Life and Labor on the Border

Life and Labor on the Border
Author: Josiah McConnell Heyman
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1991
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780816512256

Traces the development over the past hundred years of the urban working class in northern Sonora. Drawing on an extensive collection of life histories, Heyman describes what has happened to families over several generations as people left the countryside to work for American-owned companies in northern Sonora or to cross the border to find other employment.

Oildom

Oildom
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 864
Release: 1920
Genre: Petroleum industry and trade
ISBN:

Working Together

Working Together
Author: Christopher E. Wilson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 79
Release: 2011
Genre: Mexico
ISBN: 9781933549743

American Made

American Made
Author: Farah Stockman
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2021-10-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1984801155

What happens when Americans lose their jobs? In American Made, an illuminating story of ruin and reinvention, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Farah Stockman gives an up-close look at the profound role work plays in our sense of identity and belonging, as she follows three workers whose lives unravel when the factory they have dedicated so much to closes down. “With humor, breathtaking honesty, and a historian’s satellite view, American Made illuminates the fault lines ripping America apart.”—Beth Macy, author of Factory Man and Dopesick Shannon, Wally, and John built their lives around their place of work. Shannon, a white single mother, became the first woman to run the dangerous furnaces at the Rexnord manufacturing plant in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was proud of producing one of the world’s top brands of steel bearings. Wally, a black man known for his initiative and kindness, was promoted to chairman of efficiency, one of the most coveted posts on the factory floor, and dreamed of starting his own barbecue business one day. John, a white machine operator, came from a multigenerational union family and clashed with a work environment that was increasingly hostile to organized labor. The Rexnord factory had served as one of the economic engines for the surrounding community. When it closed, hundreds of people lost their jobs. What had life been like for Shannon, Wally, and John, before the plant shut down? And what became of them after the jobs moved to Mexico and Texas? American Made is the story of a community struggling to reinvent itself. It is also a story about race, class, and American values, and how jobs serve as a bedrock of people’s lives and drive powerful social justice movements. This revealing book shines a light on a crucial political moment, when joblessness and anxiety about the future of work have made themselves heard at a national level. Most of all, American Made is a story about people: who we consider to be one of us and how the dignity of work lies at the heart of who we are.