Fagforeninger

In 1903, Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company in a small Detroit workshop. Five years later, he introduced the Model T and met with extraordinary commercial success. Between 1910 and 1914, he developed mass production and made the conveyor a symbol of the auto-industrial age. Then, in 1914, Ford acquired an overnight reputation as humanitarian, philanthropist and social reformer; and simultaneously infuriated the business community and stunned social reformers with his announcement of the outrageous Five Dollar Day.More than simply high-wage policy, the Five Dollar Day attempted to solve attitudinal and behavioral problems with an effort to change the worker's domestic environment. Half of the five dollars represented "wages" and the other half was called "profits"-which the worker received only when he met specific standards of efficiency and home life that accorded with the ideal of an American way of life which the company felt was the basis for industrial efficiency.The unique and short-lived Ford program did not succeed, yet its significance as an early managerial strategy goes beyond the boundaries of success or failure. The Ford Motor Company was uniquely situated in the historical evolution of labor management and industrial technology, and this readable study of that evolution, which highlights the Ford workers, is a chapter in the larger history of labor and work in America.

On the basis of systematic research and personal experience, For We Are Sold, I and My People uncovers some of the social costs of modern production. Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly peels off the labels--"Made in Taiwan," "Assembled in Mexico"--and the trade names--RCA, Sony, General Motors, United Technologies, General Electric, Mattel, Chrysler, American Hospital Supply--to reveal the hidden human dimensions of present-day multinational manufacturing procedures.Focusing on Cuidad Juarez, located at the United States-Mexican border, Fernandez-Kelly examines the reality of maquiladoras, the hundreds of assembly plants that since the 1960s have been used by the Mexican government as part of its development strategy. Most maquiladoras function as subsidiaries of large U.S.-based corporations and a majority of the employees are women. Drawing from current knowledge in political economy and anthropology, this study focuses on one common denominator of the international division of labor--a growing proletariat of Third World women exploited by what some experts are calling "the global assembly line."

"Craig has become a Pied Piper, inspiring students in hundreds of schools across the United States and Canada to join his crusade." -- New York TimesHere is the dramatic and moving story of one child's transformation from a normal, middle-class kid from the suburbs to an activist, fighting against child labor on the world stage of international human rights.Making headlines around the globe, Graig Keilburger and his organization, Free the Children, which he founded at the age of twelve, have brought unprecedented attention to the worldwide abuse of children's rights. Free the Children is a passionate and astounding story and a moving testament to the power that children and young adults have to change the world, as witnessed through the achievements of one remarkable young man.

Ulvetider og skiftespor er fortællingen om de 20 turbulente år i dansk fagbevægelse fra storkonflikt og pinsepakke i 1998 til fusionen mellem LO og FTF, der i 2019 blev til Fagbevægelsens Hovedorganisation, FH. Poul Smidt skriver om de politiske angreb på fagforeningernes liv og virke, men også om nogle af de interne kampe, der svækkede fagbevægelsen, mens de gode græd, de onde lo – og de gule fagforeninger fik flere medlemmer. Vi hører om bruddet mellem LO og Socialdemokratiet, et af de skarpe hjørner i den nyere danmarkshistorie, men også en betingelse for det nye samarbejde mellem faglærte og ufaglærte fra LO og funktionærerne fra FTF. Det er en bog om Danmarks nyere faglige historie i en globaliseret verden, om lønkampe, kvindekampe, magtkampe, afskeden med eksklusivaftaler og arbejdsmiljøet som politisk kastebold. Og om LO, der nåede at blive 117 år, inden man fik Lizette Risgaard som sin første – og eneste – kvindelige formand. Undervejs kastes der lys på nyere dansk politik set fra den faglige kant med fokus på statsministrene Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Lars Løkke Rasmussen og Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Og det er ikke lige kønt alt sammen.

Drømme og støv starter med at fortælle om en faglig blokade på en byggeplads ved Den kongelige Mønt. Konflikten mellem de danske bygningsarbejdere, der blokerede pladsen, og de polske bygningsarbejdere inde på pladsen blev hurtigt bitter og personlig. Den økonomiske krise havde netop ramt verden, og for bygningsarbejderne på hver side af belejringen handler kampen ikke om teoretiske begreber som ‘arbejdskraftens frie bevægelighed’ og ‘den danske model’, men om hvem der fremover ville kunne forsørge sin familie ved at arbejde som bygningsarbejdere i Danmark. Forfatteren ender med at stå med våben i hænderne over for en lige så velbevæbnet polsk kollega. Det er bl.a. den oplevelse, der har fået forfatteren til at lede efter nye og mere globale strategier, der vil gøre det muligt for den danske og den polske håndværker at stå side om side ved den næste blokade.