We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now
The Global Uprising Against Poverty Wages
Published on 27. February 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-0-8070-8177-8 (ISBN)
Description
The story of low-wage workers rising up around the world to demand respect and a living wage.
Tracing a new labor movement sparked and sustained by low-wage workers from across the globe, "We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now" is an urgent, illuminating look at globalization as seen through the eyes of workers-activists: small farmers, fast-food servers, retail workers, hotel housekeepers, home-healthcare aides, airport workers, and adjunct professors who are fighting for respect, safety, and a living wage. With original photographs by Liz Cooke and drawing on interviews with activists in many US cities and countries around the world, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Mexico, South Africa, and the Philippines, it features stories of resistance and rebellion, as well as reflections on hope and change as it rises from the bottom up.
Tracing a new labor movement sparked and sustained by low-wage workers from across the globe, "We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now" is an urgent, illuminating look at globalization as seen through the eyes of workers-activists: small farmers, fast-food servers, retail workers, hotel housekeepers, home-healthcare aides, airport workers, and adjunct professors who are fighting for respect, safety, and a living wage. With original photographs by Liz Cooke and drawing on interviews with activists in many US cities and countries around the world, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Mexico, South Africa, and the Philippines, it features stories of resistance and rebellion, as well as reflections on hope and change as it rises from the bottom up.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Boston, MA
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 150 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8070-8177-8 (9780807081778)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2018
Beacon Press
€17.49
Available for download
Person
Annelise Orleck is professor of history at Dartmouth College and the author of five books on the history of US women, politics, immigration, and activism, including Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty. She lives in Thetford Center, Vermont.
Content
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PART I
POVERTY WAGES, WE’RE NOT LOVING IT: ROOTS AND BRANCHES OF A GLOBAL UPRISING
PROLOGUE
Brands of Wage Slavery, Marks of Labor Solidarity
CHAPTER 1
Inequality Rising
CHAPTER 2
All We’re Asking for Is a Little Respect
CHAPTER 3
“We Are Workers, Not Slaves”
CHAPTER 4
“I Consider the Union My Second Mother”
CHAPTER 5
Hotel Housekeepers Go Norma Rae
CHAPTER 6
United for Respect: OUR Walmart and the Uprising of Retail Workers
CHAPTER 7
Supersize My Wages: Fast-Food Workers and the March of History
CHAPTER 8
1911–2011: History and the Global Labor Struggle
CHAPTER 9
People Power Movements in the Twenty-First Century
CHAPTER 10
“You Can’t Dismantle Capitalism Without Dismantling Patriarchy”
CHAPTER 11
This Is What Solidarity Feels Like
PART II
THE RISING OF THE GLOBAL PRECARIAT
CHAPTER 12
Respect, Let It Go, ’Cause Baby, You’re a Firework
CHAPTER 13
Realizing Precarity: “We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now”
CHAPTER 14
Days of Disruption, 2016
CHAPTER 15
The New Civil Rights Movement
CHAPTER 16
Counting Victories, Girding for an Uphill Struggle
CHAPTER 17
Huelga de Hambre: Hunger and Hunger Strikes Rising
CHAPTER 18
Social Movement Unionism and the Souls of Workers
CHAPTER 19
“Contractualization”
CHAPTER 20
“Stand Up, Live Better”: Organizing for Respect at Walmart
PART III
GARMENT WORKERS’ ORGANIZING IN THE AGE OF FAST FASHION
CHAPTER 21
“If People Would Think About Us, We Wouldn’t Die”: Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality
CHAPTER 22
How the Rag Trade Went Global
CHAPTER 23
“The Girl Effect”
CHAPTER 24
“Made with Love in Bangladesh”
CHAPTER 25
“We Are Not a Pocket Revolution”: Bangladeshi Garment Workers Since Rana Plaza
CHAPTER 26
“A Khmer Would Rather Work for Free Than Work Without Dignity”
CHAPTER 27
“After Pol Pot, We Need a Good Life”
CHAPTER 28
Consciousness-Raising, Cambodia Style
CHAPTER 29
Filipina Garment Workers: Organizing in the Zone
PART IV
NO RICE WITHOUT FREEDOM, NO FREEDOM WITHOUT RICE: THE GLOBAL UPRISING OF PEASANTS AND FARMWORKERS
CHAPTER 30
“No Land No Life”: Uprisings of the “Landless,” 2017
CHAPTER 31
“Agrarian Reform in Reverse”: Food Crises, Land Grabs, and Migrant Labor
CHAPTER 32
Milk with Dignity
CHAPTER 33
“Like the Time of Cesar Chavez”: Strawberry Fields, Exploitation Forever
CHAPTER 34
Bitter Grapes
CHAPTER 35
“What Are We Rising For?”
CHAPTER 36
“These Borders Are Not Our Borders”
CHAPTER 37
After the Colonizers, RICE
PART V
“THEY SAID IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE”: LOCAL VICTORIES AND TRANSFORMATIVE VISIONS
CHAPTER 38
“We Can Turn Around the Labor Movement. We Can Rebuild Power and We Can Win!”
CHAPTER 39
Flashes of Hope
CHAPTER 40
Big Ideas, New Models, Small Courtesies Build a New World
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
INDEX
PART I
POVERTY WAGES, WE’RE NOT LOVING IT: ROOTS AND BRANCHES OF A GLOBAL UPRISING
PROLOGUE
Brands of Wage Slavery, Marks of Labor Solidarity
CHAPTER 1
Inequality Rising
CHAPTER 2
All We’re Asking for Is a Little Respect
CHAPTER 3
“We Are Workers, Not Slaves”
CHAPTER 4
“I Consider the Union My Second Mother”
CHAPTER 5
Hotel Housekeepers Go Norma Rae
CHAPTER 6
United for Respect: OUR Walmart and the Uprising of Retail Workers
CHAPTER 7
Supersize My Wages: Fast-Food Workers and the March of History
CHAPTER 8
1911–2011: History and the Global Labor Struggle
CHAPTER 9
People Power Movements in the Twenty-First Century
CHAPTER 10
“You Can’t Dismantle Capitalism Without Dismantling Patriarchy”
CHAPTER 11
This Is What Solidarity Feels Like
PART II
THE RISING OF THE GLOBAL PRECARIAT
CHAPTER 12
Respect, Let It Go, ’Cause Baby, You’re a Firework
CHAPTER 13
Realizing Precarity: “We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now”
CHAPTER 14
Days of Disruption, 2016
CHAPTER 15
The New Civil Rights Movement
CHAPTER 16
Counting Victories, Girding for an Uphill Struggle
CHAPTER 17
Huelga de Hambre: Hunger and Hunger Strikes Rising
CHAPTER 18
Social Movement Unionism and the Souls of Workers
CHAPTER 19
“Contractualization”
CHAPTER 20
“Stand Up, Live Better”: Organizing for Respect at Walmart
PART III
GARMENT WORKERS’ ORGANIZING IN THE AGE OF FAST FASHION
CHAPTER 21
“If People Would Think About Us, We Wouldn’t Die”: Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality
CHAPTER 22
How the Rag Trade Went Global
CHAPTER 23
“The Girl Effect”
CHAPTER 24
“Made with Love in Bangladesh”
CHAPTER 25
“We Are Not a Pocket Revolution”: Bangladeshi Garment Workers Since Rana Plaza
CHAPTER 26
“A Khmer Would Rather Work for Free Than Work Without Dignity”
CHAPTER 27
“After Pol Pot, We Need a Good Life”
CHAPTER 28
Consciousness-Raising, Cambodia Style
CHAPTER 29
Filipina Garment Workers: Organizing in the Zone
PART IV
NO RICE WITHOUT FREEDOM, NO FREEDOM WITHOUT RICE: THE GLOBAL UPRISING OF PEASANTS AND FARMWORKERS
CHAPTER 30
“No Land No Life”: Uprisings of the “Landless,” 2017
CHAPTER 31
“Agrarian Reform in Reverse”: Food Crises, Land Grabs, and Migrant Labor
CHAPTER 32
Milk with Dignity
CHAPTER 33
“Like the Time of Cesar Chavez”: Strawberry Fields, Exploitation Forever
CHAPTER 34
Bitter Grapes
CHAPTER 35
“What Are We Rising For?”
CHAPTER 36
“These Borders Are Not Our Borders”
CHAPTER 37
After the Colonizers, RICE
PART V
“THEY SAID IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE”: LOCAL VICTORIES AND TRANSFORMATIVE VISIONS
CHAPTER 38
“We Can Turn Around the Labor Movement. We Can Rebuild Power and We Can Win!”
CHAPTER 39
Flashes of Hope
CHAPTER 40
Big Ideas, New Models, Small Courtesies Build a New World
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
INDEX