The Labor of Lunch

The Labor of Lunch
Author: Jennifer E. Gaddis
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2019-11-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520971590

There’s a problem with school lunch in America. Big Food companies have largely replaced the nation’s school cooks by supplying cafeterias with cheap, precooked hamburger patties and chicken nuggets chock-full of industrial fillers. Yet it’s no secret that meals cooked from scratch with nutritious, locally sourced ingredients are better for children, workers, and the environment. So why not empower “lunch ladies” to do more than just unbox and reheat factory-made food? And why not organize together to make healthy, ethically sourced, free school lunches a reality for all children? The Labor of Lunch aims to spark a progressive movement that will transform food in American schools, and with it the lives of thousands of low-paid cafeteria workers and the millions of children they feed. By providing a feminist history of the US National School Lunch Program, Jennifer E. Gaddis recasts the humble school lunch as an important and often overlooked form of public care. Through vivid narration and moral heft, The Labor of Lunch offers a stirring call to action and a blueprint for school lunch reforms capable of delivering a healthier, more equitable, caring, and sustainable future.

The Labor Paper

The Labor Paper
Author: American Newspaper Guild. Labor Press Committee
Publisher:
Total Pages: 48
Release: 1939
Genre: Labor
ISBN:

Voices of Labor

Voices of Labor
Author: Michael Curtin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2017-03-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0520295439

"The film industry in Hollywood now employs a global mode of production run by massive media conglomerates that mobilize hundreds, sometimes thousands, of workers for each feature film or television series. Yet these workers and their labor remain largely invisible to the general audience. In fact, this has been a signal characteristic of Hollywood style for more than a hundred years: everything that matters happens onscreen, not off. Consequently, when it comes to movies and television, the voices heard most often are those belonging to talent and corporate executives. Those we hear least are the voices of labor, and it's that silence we aim to redress in the collection of interviews in this book. Drawing from the detailed and personal accounts in this collection, we offer three interrelated propositions about the current state and future prospects of craftwork and screen media labor: 1. Craftwork exists within an intricate and intimate matrix of social relations. 2. Hollywood craftwork today constitutes a regime of excessive labor. 3. Screen media production is a protean entity. We organized the collection into three sections: company town, global machine, and fringe city. The first section refers to Hollywood's historic roots as a core component of the motion picture business. The second section engages more directly with the spatial dynamics of film and television production to underscore the economic and political structures that are integrating distant locations into the studios' mode of production. We close with a section on the visual effects sector, in which stories shared by vfx artists, advocates, and organizers specifically illustrate how the industry today relies on marginal institutions to sustain its power and profitability"--Provided by publisher.

Rebuilding Pulp and Paper Workers Union

Rebuilding Pulp and Paper Workers Union
Author: Robert H. Zieger
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2004-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781572333710

This study of the pulp and paper workers' union helps explain the AFL's often limited response to worker militancy in the 1930s as well as the more institutionalized moderation that emerged from the labor upsurge. Zieger sympathetically explains the union's limited goals but steady achievements--i.e., raising wages, narrowing differentials, and organizing blacks, women, and ethnically diverse workers--without resorting to strikes.

Shredding Paper

Shredding Paper
Author: Michael G. Hillard
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2021-01-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501753177

From the early twentieth century until the 1960s, Maine led the nation in paper production. The state could have earned a reputation as the Detroit of paper production, however, the industry eventually slid toward failure. What happened? Shredding Paper unwraps the changing US political economy since 1960, uncovers how the paper industry defined and interacted with labor relations, and peels away the layers of history that encompassed the rise and fall of Maine's mighty paper industry. Michael G. Hillard deconstructs the paper industry's unusual technological and economic histories. For a century, the story of the nation's most widely read glossy magazines and card stock was one of capitalism, work, accommodation, and struggle. Local paper companies in Maine dominated the political landscape, controlling economic, workplace, land use, and water use policies. Hillard examines the many contributing factors surrounding how Maine became a paper powerhouse and then shows how it lost that position to changing times and foreign interests. Through a retelling of labor relations and worker experiences from the late nineteenth century up until the late 1990s, Hillard highlights how national conglomerates began absorbing family-owned companies over time, which were subject to Wall Street demands for greater short-term profits after 1980. This new political economy impacted the economy of the entire state and destroyed Maine's once-vaunted paper industry. Shredding Paper truthfully and transparently tells the great and grim story of blue-collar workers and their families and analyzes how paper workers formulated a "folk" version of capitalism's history in their industry. Ultimately, Hillard offers a telling example of the demise of big industry in the United States.

One Day Stronger

One Day Stronger
Author: Thomas Nelson
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-01-05
Genre:
ISBN: 9781953943002

In August, 2017, the death knell sounded for yet another troubled American manufacturer: Appleton Coated, a historic paper mill in the Wisconsin village of Combined Locks. The mill and its parts were sold to a receiver who planned to sell them for scrap, eliminating hundreds of jobs and devastating a community. But then the unlikely happened. Dedicated union workers teamed with a lone local official to leverage an obscure legal strategy proposed by a community-minded attorney to stop the sell-off, enable a profitable new business plan, and save a cherished way of life. Now that local official tells the story behind this remarkable turnaround. As county executive of Outagamie County, Thomas Nelson is a progressive Democrat fighting for workers' rights in one of the Republican-leaning areas that have made his home state a battleground in national politics. One Day Stronger is an inspiring saga of how people power can triumph even in the face of indifference and outright hostility from powerful political forces. As the Appleton Coated mill and its workers struggled, Governor Scott Walker and his allies in the state legislature focused instead on channeling billions in state funds to Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics firm offering job promises that would soon prove hollow. It took a groundswell of community anger-along with creative legal and political maneuvering by the United Steelworkers union and their local supporters-to force the receiver who'd taken control of the mill to change course, reviving its business prospects rather than shutting it down forever.Today the mill in Combined Locks is going strong again. But similar companies continue to face threats like the one that almost destroyed the mill. Author Nelson explains the crucial role that labor unions have traditionally played in making prosperity widely available to American families-and how they can do the same in the future through partnerships with forward-looking businesspeople and political leaders committed to economic justice.In a world where corporate greed and financial engineering have crushed the dreams of countless Americans, One Day Stronger offers a road map for fighting back-and winning.