Support a Progressive Independent Bookseller, Read Great Books and Support Workplace Fairness!
Do you like the convenience of shopping online, but want to make sure your purchases support progressive, unionized companies? Worried about the decline of the independent bookseller?
Workplace Fairness has a relationship with Powell's Books, a progressive unionized bookstore in Portland, Oregon. Whenever you make a purchase from Powell's Books using our special partner link, Powell's will donate a percentage of your purchase to Workplace Fairness.
We've also put together a "Recommended Reading List" of books that our staff and site visitors have recommended, whether it's for learning more about workplace issues, gift-giving, or sheer entertainment. Read something that you think our visitors will like? E-mail us your pick, and we'll add some of the best submissions to our Recommended Reading List.
Workplace Fairness Staff Picks:
Perfectly Legal: The covert campaign to rig our tax system to benefit the super rich--and cheat everybody else: by David Cay Johnston
The title says it all. Johnston shows how the wealthiest among us conspire successfully to get all the breaks and leave the rest of America holding the bag.
Dan Mahoney, San Francisco, California
What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America: by Thomas Frank
You don't have to live just a few miles from the Kansas border like I do to appreciate Frank's incisive political analysis about why working-class people consistently vote against their economic interests. Frank's commentary about what's been happening over the last few decades in the red states is all the more brilliant when you realize this book was written before November 2, 2004.
Paula Brantner, Kansas City, Missouri
The Working Poor: Invisible in America: by David K. Shipler
Meet those for whom the American Dream is a nightmare. Shipler doesn't just talk about the poor, but tells the compelling stories of working people in their own voices and tries to offer some persuasive solutions that make you wonder why more policymakers haven't thought of them before.
Paula Brantner, Kansas City, Missouri
Dune: by Frank Herbert
This is one of those books that proves there’s more to science fiction than rocket ships and laser guns. It’s the weirdly topical story of how a downtrodden working class overthrows a theocratic and plutocratic empire. There are these cool mile-long desert worms, too.
Glenn Simpson, San Francisco, California
Our Site Visitors Suggest:
The Betrayal of Work: by Beth Shulman
As a companion to Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed and David K. Shipler's The Working Poor, I recommend Beth Shulman's The Betrayal of Work. Short and to the point, it assembles statistics and individual stories, and gets the ball rolling on the making a values issue out of the way low paid, unregulated, non-unionized jobs erode the value of work itself.
Tom Smucker, submitted via e-mail
Civil Rights in Peril - the Targeting of Arabs & Muslims: by Elaine C. Hagopian, ed.
A frightening look at the growth of police state tactics, and how local law enforcement and private businesses profit from oppressive immigration laws.
Mark Kleiman, Los Angeles, California
Downsizing in America: Reality, Causes, and Consequences: by William J. Baumol, Alan S. Blinder and Edward N. Wolff
Rich in empirical evidence, if not pro-worker in perspective, this study by moderate to liberal academic economists supports the thesis that much "downsizing" sheds workers (e.g., older employees with relatively high salaries) without a full appreciation of their contribution to the bottom line, whether due to stereotypes, excessive focus on short-run results, or other misconceptions; as a result, many a RIF accomplishes little or no corporate reform, and is soon followed by "upsizing," in which a firm hires less expensive, less productive workers.
Dan Kohrman, Washington, DC
Selling Ben Cheever: Back to Square One in a Service Economy: by Benjamin Cheever
If the trade imbalance, outsourcing and the implosion of the dollar continue apace, this little volume will read less like the notes of a dilettante and more like a survivalist travel guide to the service sector.
Walt Auvil, Parkersburg, West Virginia
The Stories of Those Who Have Inspired Us:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: by Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou recounts her early life after she and her brothers, ages 3 and 4, arrive in Stamps, Arkansas, having been shipped "To Whom It May Concern," in the midst of their parents' divorce. Maya Angelou and this novel has long been a source of personal inspiration. Knowing the hardships that Angelou endured before finding her voice gives me strength to overcome and hopes for the dawn of a new day.
Janet E. Hill, Athens, Georgia
Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement: by John Lewis
Congressman John Lewis' autobiography is an incredibly interesting and beautifully written description of his first hand experiences with the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins, experiences as a Freedom Rider, speaking at the March on Washington, Bobby Kennedy's assassination-and the list goes on. It gives the reader a wonderful opportunity to experience first hand so many important events in the Civil Rights movement.
Yona Rosen, Dallas, Texas
Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson: by Robert Caro
A fascinating look at how an ambitious, personally reprehensible, human being achieved power, and, along the way, shoved important aspects of the civil rights movement down the throats of his Jim Crow buddies. National Book Award winner.
Glen Savits, Morristown, New Jersey
Dreams From My Father - A story of Race and Inheritance: by Barack Obama
This autobiography written in 1995 describes the personal history of the newest senator from Illinois - again a beautifully written memoir and personal philosophical musings on race issues in America.
Yona Rosen, Dallas, Texas
Not About the Workplace, But Still Worth Reading:
The Gormenghast Novels: Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone: by Mervyn Peake
Words - do you love them?
Walt Auvil, Parkersburg, West Virginia
The Bear Comes Home: by Rafi Zabor
Hysterical book on the growth of an artist, a young saxophone player who has caught fire. But what to do when the artist is a 400-lb. Kodiak bear?
Mark Kleiman, Los Angeles, California
Doctor Rat: by William Kotzwinkle
A cri de couer against oppression - told from the perspective of a laboratory rat. Delicious for adults and accessible to pre-teens. A wonderful fable.
Mark Kleiman, Los Angeles, California
The Phantom Tollbooth: by Norton Juster
A wise and marvelous story wrapped in the guise of a children's fable - but a children's tale in the model of Alice in Wonderland and Gulliver's Travels. The hero, young Milo, has the traditional urban disease: Wherever he is, he thinks about where he's going next, and whatever he's doing, his mind is on what he'll be doing next - until a magical tollbooth appears in his room, and he is transported into a world showing him the luscious value of the present.
Mark Kleiman, Los Angeles, California
The "Gossip Girls" Series: Gossip Girl, You Know You Love Me, All I Want Is Everything, I Like It Like That, and You're The One That I Want: by Cecily Von Ziegesar
I recommend the "Gossip Girls" series to teens because it has something that all teens have in their lives -- drama! The stories are set in one of the most exciting places on earth, New York City, and once you start reading the Gossip Girls books, you'll have a hard time putting them down.
Molly Chaw Hendriksen, Oakland, California
