Book Fridays: the struggle for labor rights

Facing South's bi-weekly listing features new books about the U.S. South and books written by Southern writers.

Covering for the Bosses: Labor and the Southern Press by Joseph B. Atkins, 280 pages, University Press of Mississippi (July 2008)

From the publisher: Covering for the Bosses probes the difficult relationship between the press and organized labor in the South from the past to the present day. In gathering materials for this book, veteran journalist Joseph B. Atkins crisscrossed the region, interviewing workers, managers, labor organizers, immigrants, activists, and journalists, and canvassing labor archives. Covering for the Bosses shows how, with few exceptions, the press has been a key partner in the powerful alliance of business and political interests that keep the South the nation's least-unionized region.

For more information about the book, visit the University Press of Mississippi.

Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice, by Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Fernando Gapasin, 324 pages, University of California Press (June 23, 2008)

From the publisher: Candid, incisive, and accessible, Solidarity Divided is a critical examination of labor's current crisis and a plan for a bold new way forward into the twenty-first century. Authors Bill Fletcher and Fernando Gapasin chart changes in U.S. manufacturing, examine the onslaught of globalization, consider the influence of the environment on labor, and provide the first broad analysis of the fallout from the 2000 and 2004 elections on the U.S. labor movement. Ultimately calling for a wide-ranging reexamination of the ideological and structural underpinnings of today's labor movement, this is essential reading for understanding how the battle for social justice can be fought and won.

For more information about the book, visit the University of California Press.