This edition of the free bulletin, World Wide Work, is published by the American Labor Education Center, an independent nonprofit founded in 1979.
WORLD WIDE WORK
Powell’s the unionized alternative to Amazon.com for buying and selling books online, has just reached a new four-year contract with its employees and their union, ILWU Local 5. The agreement provides an immediate 8.8 percent pay increase plus additional increases each year, increased health care coverage for preventive procedures, and more promotional opportunities.
New and worth noting…
*The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Dr. Devra Davis (Basic Books). Pointing out that one in two men and one in three women living today will have cancer of some type, this masterpiece by the head of environmental oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute provides in one readable account the facts about how environmental, consumer product, and work-related causes of cancer have been deliberately covered up for decades while the public is distracted by P.R. campaigns posing as a “War on Cancer.” Davis asks whether emerging potential hazards such as cell phones or Ritalin will be the next examples of exposures that are reassuringly pronounced safe until it is too late. Woven into the book is the story of Davis’ own parents who died of cancer after years of exposure to chemicals in a steel town in Pennsylvania.
*Global Unions edited by Kate Bronfenbrenner (Cornell University Press). Ten scholars present frank research on the opportunities and obstacles illustrated by recent efforts at transnational union collaboration in various parts of the world, with examples drawn from agriculture, longshoring, manufacturing, food processing, and SEIU’s global partnerships in service sectors.
*Army of None by Aimee Allison and David Solnit (Seven Stories Press). This practical guide shows how the U.S. military uses access to public school classrooms to make false promises to children in order to get them to enlist – from college tuition benefits a majority of recruits will never receive to empty assurances that they aren’t likely to be sent to Iraq. As part of its $4 billion annual recruiting effo