Labor in America (PDF)

Even since the last edition of this milestone text was releasedsix years ago, unions have continued to shed members; unionmembership in the private sector of the economy has fallen tolevels not seen since the nineteenth century; the forces ofeconomic liberalization (neo-liberalism), capital mobility, andglobalization have affected measurably the material standard ofliving enjoyed by workers in the United States; and massimmigration from the Southern Hemisphere and Asia has continued torestructure the domestic labor force.
Yet even in the face of anti-union legislation, a continuingdecline in the number of organized workers, and the fear ofstateless, if not faceless terrorism--the shadow of"911" in which we still live, in preparing this newedition of his classic text Professor Dubofsky has hewn to thelines laid out in the previous seven in seeking to encouragetoday's students of labor history to learn about those whobuilt the United States and who will shape its future.
In addition to taking the narrative right up to the present, arecent history that includes the election of 2008 as well as thetumultuous blow suffered by the U.S. and world economy in 2008-09,this eighth edition features an entirely new (fourth) bank ofphotographs and, in light of the avalanche of new scholarly workover the last decade, a complete overhauling of the book'sextensive and critical Further Readings section in order to notethe very best works from the profuse recent scholarship thatexplores the history of working people in all its diversity.