Abstract
Edited by Richard P. Appelbaum and Nelson Lichtenstein
Cornell University Press, 2016
In April 2013, more than 1,100 garment workers lost their lives when the Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was considered the worst industrial tragedy in two hundred years of garment manufacturing history. In Achieving Workers’ Rights in the Global Economy, scholars Richard P. Appelbaum and Nelson Lichtenstein make the claim that because exploitation, corruption, and severe working conditions are endemic to the vast majority of jobs at the giant retail supply chains of the global South, the Rana accident was just waiting to happen. This book shares a collection of essays from international labor scholars that addresses the opportunities and challenges of organizing workers within the export industry and offers radical and practical solutions for a way forward.
By Steve Early
Beacon Press, 2017
Refinery Town is the story of a successful municipal reform movement launched in Richmond, California, which was a typical company town that grew around Chevron, one of the largest oil refineries in the state. Richmond had been devastated by deindustrialization, poverty, substandard housing, pollution, poorly funded public education, and corruption. But when labor journalist, Steve Early, moved to Richmond in 2012, he witnessed a transformation of the city, as a result of ten years of successful community organizing and civil engagement. Ordinary workers had established campaigns to raise the minimum wage, challenge home foreclosures, fight for immigration reform, lower crime and ultimately, stand up to the Big Oil giant. Refinery Town provides a model for community building everywhere.