and Sweden.

After the Sands sets out a bold strategy using deep conservation and a Canada-first perspective. The goal: to end oil and natural gas exports and ensure that all Canadians get sufficient energy at affordable prices in a carbon-constrained future.

Canada has all the conventional, non-fracked oil and natural gas needed to transition to a low-carbon future. Remarkable hydro-power gives Canadians a large base of renewable energy, which can be expanded with wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. Few countries have these options in adequate quantities. So what’s the problem? Why do we continue to harm the environment? How do we overcome the power of vested interests and untangle the corporate trade agreements that block Canadians from getting secure and fair access to the country’s own energy resources. Can Canada meet international emissions targets if it does not phase out Alberta Sands oil?

Impeccably researched, After the Sands is critical reading for anyone concerned about rising sea levels, pipeline and tanker spills, climate change chaos and Canada’s future in a carbon restricted world.

The New Extractivism: A Post-Neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century? by Henry Veltmeyer and James Petras Against Austerity: How we can fix the crisis they made. by Richard Seymour. London: Pluto, 2014.

Five years into capitalism's deepest crisis, which has led to cuts and economic pain across the world, Against Austerityaddresses a puzzling aspect of the current conjuncture: why are the rich still getting away with it? Why is protest so ephemeral? Why does the left appear to be marginal to political life?

In an analysis which challenges our understanding of capitalism, class and ideology, Richard Seymour shows how austerity is just one part of a wider elite plan to radically re-engineer society and everyday life in the interests of profit, consumerism and speculative finance.

But Against Austerity is not a gospel of despair. Seymour argues that once we turn to face the headwinds of this new reality, dispensing with reassuring dogmas, we can forge new collective resistance and alternatives to the current system. Following Brecht, Against Austerity argues that the good old things are over, it's time to confront the bad new ones.

Realizing Hope: Life beyond capitalism. Michael Albert

Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. Michael Albert would disagree.

Realizing Hope offers a speculative vision of a future beyond capitalism - an alternative to the exploitation of human labour, the unchecked destruction of the earth, and the oppression of all for the benefit of the few. Participatory economics - parecon for short - is Alberts concrete proposal for a classless economy, developed from anarchist principles first introduced by Kropotkin, Bakunin, Pannekoek and others. In this classic text, Albert takes the insights and hopes of parecon and enlarges them to address all key aspects of social life and society - gender, culture, politics, science, technology, journalism, ecology, and others. Realizing Hope provides vision to help us all together conceive a world that might be just over the horizon, a world we can begin building today.

The Carbon Rush: The Truth Behind the Carbon Market Smokescreen

By Amy Miller. Markham, Ontario: Red Deer Press, 2014, 180 pages

Written by award-winning documentarian Amy Miller, The Carbon Rush focuses on the real meaning of Carbon trading, where countries can buy and sell anothers' carbon emission through a system where carbon credits are traded like stocks and bonds. It is really a zero-sum formula where the amount of carbon-based pollution is not being reduced only moved by brokers among countries. Credits are then given which are used to bankroll huge industrial operations, many of which are ravaging both the world's poor and their environments, many of which are aboriginal.

The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent by Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira, Editors. 2014.

From the front lines of the war on academic freedom, linking the policing of knowledge to the relationship between universities, militarism, and neoliberalism

The Imperial University brings together scholars to explore the policing of knowledge by explicitly linking the academy to the broader politics of militarism, racism, nationalism, and neoliberalism that define the contemporary imperial state. Based on multidisciplinary research, autobiographical accounts, and even performance scripts, this urgent analysis offers sobering insights into varied manifestations of the imperial university.

The public space of higher education is under siege. The Imperial University interrogates in brilliant detail the nature of such attacks and the hidden structures of power and politics that define them. But it does more in providing a passionate call to rethink higher education as part of a future in which learning is linked to social change. A crucial book for anyone who imagines the university as both an essential public sphere and an index of what a democracy should be. Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University

Academic Freedom in Conflict. James Turk (ed) Lorimer, 2014.

Underminers : A guide to subverting the machine. Keith Farnish New Society, 2013. The Social Media Reader. Michael Mandibery (ed). NYUP, 2013. Extracted: How the Quest for Mineral Wealth Is Plundering the Planet by Ugo Bardi. Chelsea Green, 2014. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: A novel. Tom Rachmar

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Standing, Guy. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class . 2011.

Described by Noam Chomsky as 'a very important book', Guy Standing's The Precariat has achieved cult status as the first account of this emerging class of people, facing lives of insecurity, moving in and out of jobs that give little meaning to their lives.

Guy Standing warns that the rapid growth of the precariat is producing instabilities in society. It is a dangerous class because it is internally divided, leading to the villainisation of migrants and other vulnerable groups. And, lacking agency, its members may be susceptible to the siren calls of political extremism. He argues for a new politics, in which redistribution and income security are reconfigured and in which the fears and aspirations of the precariat are made central to a progressive strategy.

Since first publication of this book in 2011, the precariat has become an ever more significant global phenomenon, highly visible in the Occupy movement and in protest movements around the world. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-precariat-9781472536167/#sthash.W7nW5SLU.dpuf

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Neo-liberal policies and institutional changes have produced a huge and growing number of people with sufficiently common experiences to be called an emerging class. In this book Guy Standing introduces what he calls the Precariat - a growing number of people across the world living and working precariously, usually in a series of short-term jobs, without recourse to stable occupational identities, stable social protection or protective regulations relevant to them. They include migrant workers, but also locals.

Standing argues that this class of people could produce new instabilities in society. They are increasingly frustrated and dangerous because they have no voice, and hence they are vulnerable to the siren calls of extreme political parties. He outlines a new kind of good society, with more people actively involved in civil society and the precariat re-engaged. He goes on to consider one way to a new better society -- an unconditional basic wage for everyone, contributed by the state, which could be topped up through employment.

Standing, Guy. The Precariat Charter: From denizens to citizens. Bloomsbury: London, 2015. .

Guy Standing's immensely influential 2011 book introduced the Precariat as an emerging mass class, characterized by inequality and insecurity. Standing outlined the increasingly global nature of the Precariat as a social phenomenon, especially in the light of the social unrest characterized by the Occupy movements. He outlined the political risks they might pose, and at what might be done to diminish inequality and allow such workers to find a more stable labour identity. His concept and his conclusions have been widely taken up by thinkers from Noam Chomsky to Zygmunt Bauman, by political activists and by policy-makers. This new book takes the debate a stage further, looking in more detail at the kind of progressive politics that might form the vision of a Good Society in which such inequality, and the instability it produces, is reduced. A Precariat Charter discusses how rights - political, civil, social and economic - have been denied to the Precariat, and argues for the importance of redefining our social contract around notions of associational freedom, agency and the commons.

“A Precariat Charter is that rare thing: a text from the left that does not yearn for a lost past, but energetically embraces the future. It offers progressive politics a revived purpose: not a surrender to economic practices as if they were forces of nature, but the pursuit of a common security that would enhance our humanity – because, as he puts it, "knowing that your fellow citizen has the same rights as you do humanises us all".” – John Harris, The Guardian

“Standing follows his influential analysis of the precariat as the 'new dangerous class' with a comprehensive list of demands and suggestions for how this class can 'abolish itself' through a struggle for rights, eroded by neo-liberal austerity that has caused widespread existential insecurity. Standing's insightful and encouraging book will be welcomed not only by members of the precariat but equally by non-precarians on the left seeking inspiration for a new progressive programme.” – Claus Offe, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany

- See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/a-precariat-charter-9781472510396/#sthash.HqWOsLlN.dpuf

Roman, Richard and Edur Velasco Arregui. Continental Crucible: Big Business, Workers and Unions in the Transformation of North America . Fernwood: Halifax, 2013.

The crucible of North American neo-liberal transformation is heating up, but its outcome is far from clear. Continental Crucible examines the clash between the corporate offensive and the forces of resistance from both a pan-continental and a class struggle perspective. This book also illustrates the ways in which the capitalist classes in Canada, Mexico and the United States used free trade agreements to consolidate their agendas and organize themselves continentally.

The failure of traditional labour responses to stop the continental offensive being waged by big business has led workers and unions to explore new strategies of struggle and organization, pointing to the beginnings of a continental labour movement across North America. The battle for the future of North America has begun.

Rubin, Jeff. The Carbon Bubble : What Happens to Us When It Burst s

Bestselling author and economist Jeff Rubin addresses Canada's national economic future--and the financial security of all Canadians. Since 2006 and the election of the 1st Harper government, the vision of Canada's future as an energy superpower has driven the political agenda, as well as the fast-paced development of Alberta's oil sands and the push for more pipelines across the country to bring that bitumen to market. Anyone who objects is labeled a dreamer, or worse--an environmentalist: someone who puts the health of the planet ahead of the economic survival of their neighbours. In The Carbon Bubble, Jeff Rubin compellingly shows how Harper's economic vision for the country is dead wrong. Changes in energy markets in the US--where domestic production is booming while demand for oil is shrinking--are quickly turning Harper's dream into an economic nightmare. The same trade and investment ties to oil that pushed the Canadian dollar to record highs are now pulling it down, and the Toronto Stock Exchange, one of the most carbon-intensive stock indexes in the world--with over 25 percent market capitalization in oil and gas alone--will be increasingly exposed to the rest of the world's efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Rubin argues that there is a lifeline to a better future. The very climate change that will leave much of the country's carbon unburnable could at the same time make some of Canada's other resource assets more valuable: our water and our land. In tomorrow's economy, he argues, Canada won't be an energy superpower, but it has the makings of one of the world's great breadbaskets. And in the global climate that the world's carbon emissions are inexorably creating, food will soon be a lot more valuable than oil.

Haiven, Max. Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power: Capitalism, Creativity and the Commons. Zed Books, 2014; $24.95

Has capitalism colonized how we all imagine and express what is valuable? In Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power: Capitalism, Creativity and the Commons , Max Haiven looks at the corporatization of education, the privatization of creativity and the power of finance capital in contrast the the power of imagination and the growth of social movements and political activism. Haiven argues that capitalism is not in crises, it is the crises and we need to move beyond it in order to survive.

McKibbon, Bill. Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist, 2013.

Bestselling author and environmental activist Bill McKibben recounts the personal and global story of the fight to build and preserve a sustainable planet

McKibbon, Bill. Eaarth: Making a life on a tough new planet. Vintage Canada: Toronto, 2011.

"Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." —Barbara Kingsolver

Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.

McAlevey, Jane. Raising Expectations (and raising hell): My decade fighting for the labour movement. New York and London: Verso, 2012

Jane McAlevey is famous—and notorious—in the American labor movement as the hard-charging organizer who racked up a string of victories at a time when union leaders said winning wasn’t possible. Then she was bounced from the movement, a victim of the high-level internecine warfare that has torn apart organized labor. In this engrossing and funny narrative—that reflects the personality of its charismatic, wisecracking author—McAlevey tells the story of a number of dramatic organizing and contract victories, and the unconventional strategies that helped achieve them. Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell) argues that labor can be revived, but only if the movement acknowledges its mistakes and fully commits to deep organizing, participatory education, militancy, and an approach to workers and their communities that more resembles the campaigns of the 1930s—in short, social movement unionism that involves raising workers’ expectations (while raising hell).

Mazzucato, Mariana. The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths.

Anthem Press, 2013

This book debunks the myth of a dynamic private sector vs. a sluggish public sector by providing a detailed account of the role of the public sector in taking on high-risk entrepreneurial investments, from the Internet to the ‘green revolution’.

Chang, Ha-Joon. 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism , Bloomsbury, 2010

(described in the next section…)

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America . New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001. (great journalism)(described below)

Greenhouse, Steven. The Big Squeeze: Tough times for the American worker . New York: Anchor Books, 2008/9. $16.95 (journalistic)

Frank,Thomas. Pity the Billionaire: The hard-times swindle and the unlikely comeback of the Right. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2012. (described below)

Harden, Joel D. Quiet No More: New Political Activism in Canada and Around the Globe. Toronto: Lorimer, 2013. (described below under Organizing…)

Hedges, Chris and Joe Sacco. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt . Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2012. . (described below)

Hedges, Chris. Wages of Rebellion: The moral imperative of revolt . 2015.

Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges—who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class—investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance. Drawing on an ambitious overview of prominent philosophers, historians, and literary figures he shows not only the harbingers of a coming crisis but also the nascent seeds of rebellion. Hedges’ message is clear: popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization. Focusing on the stories of rebels from around the world and throughout history, Hedges investigates what it takes to be a rebel in modern times. Utilizing the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Hedges describes the motivation that guides the actions of rebels as “sublime madness” — the state of passion that causes the rebel to engage in an unavailing fight against overwhelmingly powerful and oppressive forces. For Hedges, resistance is carried out not for its success, but as a moral imperative that affirms life. Those who rise up against the odds will be those endowed with this “sublime madness.” From South African activists who dedicated their lives to ending apartheid, to contemporary anti-fracking protests in Alberta, Canada, to whistleblowers in pursuit of transparency, Wages of Rebellion shows the cost of a life committed to speaking the truth and demanding justice. Hedges has penned an indispensable guide to rebellion.

Jackson, Andrew. Work and Labour in Canada: Critical issues . ,2nd edition. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2010. $34.95 (one of our former textbooks)

Judt, Tony. Ill Fares the Land. London: Penguin, 2010. (described in the next section)

Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine , 2008. . (described in the next section)

McQuaig, Linda and Neil Brooks. The Trouble with Billionaires . Toronto: Penguin, 2010.

(describes the trouble we are in as a result of billionaires controlling our economy and our government.)

Raphael, Dennis. Poverty in Canada. Second edition. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2011. (described below)

Rinehard, James. The Tyranny of Work: Alienation and the labour process . 5th edition. Thomson Nelson: Toronto, 2006. (a classic)

Ross, Andrew. Low Pay, High Profits: The global push for fair labour. New York: The New Press, 2004. $23.95 (on action for change)

Ross, Andrew. Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life and labour in precarious times. New York: New York UP, 2009. $35.95 (journalistic)

Schnall, Peter, Marnie Dobson, and Ellen Rosskam (eds)(2009). Unhealthy work: causes, consequences, cures. Amityville, N.Y.: Baywood. ISBN: 978-0-89503-335-2. $75

Stiglitz, Joseph. The Price of Inequality: How today’s divided society endangers our future. New York: Norton, 2012. . (described below)

Workman, Thom. If You’re in My Way, I’m Walking: The Assault on Working People since 1970. Halifax: Fernwood, 2009. $23 (one of our former textbooks)

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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FILMS

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT – by Michael Moore

Michael Moore is an Oscar-winning filmmaker, author, and activist. His ninth film, "Where to Invade Next," is now out on DVD.

As one critic pointed out, this is his “most dangerous and subversive film.” Moore explains:

It’s dangerous because it shows the American public exactly how we can achieve—quite easily—a very decent society. One where we all take care of each other, where there’s true, free, and universal health care, and an amazing educational system; a place where no one needs a second job, everyone gets at least a month's paid vacation, all families have paid maternity and sick leave; where the war on drugs is over and the prisons are now half-empty because people got help or were just left to live their lives in peace.

Those places actually exist. Where? The rest of the world!

Americans have been lied to and misled for too long. And I don’t just talk about this—I show you the schools in Finland, the prisons in Norway, the health clinics in Tunisia, the bright and humane factories in Germany (where everyone makes a middle class wage), and the public school lunchroom in France where students are fed a gourmet meal. You'll also get to meet the college students in Slovenia who have absolutely no friggin’ idea what a "student loan" is.

This is what makes "Where to Invade Next" so subversive, because if enough of you see this movie, that’s it. Once millions have this information—and inspiration—the game is over. For Wall Street. For the bought-off politicians. For the boss or the dean or the candidate who keeps telling you, "It just can’t be done!" That’s collectively the biggest con ever, and I am here to blow it up once and for all with this movie.

MONEY MONSTER

THE BIG SHORT

CLIMATE HUSTLE

DISRUPTION

THE CARBON RUSH

YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY - Showtime and 350.org livestreaming

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WORK AND THE CAPITALIST ECONOMY

Bourdieu, Pierre. The Weight of the World Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society, Polity, 1999.

Carroll, William K. Corporate Power in a Globalizing World. Toronto: Oxford, 2010.

Chang, Ha-Joon. 23 Things They Dont Tell You About Capitalism, Bloomsbury, 2010

Thing 1: There is no such thing as free market.

Thing 4: The washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet.

Thing 5: Assume the worst about people, and you get the worst.

Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.

If you've wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: We didn't ask what they didn't tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists-the apostles of the freemarket-have spun since the Age of Reagan.

Chang, the author of the international bestseller Bad Samaritans, is one of the world's most respected economists, a voice of sanity-and wit-in the tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz. 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism equips readers with an understanding of how global capitalism works-and doesn't. In his final chapter, "How to Rebuild the World," Chang offers a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market.

Chomsky, Noam and Robert W. McChesney. Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011

De Botton, Alain. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. New York: Vintage, 2009.

We spend most of our waking lives at work in occupations often chosen by our unthinking younger selves. And yet we rarely ask ourselves how we got there or what our occupations mean to us.

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is an exploration of the joys and perils of the modern workplace, beautifully evoking what other people wake up to do each dayand nightto make the frenzied contemporary world function. With a philosophical eye and his signature combination of wit and wisdom, Alain de Botton leads us on a journey around a deliberately eclectic range of occupations, from rocket science to biscuit manufacture, accountancy to artin search of what make jobs either fulfilling or soul-destroying.

Along the way he tries to answer some of the most urgent questions we can ask about work: Why do we do it? What makes it pleasurable? What is its meaning? And why do we daily exhaust not only ourselves but also the planet? Characteristically lucid, witty and inventive, Alain de Bottons song for occupations is a celebration and exploration of an aspect of life which is all too often ignored and a book that shines a revealing light on the essential meaning of work in our lives.

DeVault, Marjorie (ed). People at Work: Life, power and social inclusion in the new economy. New York: New York UP, 2008. $32.50

Donkin, Richard. Blood, Sweat and Tears: The evolution of work. 2001. HD4841 D66

Doogan, Kevin. New Capitalism? The Transformation of Work. Cambridge: Polity, 2009. $34.95 (theoretically informed analysis)

Dyer, Gwynne. Crawling from the Wreckage. Toronto: Random House, 2010.

Gwynne Dyer is cheering up. Sure, the past decade has had more than its share of stupid wars, obsessions about terrorism, denial about climate change, rapacious turbo-capitalism, and lies, lies, lies. But signs of progress actually do abound. While the world is far from perfect as we embark on a fresh decade, Dyer believes that the "sense of sliding out of control towards ten different kinds of disaster has gone." When things go wrong its always easy to pin blame but singling out the forces that lead to positive change can be trickier.

In this illuminating collection of columns from the last five years, Gwynne Dyer ferrets out the signs of hope without overlooking the issues that remain seemingly intractable. Mining the events of recent history, Dyer contextualizes the recent past and anticipates what the future might have in store. This journalists beat is global: from Africa to South America, from Europe to the Middle East, and any other region with a political pulse.

Acerbic and iconoclastic, Dyer has never been afraid to call em like he sees em and we are all the better for his trademark candour and the breadth of his knowledge and expertise. For anyone seeking to understand the larger forces that shape our society and our world, Crawling from the Wreckage makes for necessary reading.

Frank,Thomas. Pity the Billionaire: The hard-times swindle and the unlikely comeback of the Right. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2012.

From the bestselling author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?, this witty and highly provocative book asks a simple question: How is it possible that the disastrous collapse of the free market economy in 2008 could have heralded a popular revival—of the right?

In Pity the Billionaire, a brilliant, funny, and disturbing tour de force, Thomas Frank analyzes the sleight of hand involved in the right’s resurgence—all the upside-down grievances that have transformed economic suffering into valentines for the rich and powerful. This great chronicler of American paradox dissects the contradictions at the heart of the country’s politics, and in this “dazzling” book once again shows himself as "one of the best left-wing writers America has produced" (The Guardian).

Freeman, Chistopher and Luc Soete. Work for All or Mass Unemployment? 1994

Head, Simon. The New Ruthless Economy. 2003 HC 106.83 H4.

Hedges, Chris and Joe Sacco. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt . Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2012.

Two years ago, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges and award-winning cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco set out to take a look at the sacrifice zones, those areas in America that have been offered up for exploitation in the name of profit, progress, and technological advancement. They wanted to show in words and drawings what life looks like in places where the marketplace rules without constraints, where human beings and the natural world are used and then discarded to maximize profit. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is the searing account of their travels. The book starts in the western plains, where Native Americans were sacrificed in the giddy race for land and empire. It moves to the old manufacturing centers and coal fields that fueled the industrial revolution, but now lie depleted and in decay. It follows the steady downward spiral of American labor into the nation's produce fields and ends in Zuccotti Park where a new generation revolts against a corporate state that has handed to the young an economic, political, cultural and environmental catastrophe.

Jackson, Andrew et al. Falling Behind: The state of working Canada. 2000.

Gutstein, Donald. Not a Conspiracy Theory: How business propoganda hijacks democracy. Toronto: Key Porter, 2009.

North Americans have expressed themselves loud and clear on a wide range of issues--like the need for expanded and affordable health care-but it often feels like the politicians in power aren't really listening. The truth is, maybe they aren't.

In Not a Conspiracy Theory, Donald Gutstein skillfully documents one of the most important but least recognized political developments in the last thirty years: the prolonged propaganda campaigns mounted by business to change our minds on fundamental issues of social life.

He explores such topics as the Propaganda Century; American Roots: The Rise of the Corporate Propaganda System; The Propoganda Machine in Action: The `90s and Beyond; Delaying Action on Climate Change: Killing Medicare . to save it? and, Targeting Corporate Propaganda's Vulnerabilities.

For anyone who worries that the propaganda machine might hijack the democractic process, Not a Conspiracy Theory is a must read.

Hedges, Chris. The Death of the Liberal Class. Toronto: Key Porter, 2009.

The liberal class plays a vital role in a democracy. It gives moral legitimacy to the state. It makes limited forms of dissent and incremental change possible. The liberal class posits itself as the conscience of the nation. It permits us, through its appeal to public virtues and the public good, to define ourselves as a good and noble people. Most importantly, on behalf of the power elite the liberal class serves as bulwarks against radical movements by offering a safety valve for popular frustrations and discontentment by discrediting those who talk of profound structural change. Once this class loses its social and political role then the delicate fabric of a democracy breaks down and the liberal class, along with the values it espouses, becomes an object of ridicule and hatred. The door that has been opened to proto-fascists has been opened by a bankrupt liberalism

The Death of the Liberal Class examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues there are five pillars of the liberal establishment the press, liberal religious institutions, labor unions, universities and the Democratic Party and that each of these institutions, more concerned with status and privilege than justice and progress, sold out the constituents they represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.

Judt, Tony. Ill Fares the Land. London: Penguin, 2010.

Something is profoundly wrong with the way we think about how we should live today.

In Ill Fares The Land, Tony Judt, one of our leading historians and thinkers, reveals how we have arrived at our present dangerously confused moment. Judt masterfully crystallizes what we've all been feeling into a way to think our way into, and thus out of, our great collective dis-ease about the current state of things.

As the economic collapse of 2008 made clear, the social contract that defined postwar life in Europe and America - the guarantee of a basal level of security, stability and fairness -- is no longer guaranteed; in fact, it's no longer part of the common discourse. Judt offers the language we need to address our common needs, rejecting the nihilistic individualism of the far right and the debunked socialism of the past. To find a way forward, we must look to our not so distant past and to social democracy in action: to re-enshrining fairness over mere efficiency.

Distinctly absent from our national dialogue, social democrats believe that the state can play an enhanced role in our lives without threatening our liberties. Instead of placing blind faith in the market-as we have to our detriment for the past thirty years-social democrats entrust their fellow citizens and the state itself.

Ill Fares the Land challenges us to confront our societal ills and to shoulder responsibility for the world we live in. For hope remains. In reintroducing alternatives to the status quo, Judt reinvigorates our political conversation, providing the tools necessary to imagine a new form of governance, a new way of life.

Klein, Naomi. No Logo. 2000 HD 2755.5 K57

Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2008.

In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

Lam, Vincent. Tommy Douglas. Toronto: Penguin, 2011.

Once voted the Greatest Canadian of all time and known as the Father of Medicare, Tommy Douglas was a prairie politician who believed in democratic socialism, the crucial role of civil rights, and the great potential of cooperation for the common good. In the process he made democratic socialism a part of mainstream Canadian political life. Giller Prizewinning author Vincent Lam, an emergency physician who works on the frontlines of the health care system, brings a novelists eye to the life of one of Canada’s greats.

Laxer, James. Beyond the Bubble: Imagining a new Canadian economy. Toronto:

Between the Lines, 2009.

With the onset of the current economic crisis, one chapter in the economic history of the world is ending and a new one is beginning. What role will Canada play in this vastly altered world?

James Laxer examines the anatomy of the crash: the forces that have controlled the global system and the forces that have the capacity to usher in a new global system as the U.S.-centred age of globalization comes to an end. He explores what needs to be done to combat the crash in Canada, and poses the questions we all want to have answered. What comes next for the global economy, and what does this mean for Canada? Where will we fit in? Is an egalitarian economic future possible? What could an economics for humanity look like?

A reflective and useful treatise on where we go from here, Beyond the Bubble is a must-read by one of Canadas best-known political commentators.

Lowe, Graham. The Quality of Work. 2000 HD 6957 C3 L68

Martin, Lawrence. Harperland: The Politics of Control. Toronto: Viking, 2010.

After four years in power, Stephen Harper's governance comes under the microscope of prominent Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin. Focusing on the growth of executive power under Harper and drawing on interviews with prominent insiders, Martin probes the smearing of opponents, the silencing of the public and diplomatic service, the secrecy, the prorogations, the unprecedented centralizing of power, and the attempted muzzling of the media. He examines controversies such as the existence of a secret dirty-tricks handbook, the Chuck Cadman affair, campaign financing, the dismissal of nuclear power head Linda Keen, the Afghan detainees cover-up, the turning of access-to-information laws into barricades to information, and more--and lets readers draw their own conclusions. Tough but balanced, Harperland offers a clear picture of a skilled politician at a crucial point in Canadian politics.

Muirhead, Russell. Just Work. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2004. $18.48 (posing an ideal)

Sennett, Richard. The Corrosion of Character

Sennett, Richard. The Culture of the New Capitalism . Yale University Press, 2006.

The distinguished sociologist Richard Sennett surveys major differences between earlier forms of industrial capitalism and the more global, more febrile, ever more mutable version of capitalism that is taking its place. He shows how these changes affect everyday life—how the work ethic is changing; how new beliefs about merit and talent displace old values of craftsmanship and achievement; how what Sennett calls “the specter of uselessness” haunts professionals as well as manual workers; how the boundary between consumption and politics is dissolving. In recent years, reformers of both private and public institutions have preached that flexible, global corporations provide a model of freedom for individuals, unlike the experience of fixed and static bureaucracies Max Weber once called an “iron cage.” Sennett argues that, in banishing old ills, the new-economy model has created new social and emotional traumas. Only a certain kind of human being can prosper in unstable, fragmentary institutions: the culture of the new capitalism demands an ideal self oriented to the short term, focused on potential ability rather than accomplishment, willing to discount or abandon past experience. In a concluding section, Sennett examines a more durable form of self hood, and what practical initiatives could counter the pernicious effects of “reform.”

Shalla, Vivian and Wallace Clement (eds.). Work in Tumultuous Times: Critical perspectives. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. 2006. (recent Canadian case studies)

Swift, Jamie. Wheel of Fortune: Work and life in the age of falling expectations. 1995. HD 8106.5 O5 S8

Swift, Richard (ed). The Great Revenue Robbery: How to stop the tax cut scam and save Canada. Toronto: Between Lines, 2013.

Yates, Michael. Naming the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy . New York: Monthly Review Press, 2003.

INEQUALITY AND THE WORKING POOR

Bobo, Kim. Wage Theft in America: Why millions of working Americans are not getting paid – and what we can do about it . New York: The New Press, 2009. $22.50.

Brody, David. Rich Democracies, Poor People: How politics explains poverty , OUP,

2009

Poverty is not simply the result of an individual's characteristics, behaviors or abilities. Rather, as David Brady demonstrates, poverty is the result of politics. In Rich Democracies, Poor People, Brady investigates why poverty is so entrenched in some affluent democracies whereas it is a solvable problem in others. Drawing on over thirty years of data from eighteen countries, Brady argues that cross-national and historical variations in poverty are principally driven by differences in the generosity of the welfare state. An explicit challenge to mainstream views of poverty as an inescapable outcome of individual failings or a society's labor markets and demography, this book offers institutionalized power relations theory as an alternative explanation. The power of coalitions for egalitarianism, Leftist political groups and parties, and the social policies they are able to institutionalize shape the amount of poverty in society. Where poverty is low, equality has been institutionalized. Where poverty is widespread, exemplified by the U.S., there has been a failure to institutionalize equality. A comprehensive and state-of-the-art study, Rich Democracies, Poor People places the inherently political choices over resources and the political organization of states, markets, and societies at the center of the study of poverty and social inequality.

Capponi, Pat. The War at Home: An intimate portrait of Canada’s poor. 2000 HC 120 P6 C425

Dorling, Daniel. Injustice: Why social inequality persists. Bristol and Portland: Polity, 2010.

Few would dispute that we live in an unequal and unjust world, but what causes this inequality to persist? Leading social commentator and academic Danny Dorling claims in this timely book that, as the five social evils identified by Beveridge are gradually being eradicated, they are being replaced by five new tenets of injustice, viz: elitism is efficient; exclusion is necessary; prejudice is natural; greed is good; and despair is inevitable.

In an informal yet authoritative style, Dorling examines who is most harmed by these injustices and why, and what happens to those who most benefit. Hard-hitting and uncompromising in its call to action, this is essential reading for everyone concerned with social justice.

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America (2001)

Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity. Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job -- any job -- can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you want to live indoors.

Hurtig, Mel. Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids: The tragedy and disgrace of poverty in Canada. 1999.

McQuaig, Linda and Neil Brooks. The Trouble with Billionaires . Toronto: Penguin, 2010.

(describes the trouble we are in as a result of billionaires controlling our economy and our government.)

Newman, Catherine S. No Shame in My Game: The working poor in the inner city. 2000. HV 4045 N48

Newman, Catherine S. Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the low-wage labour market. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006. $19.35

Olsen, Gregg M.. Power and Inequality: A Comparative Introduction. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2011.

This groundbreaking book examines the nature and implications of social inequality in a new and illuminating way. The author examines key measures of social inequality and indicators of poverty across six selected nations - three Anglo-American countries (the US, UK, and Canada), and three Nordic nations (Finland, Norway, and Sweden). Professor Olsen's research shows that while inequality is an inherent and pervasive aspect of capitalism, and while the past few decades have seen sharp rises in inequality across the industrialized world, nonetheless substantial variances between countries continue to exist. In those countries like the US that have most zealously embraced neoliberalism, inequality and poverty have been exacerbated to a much greater degree than is the case in the Nordic lands, which still rank among the most egalitarian of countries. This cross-national variation challenges many prominent classical and contemporary theoretical accounts of inequality, and suggests that high levels of social inequality are neither necessary nor inevitable in advanced capitalist societies. They are, rather, the product of constellations of power and the interactions of social forces. Human beings create social inequality, and human beings possess the power to reduce such inequities.

Raphael, Dennis. Poverty in Canada. Second edition. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2011.

This book is unlike any other. Poverty in Canada provides a unique, interdisciplinary perspective on poverty and its importance to the health and quality of life of Canadians. Central issues include: the definitions of poverty and means of measuring it in wealthy, industrialized nations such as Canada; the causes of poverty - both situational and societal; the health and social implications of poverty for individuals, communities, and society as a whole; and the means of reducing its incidence and responding to its effects. Particular emphasis has been placed on the lived experiences of poverty throughout the book.

Shalman, Beth. The Betrayal of Work: How low-wage jobs fail 30 million Americans. 2005. $19.95 * (Barbara Ehrenreich gives great endorsement)

Shipler, David K. The Working Poor: Invisible in America. 2004. HC 110 P6 S48

Stiglitz, Joseph. The Price of Inequality: How today’s divided society endangers our future. New York: Norton, 2012.

A forceful argument against America's vicious circle of growing inequality by the Nobel Prize–winning economist. The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. And, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.” Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable: moneyed interests compound their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, trampling on the rule of law, and undermining democracy. The result: a divided society that cannot tackle its most pressing problems. With characteristic insight, Stiglitz examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.

MIGRANT LABOUR

Bowe, John. Nobodies: Modern American slave labour and the dark side of the new

global economy. New York: Random House, 2008. $17

Shelley, Toby. Exploited: Migrant labour in the new global economy. London and New

York: Zed, 2007 $19.95

IMMIGRANTS

Choudry, Aziz et al. Fight Back: Workplace justice for immigrants. Halifax: Fernwood,

2009. $29.95

CLIMATE CHANGE / GREEN JOBS

Lovins, Amory. Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era. Vermont: Chelsea Green, 2011 http://www.rmi.org/reinventingfire Sound advice, practical approaches, and economic arguments about how to transition to a new economy. Offers new truths about conserving energy, shifting our economy, transitioning off oil.

McKibbon, Bill. Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist, 2013.

Bestselling author and environmental activist Bill McKibben recounts the personal and global story of the fight to build and preserve a sustainable planet

UNSAFE WORK / WORKING CONDITIONS

CCPA-Saskatchewan. Shifting Times: The Perils of Shift Work. Regina: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Saskatchewan, 2007. $19.95

Cullen, Lisa. A Job to Die For: Why so many Americans are killed, injured or made ill at work and what to do about it. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2002. $26.95

Gregory, Raymond. Unwelcome and Unlawful: Sexual harassment in the American workplace. Ithica: Cornell UP, 2004. $28.95

Schnall, Peter, Marnie Dobson, and Ellen Rosskam (eds)(2009). Unhealthy work: causes, consequences, cures. Amityville, N.Y.: Baywood. ISBN: 978-0-89503-335-2. $75

Work, so fundamental to well-being, has its darker and more costly side. Work can adversely affect our health, well beyond the usual counts of injuries that we think of as 'occupational health'. The ways in which work is organized - its pace and intensity, degree of control over the work process, sense of justice, and employment security, among other things - can be as toxic to the health of workers as the chemicals in the air. These work characteristics can be detrimental not only to mental well-being but to physical health. Scientists refer to these features of work as 'hazards' of the 'psychosocial' work environment. One key pathway from the work environment to illness is through the mechanism of stress; thus we speak of 'stressors' in the work environment, or 'work stress'. This is in contrast to the popular psychological understandings of 'stress', which locate many of the problems with the individual rather than the environment. In this book we advance a social environmental understanding of the workplace and health. The book addresses this topic in three parts: the important changes taking place in the world of work in the context of the global economy (Part I); scientific findings on the effects of particular forms of work organization and work stressors on employees' health, 'unhealthy work' as a major public health problem, and estimates of costs to employers and society (Part II); and, case studies and various approaches to improve working conditions, prevent disease, and improve health (Part III).

Smith, Doug. Consulted to Death: How Canada’s workplace health and safety system fails workers. 2000. HD 7658 S48

Smith, Vicki and Esther Neuwirth. The Good Temp. Ithica: Cornell UP, 2008. $29.05

Townson, Monica. Growing Older, Working Longer: The new face of retirement. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2006. $19.95

Wallace, Patricia. The Internet in the Workplace: How new technology is transforming work. 2004. HF 54.56 W35

WOMEN AT WORK

De Santis, Solange. Life on the Line: One woman’s tale of work, sweat and survival.

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy (ed., with Arlie Hochschild) (2003)

Eisenberg, Susan. We’ll Call If We Need You: Experiences of women working construction.

Vosko, Leah. Temporary Work: the gendered rise of a precarious employment relationship. 2000

SECTOR BY SECTOR

Black, Paula. The Beauty Industry: gender, culture, pleasure.

Bosquet, Marc. How the University Works: Higher education and the low wage nation. New York: New York UP, 2008. $29.44

De Botton. Alain. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. Hamish Hamilton. 2009

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Bait and Switch: The (Futile)Pursuit of the American Dream. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005

Gass, Thomas Edward. Nobody’s Home: Candid reflections of a nursing home aide. 2004.

Graham, Laurie. On the Line at Subaru-Isuzu: the Japanese model and the American worker. 1995.

Greenbaum, Joan. Windows on the Workplace: Technology, jobs and the organization of office work. New York: Monthly Review Press, $26.95

High, Steven and David Lewis. Corporate Wasteland: The landscape and memory of deindustrialization. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2007. $24.95

Leadbeater, David (ed). Mining Town Crisis. Halifax: Fernwood, 2008.

Noble, David. Progress Without People: New technology, unemployment and the message of resistance. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1995.

Penny, Laura. More Money Than Brains: Why schools suck, college is crap, and

idiots think they're right. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2010

One of Canada's funniest and most incisive social critics reveals why in North America, where governments spend so much on schools and colleges, training is valued far more than education and loud-mouth ignoramuses are widely and publicly celebrated.

Public education in the United States is in such pitiful shape, the president wants to replace it. Test results from Canadian public schools indicate that Canadian students are at least better at taking tests than their American cousins. On both sides of the border, education is rapidly giving way to job training, and learning how to think for yourself and for the sake of dipping into the vast ocean of human knowledge is going distinctly out of fashion.

It gets worse, says Laura Penny, university lecturer and scathingly funny writer. Paradoxically, in the two nations that have among the best universities, libraries, and research institutions in the world, intellectuals are largely distrusted and yelping ignoramuses now clog the arenas of public discourse.

A brilliant defence of the humanities and social sciences, More Money Than Brains takes a deadly and extremely funny aim at those who would dumb us down.

Reiter, Ester. Making Fast Food: From the frying pan and into the fryer. 1991

TX 945 R44

Schenk, Chris and John Anderson. Reshaping Work – 1 & 2. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Garamond Press, 1995 and .

Schlosser, Eric. “The Most Dangerous Job”, Ch 8 of Fast Food Nation. New York: Harper, 2002.

Smith, Ted et al (eds). Challenging the Chip: Labour rights and environmental justice in the global electronics industry. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2006. $32.44

Spotts, Greg. WalMart: The high cost of low price. New York: The Disinformation Company, 2005

Tannock, Stuart. Youth at Work: The unionized fast-food and grocery workplace. 2001. HD 6276 N68 T363

VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE

Amin, Samir. The World We Wish to See: Revolutionary objectives in the twenty-first century. New York: Monthly Review, 2008.

The World We Wish to See presents a sweeping view of twentieth-century political history and a stirring appeal to take political organization seriously. Amin offers provocative analysis of contemporary resistance to neoliberalism,while boldly calling for a new global movement, an internationalism of peoples, to challenge the current order and fashion a better world.

Throughout the last century, great revolutions, the socialist and communist internationals, and national liberation movements presented a serious challenge to global capital. Neoliberalism and the U.S. drive for military hegemony have given birth to new political and social movements and new attempts at international organization, such as the World Social Forum. Amin maps these oppositional formations, new and old, critically assessing their potential and limitations for the revolutionary project today.

The World We Wish to See draws a distinction between political cultures of conflict and political cultures of consensus. Amin explains that effective opposition must be based in a convergence in diversity of the worlds oppressed and exploitedworkers, students, peasants and other opponents of the neoliberal order. What is required today is a new international with an open and flexible organizational structure to coordinate the work of oppositional movements around the globe. Included in this volume is the full text of the Bamako Appeal, described as a Communist Manifesto for our age, and Amins provocative new essay Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism. Amins masterful analysis offers new ground for realizing the world we wish to see.

Engler, Allan. Economic Democracy: The Working-Class Alternative to Capitalism. Halifax: Fernwood, 2010.

Enorsky, Gertrude. Freedom in the Workplace? Ithica: Cornell UP, 2007. $12.56

Freeman, Richard B. and Joel Rogers. What Workers Want. 1999

Gross, James (ed). Workers Rights as Human Rights. Ithica: Cornell UP, $26.68

Hayden, Anders. Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet: Worktime, consumption and ecology. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1999. $24.95

Jones, Van. The Green Collar Economy: How one solution can fix our two biggest problems. New York: Harper Collins, 2008. $27.95

Kozolanka, Kirsten. The Power of Persuasion: The Politics of the New Right in Ontario. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2007.

Leonard, Annie. The Story of Stuff: The impact of overconsumption on the planet,

our communities, and our health -- and how we can make it better. Toronto: Free Press, 2010.

We have a problem with Stuff. With just 5 percent of the worlds population, were consuming 30 percent of the worlds resources and creating 30 percent of the worlds waste. If everyone consumed at U.S. rates, we would need three to five planets!

This alarming fact drove Annie Leonard to create the Internet film sensation The Story of Stuff, which has been viewed over 10 million times by people around the world. In her sweeping, groundbreaking book of the same name, Leonard tracks the life of the Stuff we use every day where our cotton T-shirts, laptop computers, and aluminum cans come from, how they are produced, distributed, and consumed, and where they go when we throw them out. Like Rachel Carsons Silent Spring, The Story of Stuff is a landmark book that will change the way people think and the way they live.

Leonards message is startlingly clear: we have too much Stuff, and too much of it is toxic. Outlining the five stages of our consumption-driven economyfrom extraction through production, distribution, consumption, and disposalshe vividly illuminates its frightening repercussions. Visiting garbage dumps and factories around the world, Leonard reveals the true story behind our possessionswhy its cheaper to replace a broken TV than to fix it; how the promotion of "perceived obsolescence" encourages us to toss out everything from shoes to cell phones while theyre still in perfect shape; and how factory workers in Haiti, mine workers in Congo, and everyone who lives and works within this system pay for our cheap goods with their health, safety, and quality of life.

We want new Stuff so we work harder and have no time to enjoy all our Stuff. . . . With staggering revelations about the economy, the environment, and cultures around the world, alongside stories from her own life and work, Leonard demonstrates that the drive for a "growth at all costs" economy fuels a cycle of production, consumption, and disposal that is killing us.

It is a system in crisis, but Annie Leonard shows us that this is not the way things have to be. Its within our power to stop the environmental damage, social injustice, and health hazards caused by polluting production and excessive consumption, and Leonard shows us how. Expansive, galvanizing, and sobering yet optimistic, The Story of Stuff transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet.

Malleson, Tom and David Washsmuth (eds). Whose Streets? The Toronto G20 and the Challenges of Summit Protest. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2011.

McKibben, Bill. Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. New York: Macmillan, 2011.

"Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." Barbara Kingsolver

That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defendthink of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.

Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling backon building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Changefundamental changeis our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.

Meiksins, Peter and Peter Whalley. Putting Work in Its Place: A quiet revolution. Ithica: Cornell UP, 2002. $27.50 HD 5124 M45

Ocampo, Jose Antonio and Jomo K.S. (eds). Towards Full and Decent Employment. London: Zed, 2007 – with the United Nations $34.95

Philipson, Ilene. Married to the Job: Why we live to work and what we can do about it. 2002. HF 5548.8P46

Rifkin, Jeremy. The End of Work. 1995 and 2004. HD 6331 R533

Wolff, Richard. Democracy at Work: A cure for capitalism. Chicago: Haymarket, 2012.

ORGANIZING FOR ALTERNATIVES – LABOUR AND OTHER SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Beiler, Andreas et al (eds). Labour and the Challenge of Globalization: What prospects for international solidarity? London: Pluto, 2008. $39.95

Boyd, Andrew. Beautiful Trouble: A toolbox for revolution. New York: OR Books, 2012.

Bronfenbrenner, Kate (ed). Global Unions: Challenging transnational capital through cross-border campaigns. Ithica: Cornell UP, 2007. $24.95

Cairns, James and Alan Sears. The Democratic Imagination: Envisioning popular power in the twenty-first century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.

Calhoun, Avery, Elizabeth Whitmore, and Maureen G. Wilson (eds). Activism that Works. Halifax: Fernwood, 2011.

How can we understand success in relation to social justice and environmental activism? How do activists themselves determine or define their effectiveness? Activism That Works shares the stories of eight diverse social justice movements, from Oxfam Canada, to the Calgary Raging Grannies, to the Youth Project of Halifax, as they contemplate their own successes. What we discover is that success is not measured only in large-scale social reform but is also found in moments of connection in building relationships and raising awareness. Taking the lead from these stories, the authors contextualize and analyze success within social justice activism in Canada. Understanding their work as a contribution to the movements challenging the domination of free market ideology, the authors hope this book will offer a space for reflecting on the contributions and impacts of activist groups and provide meaningful insights into what success means in the struggle against neoliberal capitalism.

Camfield, David. Canadian Labour in Crisis: Reinventing the worker's movement.

Halifax: Fernwood, 2011.

Does Canada have a working-class movement? Though many of us think of ourselves as middle class, most of us are, in fact, working class: we work for a wage. And though many of us are members of unions the most significant organizations of the working-class movement in Canada most people do not understand themselves to be part of this movement. Canadian Labour in Crisis asks why this is so. Through an analysis of the contemporary Canadian working-class movement and its historical development, David Camfield offers an explanation for its current state and argues that reform within the movement is not enough. From the structure of organizations to their activities and even the guiding ideology, Camfield contends that the movement needs a radical reinvention and offers us a new way forward in reaching this goal.

Cohen, Daniel Aldana, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, Kris Frederickson, Ahmed Kayssi, Cynthia MacKenzie (eds). Notes from Canada's Young Activists: A Generation Stands Up for Change (Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2007)

Fletcher, Bill and Fernando Gapasin. Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice. University of California Press, 2008.

Delgado, Gary. Beyond the Politics of Place: New Directions in Community Organizing (Berkeley: Chardon Press, 1997).

Dine, Phillip. State of the Unons: How can labour strengthen the middle class, improve our economy, and regain political influence. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008. $34.95

Fantasia, Rick and Kim Voss. Hard Work: Remaking the American labour movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. $26.95

Fletcher, Bill Jr. and Fernando Gapasin. Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labour and a new path towards social justice. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. $24.20

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1994).

Geoghegan, Thomas. Which Side Are You On? 1991 HD 8072.5 G46

Harden, Joel D. Quiet No More: New Political Activism in Canada and Around the Globe. Toronto: Lorimer, 2013.

Quiet No More offers new thinking about how ordinary citizens have started to take back power in our democracy and change the world. It examines the meaning and promise of Idle No More, the Occupy movement, the Quebec student spring and other expressions of new activism sweeping the world.

Khan, Si. Creative Community Organizing. San Francisco: Berrett-Kohler, 2010.

Horwitz, Sanford D. Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky, His Life and Legacy (New York: Vintage, 1992).

Jacoby Brown, Michael. Building Powerful Community Organizations: A personal guide to creating groups that can solve problems and change the world (Arlington, MA: Long Haul Press, 2006)

Jenson, Robert. Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream, New York: Peter Lang, 2002.

Kaldor, Mary, Henrietta L. Moore and Sabine Selchow (eds). Global Civil Society 2012: Ten Years of Critical Reflection. (Global Civil Society Yearbook). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Kumar, Pradeep and Chris Schenk. Paths to Union Renewal: Canadian experiences. Peterborough: Broadview, 2006. $29.95

Kuyek, Joan. Community Organizing. Halifax: Fernwood, 2011.

Minieri, Joan and Paul Getsos. Tools for Radical Democracy. San Fransisco: Jossey Bass, 2007.

Moody, Kim. US Labor in Trouble & Transition. London: Verso, 2007.

Morton, Desmond. Working People: An illustrated history of the Canadian labour movement. 5th edition. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens UP, 2007.

Our Schools Our Selves. Power of Youth: Youth and Community-Led Activism in Canada. V.21 N.3 (#107) Spring 2012.

Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A. Cloward. Poor Peoples Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (New York: Vintage Books, 1979).

Roddick, Anita. Take It Personally. Berkeley: Conari Press, 2001.

Rose, Chris. How to Win Campaigns: Communicating for Change. Second edition. London and Washington, DC: Earthscan Books, 2010.

Shaw, Randy. The Activists Handbook: A Primer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).

Shaw, Randy. Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. $24.20

Sweeney, John J, with David Kusnet. America Needs A Raise: Fighting for economic security and social justice. HD 6508 S87 1996.

Szakos, Joe and writer/editor Kristin Layng Szakos. We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk About What They Do - And Why (Vanderbilt University Press, 2007)

Yates, Michael. Why Unions Matter. 1998. HD 6508 Y38

Whitmore, Elizabeth, Maureen Wilson and Avery Calhoun (eds). Activism that Works. Fernwood: Halifax and Winnipeg, 2011.

Wolff, Richard. Democracy at Work: A cure for capitalism. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012

Zinn, Howard. Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies of Law and Order. South End, 2002

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Two invaluable books on work and labor markets

Unlevel Playing Fields (4th ed.) provides an accessible introduction to wage inequality and employment discrimination. The authors contrast mainstream and heterodox theories of inequality, and offer several bold policy proposals.

Unlevel Playing Fields: Understanding Wage Inequality and Discrimination, 4th edition . ISBN: 978-1-878585-95-0. List Price: $34.95

"Unlevel Playing Fields is an excellent ... survey of the economic analysis of race and gender for students with a wide range of backgrounds in economics—including those with no exposure to economics at all." —MARY KING, Portland State University

Real World Labor (3rd ed.) features the latest analysis by leading writers and scholars of labor and the labor movement—covering changes in the conditions of work, labor-market discrimination, unions and new forms of rank-and-file organizing, and much more.

Real World Labor, 3rd edition . ISBN: 978-1-939402-25-7. List Price: $34.95 "Real World Labor provides students with invaluable historical background, up-to-the-minute analysis, and many compelling stories about both workers being exploited and workers fighting back." —THAD WILLIAMSON, University of Richmond

Introduce your students to Real World Economics:

America Beyond Capitalism • Real World Banking and Finance (7th ed.) Current Economic Issues (19th ed.) • The Economic Crisis Reader (2nd ed.) The Economics of the Environment (3rd ed.) • Real World Globalization (14th ed.) Introduction to Political Economy (7th ed.) • Labor and the Global Economy NEW! Real World Labor (3rd ed.) • Real World Latin America (2nd ed.) NEW! Real World Macro (33rd ed.) • NEW! Real World Micro (23rd ed.) Microeconomics: Individual Choice in Communities (2nd ed.) Striking a Balance: Work, Family, Life • The Wealth Inequality Reader (4th ed.) Unlevel Playing Fields: Understanding Wage Inequality and Discrimination (4th ed.)

MOVIES

(This is a very incomplete listing…you are encouraged to go looking at the sites I list below…)

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY – by Michael Moore

“INEQUALITY FOR ALL” is a 90-minute high-speed tour of our broken economy and how it got that way, alongside the indefatigable Robert Reich, economist, author, labor secretary, university professor, rabble rouser and pundit who has been trying to warn us about what was going on for the last 30 years. It’s as if Reich grabs your hand and yanks you out of your seat to visit laid-off workers, Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street activists and union organizers; his Republican buddy, former Sen. Alan Simpson; the economists Emanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, whose research showed us the spike in the wealth of the top 1 percent; and lots and lots of television studios, where we watch Reich age debating conservative hosts and pundits and preaching his message that investing in American workers helps everyone, even the rich.

MODERN TIMES . Charlie Chaplin's tramp is as much a slave to unemployment as to the factory. ("Modern Times," Charlie Chaplin, director. Starring Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard. Run Time 87 minutes. 1936.)

NORTH COUNTRY (We will watch this in class…)

ROGER & ME

SALT OF THE EARTH . Made in the fifties about a strike in a zinc mine in southern New Mexico with a cast recruited among local workers; banned for some twenty years. While the work of mining is not shown, housework is, and the changing relations between the men and the women when the mineowners get an injunction against strikers picketing and the women take over the picketline. ("Salt of the Earth," Herbert J. Biberman, director. Starring Will Geer, Rosaura Revueltas, and Juan Chacón. Run Time 94 minutes. 1954.) SILKWOOD . The true story of a nuclear power-plant worker exposed to deadly doses of radiation and her battle against the company. ("Silkwood," Mike Nichols, director. Starring Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, and Cher. Run Time 131 minutes. 1983.) THE CORPORATION

THE INSIDE JOB

L' AFFAIRE COCA-COLA

GERMAN GUTIERREZ / CA / 2009 / 82 '

BANANAS!*

FREDRIK GERTTEN / DK / 2009 / 87 '

BIKPELA BAGARAP (BIG DAMAGE)

DAVID FEDELE / PG / 2011 / 43 '

BLACK GOLD

MARC FRANCIS / UK / 2005 / 82 '

BLOCKADE

NETTIE WILD / CA / 1994 / 90 '

BLOOD COLTAN