Books and films

Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present

An international collection on workers’ control and self-management. It examines historical and contemporary struggles for workplace democracy, workers’ councils, factory occupations, cooperatives, and collective ownership—from the Paris Commune to the present.

Concrete: Stories from the Site Cabin

Jakob Mathiassen tells the story of life as a concrete worker on Danish construction sites. Combining personal stories from the site cabin with factual sections on the history of the trade, vocational training, trade unions, workplace safety, migrant labour and social dumping, the book offers an honest portrait of working-class life in the construction…

Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the two souls of the United Farm Workers

A vivid rendering of farm work and the world of the farm worker, Trampling Out the Vintage is a dramatic reappraisal of the political trajectory of Cesar Chavez

El renacer de la huelga obrera en Chile: El movimiento sindical en la primera década del siglo XXI / The Rebirth of the Workers' Strike in Chile: The Trade Union Movement in the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century

This valuable, illuminating, and indispensable publication from the end of the 2000s is a major sociological and historiographical study for understanding the transformations of Chile’s world of work at the turn of the century. Published by ICAL with production by LOM, the volume analyzes the resurgence of work stoppages and workers’ new repertoires of…

International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present

A definitive eight-volume reference work covering five centuries of protest and revolution in the modern era of mass movements. The encyclopedia examines major uprisings and protest movements across the world, the ideas and activists behind them, and the ways in which these struggles developed.

Revolt on Goose Island: The Chicago Factory Takeover, and What It Says About the Economic Crisis

Kari Lydersen tells the story of the workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago who, in December 2008, occupied their factory after the company abruptly shut it down, leaving them without jobs, health care and legally mandated severance pay. The workers, members of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America Local 1110, won…

Why David Sometimes Wins : Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement

Why David Sometimes Wins tells the story of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers' groundbreaking victory, drawing important lessons from this dramatic tale. Since the 1900s, large-scale agricultural enterprises relied on migrant labor--a cheap, unorganized, and powerless workforce.

Von der Klassensolidarität zur humanitären Hilfe: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der politischen Linken 1930–1950

The 1930s and 1940s were a momentous period for the Swiss labor movement. At the beginning of this era, the two wings of the labor movement—the Communists on the one hand and the Social Democrats and the trade unions close to them on the other—stood in sharp opposition to bourgeois Switzerland and its political system.

코끼리 / The Elephant

The book Elephant explores the hidden realities of labor, migration, and inequality in contemporary Korean society through deeply human stories. Its title story follows a mixed-heritage boy born to undocumented migrant workers, exposing how globalization produces invisible people who exist outside legal and social protection.

Trade Unionism and Politics / Sendikacılık ve Siyaset

Tejedores de la revolución: Los trabajadores de Yarur y la vía chilena al socialismo / Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile's Road to Socialism

Weavers of Revolution vividly captures the spirit of Allende’s government through the experiences and voices of the workers at the Yarur textile factory, whose actions helped set Chile on its road to socialism. Yarur was the first factory occupied by its workers after Allende’s election and Chile’s first modern cotton textile mill.

History of Trade Unionism in Turkey / Türkiye Sendikacılık Tarihi

History of the Turkish Working Class and Trade Union Movement / Türkiye İşçi Sınıfı ve Sendikacılık Hareketi Tarihi

A Single Spark: The Biography of Chun Tae-il

This is a biography of Chun Tae-il (1948–1970), an activist and a symbol of the South Korean labor movement, who sacrificed his life in the struggle for workers’ rights.

Globalizacja a konflikty lokalne

Local communities in Poland experience the effects of globalization on a daily basis, but they also try to resist this process. The conflicts that erupt do not take as violent a course as the events on the streets of Seattle, Prague, or Genoa; nevertheless, they are a direct result of globalization processes, including the emergence of new technologies,…

Labour Relations in Turkey during the Multi-Party Period: 1946–1963 / Türkiye'de Çok Partili Dönemde Çalışma İlişkileri: 1946–1963

From Harvard to the Ranks of Labor: Powers Hapgood and the American Working Class

During the first half of the twentieth century, many young intellectuals and reformers sympathized with the aspirations of working people and supported the struggles of the labor movement. Powers Hapgood (1899–1949) was one of the most colorful and recognizable symbols of this crucial historical relationship.

Portraits from the History of Türk-İş / Türk-İş Tarihinden Portreler

Vakbeweging in perspectief / The Labor Movement in Perspective

The Workers’ Movement in Turkey / Türkiye'de İşçi Hareketi

Focusing his research on the period from 1908 to 1984, the author examines the years 1908–1922–1923–1960–1980 and 1980–1984 in separate chapters.

The History of the Yorkshire Miners 1881-1918

This detailed social history is concerned with the workers in the Yorkshire coal industry, their union, and the broader mining communities

Stalin Over Wisconsin: The Making and Unmaking of Militant Unionism, 1900–1950

For union organizers, community activists, and labor scholars the republication of Stephen Meyer’s Stalin Over Wisconsin: The Making and Unmaking of Militant Unionism, 1900–1950 is especially timely. Meyer tells the story of fiercely militant, and Communist-influenced, UAW Local 248, which represented the huge Allis-Chalmers plant outside Milwaukee,…

Cultures of Solidarity

In three vivid case studies Fantasia explores the complicated, multi-faceted dynamics of American working-class consciousness and collective action

Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars

What effect did the two world wars have on the relations between women and men? Drawing on broad comparative material—from government policy to popular media, poetry and fiction, and personal letters—this book examines the redefinition of gender that occurred in many Western countries during both world wars.

Rendez-nous nos usines ! / Give Us Back Our Factories!

An account and analysis of the Polish workers movement of 1980-1981 by Zbigniew M. Kowalewski, a member of Solidarnosc regional leadership in Lodz.

Strikes in the United States, 1881-1974

A study of strikes and strike activity in the United States from 1881 to 1974.

City Trenches

In City Trenches, Ira Katznelson looks at an important phenomenon of the sixties—the resurgence of community activism—and explains its sources, challenges, and failure.

Svárovská stávka

The book describes a workers’ strike at the Johann Liebieg textile factory in 1870 in Svárov, in Velké Hamry in the Jablonec region. The strike was brutally suppressed by gendarmes and soldiers, and seven people lost their lives.

The Industrial Proletariat of Turkey / Türkiye Sanayi Proletaryası

Dig Where You Stand: How to Research a Job / Gräv där du står

First published in 1978, Dig Where You Stand is a rallying cry for workers to become researchers, to follow the money, take on the role as experts on their job, and “dig” out its hidden histories in order to take a vital step towards social and economic transformation. A how-to guide that inspired an entire movement, it makes the case that everyone – not…