On February 4, 1986, the lives of thousands of workers changed in ways they could only begin to imagine. On that day, United Technologies Corporation ordered the closure of the 76-year-old American Bosch manufacturing plant in Springfield, Massachusetts, capping a nearly 32-year history of job loss and work relocation from the sprawling factory. The author, a former Bosch worker and the business agent for the union representing nearly 1,200 Bosch employees when the plant closed, interjects...

Two overarching questions permeate the literature on universities and civic engagement: How does a university restructure its myriad activities, maintain its academic integrity, and have a transformative impact off campus? And, who ought to participate in the conversations that frame and guide both the internal restructuring process and the off-campus interactions? The perspective of this book, based on research and projects in the field, is that long-term, sustainable social and economic ...

'Northern Exposures' is an important and thought-provoking book that shows how the labor movement has embraced environmental protection and is beginning to create a new and more sustainable vision for the future. Dave Bennett's knowledge and commitment shine through. He is, by turns, the skeptical philosopher sifting the evidence and the passionate partisan arguing for the rights of the people. It makes for a rich and exhilarating mixture.-Nigel Crisp, Permanent Secretary, U.K. Department ...

"In Lawrence, Massachusetts, fully one-half of the population 14 years of age or over is employed in the woolen and worsted mills and cotton mills". Thus begins the federal government's Report on Strike of Textile Workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912 . This book follows up, one hundred years later. The story's retelling offers readers an exciting reexamination of just how powerful a united working class can be. The Great Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912 - the Bread and Roses Strike - ...

Incorporated in 1847 on the banks of the Merrimack River, Lawrence, Massachusetts, was the final and most ambitious of New England�s planned textile-manufacturing cities developed by the Boston-area entrepreneurs who helped launch the American Industrial Revolution. With a dam and canal system to generate power, by 1912 Lawrence led the world in the production of worsted wool cloth. The Pacific Cotton Mills alone had sales of nearly $10 million and had mechanical equipment capable of produ...

This book explores the impacts of HIV/AIDS and neoliberal globalization on the occupational health of public sector hospital nurses in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The story of South African public sector nurses provides multiple perspectives on the HIV/AIDS epidemic-for a workforce that played a role in the struggle against apartheid, women who deal with the burden of HIV/AIDS care at work and in the community, and a constituency of the new South African democracy that is working on the f...

This book describes working conditions in informal sector shoemaking in Indonesia and the Philippines, their national and international policy implications. It provides information on glues, an organic solvent, found in footwear chemicals and women garment homeworkers in Bulacan.

The labor movement in the United States is a bulwark of democracy and a driving force for social and economic equality. Yet its stories remain largely unknown to Americans. Robert Forrant and Mary Anne Trasciatti edit a collection of essays focused on nationwide efforts to propel the history of labor and working people into mainstream narratives of US history. In Part One, the contributors concentrate on ways to collect and interpret worker-oriented history for public consumption. Part Two...