Books and films

The Underground Sea

The Underground Sea is a succinct, urgent collection of writing from John Berger’s archive. It brings together for the first time his work on mineworkers and the miners’ strikes and has been edited as a set of actions for today.

Under angrep - slik motarbeides fagbevegelsen / Under attack - this is how the trade union movement is opposed

The Norwegian model provides a predictable and organized working life, and appears to be stable. But something is about to happen.In recent years, we have seen several examples of the trade union movement being actively opposed.LO describes "aggressive union crushing" as part of "a new development that threatens to turn back the clock many decades in…

Vad hände med arbetarklassen? Om svek, makt och ojämlikhet i Sverige diskuterar / What happened to the working class?

In "What Happened to the Working Class?" (Arkiv Publishing), sociologist Johan Alfonsson has written a vital book that shows in an educational and vivid way that a majority of Swedes still belong to the working class. This is supported by both statistically substantiated analyses and personal stories

Vanligt folk : den svenska arbetarrörelsens historia / Ordinary People: The History of the Swedish Labor Movement

At the end of the 19th century, people began to organize in the workplace. They talked to each other and agreed on common demands.

Vi kan styra oss själva / We can govern ourselves

Why does democracy end when we go to work? When Patrik Witkowsky, founder of the Center for Employee Ownership and Documentary Filmmakers, began to delve into the issue of economic democracy, he discovered a blind spot in the Swedish debate.

No Power Greater: A History of Union Action in Australia

No Power Greater is the compelling story of the acts of rebellion and solidarity that have shaped Australia's past and shows that unions are far from history.

Pesawat Anda Delay / Your Plane Is Delayed

Prahara in the Parau Valley: A Novel of Coal Miners’ Struggle /Prahara di Lembah Parau: Sebuah novel perjuangan buruh tambang batu bara

Archam Alie, a university student, sets out to study firsthand how a coal mining company operates. His journey takes him to the Parau Valley, where he begins working at a mining camp owned by the Ambillin Coal Mining Company.

Serikat Buruh 1945–1948: Menduduki Stasiun, Menguasai Perkebunan, Menjalankan Pabrik / Trade Unions 1945–1948: Occupying Railway Stations, Taking Over Plantations, Running Factories

This book offers an in-depth study of labor unions in Java during the critical years of 1945–1948, examining how workers organized independently to take control of railway stations, plantations, and factories in the aftermath of Indonesian independence. Challenging state-centered interpretations of postcolonial labor politics, Jafar Suryomenggolo…

Strikers, Strikes: A Study of Agency and Its Networks in West Java, 1952 / Pemogok, Pemogokan: Studi Agensi dan Jaringannya di Jawa Barat Tahun 1952

The book “Strikers, Strikes: A Study of Agency and Its Networks in West Java, 1952” offers important lessons for many people, especially workers and the government. The two realities in Indonesia mentioned above are reflected in this book.

A Crisis at a Dead End? On the Future of Greek Trade Unionism / Κρίση αδιεξόδου; Για το μέλλον του ελληνικού συνδικαλισμού

The book is concise (158 pages), yet at the same time remarkably rich in content: it describes and explains in an inclusive way the harsh reality we are experiencing, doing so in a manner that also creates the conditions for rational intervention—an element which, as I often say, is the defining characteristic of a genuinely scientific perspective. In…

Artificial Intelligence for Effective Union Leaders: Another Story That Will Fascinate Your Brother-in-Law

is Artificial intelligence already here: in our phones, our cars, our homes… and also in the workplace, which union representatives have to defend every day. This manual aims to explain, rigorously but without technical jargon, what AI really means and how it can affect union activity, collective bargaining, and life in the workplace.

Brigate negre / Black Brigades

Marco Gabbas's new book, "Brigate negre" (Guasila: Editziones arkiviu bibrioteca "T. Serra", 2025), is published.

Carniti e Berlinguer / Carniti and Berlinguer: Two Lefts Face Off. The Clash Over the Escalator in the 1980s. Genoa, Turin, and Milan

Salvatore Vento's historical-sociological research analyzes the crisis in labor relations in the 1980s through a careful reconstruction of the key events that characterized it, particularly in Genoa, Turin, and Milan: the solidarity fund, the 1983 Scotti agreement, the dramatic division of 1984, and the referendum on the sliding wage scale. This central…

Conspiring Against Oblivion

This book is many things, but above all it is an exercise in memory that blends fiction with a fictionalized biography of the generation that was thirty years old when Francisco Franco died. The narrator and protagonist is Luis, and the story begins when, five years before the end of the century, he reunites with Eduardo, his first cousin, after twenty…

Corso Italia 25 / Corso Italia 25 The CGIL told from the inside

The union and its complex relationships with politics, institutions, and business, revealed by an insider. This, in a nutshell, is the content of Corso Italia 25, a three-decade narrative written by those who have lived and worked in leading positions within the union.

Del campo a la trinchera Memorias del deporte obrero vasco / From the Field to the Trench: Memoirs of Basque Workers' Sport

At the beginning of the 20th century in Europe, sport ceased to be a form of entertainment exclusive to the bourgeoisie and became a key tool for the working class in its struggle for social transformation. More than just a recreational activity, it became a revolutionary instrument for generating class consciousness and promoting change.

El Poum. República, revolución y contrarrevolución / The POUM. Republic, Revolution and Counterrevolution

In 1935 the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification was founded, which would play a fundamental role at the beginning of the Civil War and the revolution.In 1935, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) was founded, which would play a fundamental role at the beginning of the Civil War and the revolution. Of the many dissident communist groups that…

Francisco Gómez del Castillo. Militante obrero / Francisco Gómez del Castillo. Militant worker, son and father of typographers

Francisco Gómez del Castillo, working-class activist, typesetter, son and father of typesetters

HUELGA: Entre la Justicia y la Tragedia / Strike: Between Justice and Tragedy

This book explores the impact of strikes, focusing on the economic hardships that Workers face tensions stemming from union favoritism and the challenges of image that affects business management. This story invites you to delve into the human stories behind the pickets, the stalled negotiations and the economic consequences.

La huelga más larga / The longest strike

April 12, 2025, marked the 45th anniversary of the longest strike in the recent history of the Spanish labor movement. The commemoration will take place with the presentation in Cerezo del Río Tirón (Burgos) of the book documenting this mobilization, written by Burgos-born journalist Manuel González, former president of the El País works council, and…

La protegida / The Protected One

Barcelona, ​​1880. As the protégée of one of Barcelona's upper-class women, Sara has begun working in the Bofarull family's textile workshop .

Las Madrinas / The Godmothers

The 1960s. A striking mining region dismisses young Gloria Montes, who, pregnant and rejected by her family, leaves home never to return.

La svolta. Lo sciopero, un diario, l'amore / The Turning Point: The Strike, a Diary, and Love

Young journalist Paris Collanti, searching for information for a historical essay on the 1962 Piaggio strike, stumbles upon a mysterious murder that he tries to solve. A complex novel of history, romance, and suspense, it flows with humorous touches and delves into the social dynamics of the Italian industrial boom.

Movimiento obrero en Andalucía. Comisiones Obreras en Sevilla (1977-2008) / The Workers' Movement in Andalusia. Workers' Commissions in Seville (1977-2008)

The evolution of the labor movement has been intrinsic to the history of modern societies, to the point of being considered "the great dialectic of the 20th century." Andalusia has been part of this international dynamic, and in this case, the focus is on Seville, the capital of the region, during the last third of the 20th century and the beginning of…

Pablo Iglesias Posse. Pasión por la igualdad / Pablo Iglesias Posse. Passion for equality

This work is a profound analysis of the life and thought of Pablo Iglesias Posse, one of the most relevant historical figures of Spanish socialism.

Paolo Barsocchi: The coherence of change in half a century of economic, social and political history of the Lucca area

Over half a century of Lucca's history, from the 1960s to the present day, relived through the eyes of one of the city's leading figures in trade union and political life.

Postales / “Postcards”: The stories of postal workers made into a book of short stories

In a context of mass layoffs and worsening working and wage conditions, postal workers publish a literary work to reclaim their culture, their stories, and experiences, and to resist, through narrative, the constant attacks they suffer from the far-right government of Javier Milei. Amid the threat of privatization of the National Postal Service and a…

Son coma glaciares os barcos de aceiro / STEEL SHIPS ARE LIKE GLACIERS

Steel Ships Are Like Glaciers is an artisanal novel, welded with precision line by line, word by word, as workers do with metal sheets on the benches of shipyards. A love letter to industrial and combatant Vigo, to the sons and daughters of work and dignity, through the memories of a child who grows up among demonstrations, strikes and union struggles in…

Tienen género los sindicatos? / Do trade unions have a gender?

The trade union, as a key component of the institutional model of labor relations, is constitutionally assigned the function not only of contributing to, but also of leading, the effort to achieve real and effective equality. However, empirical data demonstrate that patriarchal biases persist in union representation and structures, perpetuating gender…