Teaching and Learning about Labor Issues

Iqbal Masih and the Crusaders Against Child Slavery
By Susan Kuklin, Henry Hold and Company, New York, 1998. A journey through the history of child labor and slavery through the lens of Igbal Masih, a Pakistani boy who under bondage was forced to work in a carpet actory. He became an international human rights activist by risking his life to tell his story and work to end the system of child slavery in his country and around the world. Groups of American and European middle school students actively took up his cause and raised tremedous awareness of the plight of children like Iqbal.

Jessie De La Cruz: A Profile of a United Farm Worker
By Gary Soto, Persea Books, New York, 2000. Jessie De La Cruz was the United Farm Worker's first female organizer. This story of her life begins with her childhood in southern California, where she was born into a poor migrant family and started working at the age of five. She fought for worker's rights, including the right for workers to own farm land and she eventually became an owner of a cooperative farm herself. Her story is an inspriational account of one woman's fight against injustice. Appropriate for grades 6-12.

Levi's Children: Coming to Terms with Human Rights in the Global Marketplace
By Karl Schoenberger, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2000. Using the example of Levi Strauss as a model of corporate responsibility, the author critiques the company's decisions and places them in the larger context of the human rights debate. He makes a case for corporate transparency and systemic regulation of business. While sensitive to the interests and limitations of multinationals, he calls on them to engage pro-actively in protecting the rights of foreign workers.

The Lexicon of Labor
By R.Emmett Murray, The New Press, New York, 1998.
This book features informative descriptions of over 500 key places, people, and events in American labor history, from Eugene Debs to Cesar Chavez. It also includes explanations of major legislation, definiations of key legal terminology, and complete listings of all the member unions of the AFL-CIO in the U.S. A practical, handy resource for students and an ideal introduction to the history of labor in America.

Made in America: Immigrant Students in Our Public Schools
By Laurie Olsen, The New Press, New York, 1997.
the author spent over 2 years at Madison High School attending classes and interviewing members of the school community about the changing demographics of the student body, where over 20 percent were born in another country and over a third of the students speak English as a Second Language. Through their stories we discover the contemporary version of the Americanization of immigrants. Olsen explores what it looks and feels like to got to school and to teach in a time of increasingly complex cultural relations.