Books and films
Books and films that help us understand collective action.
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For a Beautiful Life / Per una vita bella
If the struggle loses its meaning—in both senses of the word—it also loses its strength. If any demand concerning wages or work is not situated within a broader constellation, it is doomed to fail.
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10 años de SiPreBA, 50 años de lucha / 10 years of SiPreBA, 50 years of struggle
Ten years the formation of the Buenos Aires Press Union ( SiPreBA ).
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A 50 años del Golpe de Estado en Antofagasta / 50 Years After the Coup in Antofagasta
This week marks the launch of the book by Antofagasta-born author Felipe Godoy Lepe, a young worker and historian who compiled the history of Antofagasta during the dark days of the coup and how political forces responded to the historical events.
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Crónica de una muerte obrera / Chronicle of a worker's death
Editorial Forja presents Chronicle of a Working-Class Death by Joaquín Rodríguez Soza, a work that recounts the story of José Ricardo Ahumada Vásquez, a young worker murdered in pre-coup Chile, whose story inspired the song When I Go to Work by Víctor Jara.
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De huelga a pandemia en Puerto Rico: una década de intervenciones periodísticas internacionales / From strike to pandemic in Puerto Rico: a decade of international journalistic interventions
In the midst of the fervor of civil action to retain or reclaim what is ours, we know we have the support of Maritza Stanchich's columns for the American press. When the neoliberal impoverishment strategies promoted by local leaders follow scripts established by the U.S.
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De las huelgas por la jornada de 8 horas a la Reforma Social. Forjando el cambio: los trabajadores de la madera 1890-1943 / From strikes for the 8-hour workday to social reform. Forging change the timber workers 1890-1943
In recent years, Costa Rican society has witnessed an acceleration of the neoliberal counter-reform process driven by an alliance between old and new political (some even appealing to progressive rhetoric) and economic power groups. These groups have focused their efforts on eroding and weakening the labor rights won over decades by organized workers'…
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Disturbio. Huelga. Disturbio. La nueva era de los levantamientos / Riot. Strike. Riot
Baltimore. Ferguson.
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El movimiento obrero en Rosario. Clase, organización y lucha en torno a la Federación Obrera Local Rosarina (1870-1915) / The labor movement in Rosario. Class, organization and struggle around the Rosario Local Workers' Federation (1870-19
The early history of the labor movement in Rosario has repeatedly been placed on the Procrustean bed of national historiography, its edges forced to fit into a bed that is not its own. While common structures exist, much of the Rosario labor movement's trajectory was marked by its unique characteristics.
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Entre la espera y el asentamiento: Migración y desplazamiento en la frontera México-Estados Unidos / Between waiting and settling: Migration and displacement on the Mexico-United States border
Between Waiting and Settlement: Migration and Displacement on the Mexico-United States Border is presented as a collaborative work coordinated by Laura Velasco Ortiz, Óscar F. Contreras, Marie-Laure Coubés, and María Dolores París Pombo, published in 2025 by El Colegio de la Frontera Norte.
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Fueling Development: How Black Radical Trade Unionism Transformed Trinidad and Tobago
Despite Trinidad and Tobago’s economic dependence on oil and gas production and its history of colonial exploitation of labor and resources, it enjoys relatively high democratic and redistributive development compared to other nations in the global South. In Fueling Development, Zophia Edwards draws on archival data, historical analysis, and Black…
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Hablemos de Sindicalismo / Let's Talk About Trade Unionism
Rodolfo "Tito" Cerdán and his daughter Victoria, both deeply immersed in the Argentine trade union world (he as a leader, she as a lawyer), announce the imminent publication of their book "Let's Talk About Trade Unionism".vThe book stems from the need to reignite the debate about a key institution in society, noting a worrying lack of knowledge and…
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Huelga en el “Gran Molino”. Conflictividad obrera y estrategias de lucha en la yerbatera Martin / Strike at the Gran Molino
Labor conflict and struggle strategies at the Martin yerba mate factory. Rosario, 1935, Prohistoria Ediciones ISHIR CONICET, Rosario, 2025, 118 pp.
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Huelgas laborales y revitalización sindical en Chile / Labor strikes and union revitalization in Chile
As in many countries around the world, unions in Chile have faced an unfavorable political and economic environment. Despite this, since the mid-2000s, the Chilean labor movement has been experiencing an emerging and heterogeneous revitalization process—that is, a diverse, incomplete, and unconsolidated one.
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La reforma laboral con zapatos viejos / Labor Reform with Old Shoes: A Book Every Worker Should Know.
Dr. Manuel Fuentes compiles all his research, critiques, and relevant data on what has happened since the implementation of the mexican labor reform and how it continues to affect us today.
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La Senda De Un Obrero / A worker's path
Álvaro Arenas' life continues along unusual paths. His choices lead him to countries like Australia, Algeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia, giving him a worldview and perspective that few people from his background could possibly have.
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La vida infausta del negro / The unfortunate life of the black man
Apolinar Mosquera has grown old, his strength waning, but he still has the courage to write to an old friend, from whom he had become estranged, asking him to fulfill the promise he made long ago to tell his story. He wants him to accompany him on this final adventure and be his witness.
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Luchas migrantes en tiempos pandémicos y de crisis: una mirada desde las Américas / Migrant struggles in times of pandemic and crisis
Migrant struggles in times of pandemic and crisis: a view from the Americas , coordinated by Amarela Varela-Huerta and Soledad Álvarez Velasco, “helps us to reflect again on what changed and what remains the same in terms of human mobility, immobilization and migrant struggles in the Americas as a result of the first pandemic of the 21st century, COVID 19.
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Santa Bárbara Rebelde: Historia oral de la insurgencia sindical en un pueblo minero, 1970-1990 / Rebel Santa Barbara : An Oral History of the Trade Union Insurgency in a Mining Town, 1970-1990
This work is the product of recorded conversations with people who lived in the mining region of southern Chihuahua. The oral history recounts the experiences of young miners who, in the 1970s, decided to oppose the local and national leadership of the union.
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Sindicalismo de la CTM en Sonora. Grandes luchas, crecimiento y fortaleza (1982–2025) / CTM Unionism in Sonora. Great struggles, growth and strength (1982–2025)
With broad participation from business leaders, union leaders, academics, journalists, representatives of the public sector and all political forces, the book “CTM Unionism in Sonora. Great struggles, growth and strength (1982–2025)” was presented, a work that recovers more than four decades of history, achievements and transformation of the labor…
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Sí, somos trabajadoras! Servicio doméstico y los derechos de trabajo en el Chile del siglo XX / Yes, we are workers! Domestic service and labor rights in 20th-century Chile
For over a century, domestic work in Chile was an invisible, undervalued, poorly paid, unregulated, and rights-free occupation. In this book, historian Elizabeth Hutchison traces the long social and legal struggle waged by domestic workers throughout the 20th century in Chile.
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SITRACODE: Ejemplo del sindicalismo de clase y defensa de los intereses populares y nacionales / SITRACODE: An example of class-based unionism and the defense of popular and national interests
Systematizing, even if only in a summarized form, the experiences of the former Union of Workers of the Dominican Electricity Corporation (Sitracode), is a highly significant contribution at a time when writings about the trade union and workers' movement seem to be dying out. Sitracode was a young union when big business and the government of the time…
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Trabajadores: Su presencia en la historia de Chile, 1800-2019 / Workers: Their Presence in the History of Chile, 1800-2019
From the peasants and tenants of colonial Chile to the strikes and mobilizations that marked the social uprising of 2019, this book traces an exhaustive journey through more than two centuries of labor history in Chile, shaped both by the beginnings of modernization and the formation of the proletariat, as well as by the contemporary challenges arising…
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Trade Union Freedom in Brazil and Portugal: a brief comparison
This paper is an analysis of the principle of trade union freedom in Brazil and Portugal. It was found that, in the distant past, both countries established this important principle of collective labor law in their constitutional legal systems and, for reasons specific to each country, took different paths with regard to its applicability.
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Una lucha por el salario, la democracia obrera y la conciencia / Oil Workers, a struggle for wages, workers' democracy and class consciousness
In every collective bargaining session, the labor world looks with admiration—and a certain undisguised envy—at the wage agreements reached by the oilseed workers' union with employers. Time and again, they manage to keep their salaries comfortably above the average for Argentine workers.
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Un golpe global. La experiencia autoritaria chilena en el mundo / A global coup. The Chilean authoritarian experience in the world
The years of revolution and counter-revolution in Chile sparked identifications, passions, and mobilizations on a global scale, becoming a powerful cause with diverse uses and meanings: from an emblem of militant solidarity and a source of political “lessons” to a driving force behind the emerging language of Human Rights, and—for some—a potent symbol of…
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Paşabahçe 1966: A Strike That Created a Tradition / Paşabahçe 1966: Gelenek Yaratan Grev
The Paşabahçe strike of 1966 was a workers’ action that formed enduring tendencies and traditions and holds a special place both in the history of glassworkers and Kristal-İş, and in the broader history of the Turkish working class. With this book, we have sought to bring to light as many aspects of this historic strike as possible.
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The History of Uprisings and Social Unrest in Iran تاریخ شورش و ناآرامیهای اجتماعی در ایران
This book begins in ancient times and covers the period up to the year 1357 (1978). The structure of the book is such that each chapter is devoted to a specific period or historical cycle, and uprisings are examined from various perspectives, including political, economic, religious, and ethnic motives.
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The Union at the Barrel of a Gun / Aster-İş - Namlunun Ucundaki Sendika / Aster-İş
The Union at the Barrel of a Gun truly lives up to its title, as it tells the story of the organizing efforts of workers employed in military workplaces and the obstacles placed in their way. The organizing adventure of the Aster-İş Union during the period 1975–1980, carried out in one of the most difficult sectors to organize and at the very heart of…
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المرحوم المحجوب بن الصديق: رائد الحركة النقابية الوطنية The Late Mahjoub Ben Seddik: Pioneer of the National Trade Union Movement
Coinciding with the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the Moroccan Workers’ Union (Union Marocaine du Travail), a book titled **“The Late Mahjoub Ben Seddik: Pioneer of the National Trade Union Movement”**, authored by **Dr. Ridouane Salim**, was published.
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Het stof daalt! / The Dust Settles
Following 'Het water komt' (about Zeeland and the consequences of the North Sea Flood) and 'De aarde beeft' (about Groningen and the consequences of natural gas extraction), the history program Andere Tijden (NTR) presents a series about Limburg and the scars of the mining industry, fifty years after the closure of the last coal mine: 'Het stof vallen'.…