From paid vacations to social security to the 8-hour workday, unions have played a prominent role in enhancing the lives of American workers, families, and communities. Want to learn more? Pick up a copy of one of the books or movies below to broaden your perspective and learn more about the importance of membership.

And if you have something you’d like to recommend, please send it to us at [email protected]

Books

• The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon – William M. Adler
• Work Song – Ivan Doig
• STRIKE! – Jeremy Brecher 
• Sometimes a Great Notion* – Ken Kesey
• The Crusades of César Chávez: A Biography – Miriam Pawel
• In Dubious Battle – John Steinbeck
• Triangle – Katharine Weber
• Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor* – Steven Greenhouse
• The Big Squeeze – Steven Greenhouse
• The Union of Their Dreams: Power, Hope, and Struggle in Cesar Chavez’s Farm Worker Movement – Miriam Pawel
• Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World – Paul Buhle
• Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class – Jefferson R. Cowie
• More Than They Bargained for: Scott Walker, Unions, and the Fight for Wisconsin – Jason Stein
• Poor Workers’ Unions: Rebuilding Labor from Below – Vanessa Tait
• Flesh & Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy – Albert Marrin
• Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America – Les Standiford
• Janesville: An American Story* – Amy Goldstein
• “They’re Bankrupting Us!”: And 20 Other Myths about Unions – Bill Fletcher Jr.
• A History of America in Ten Strikes – Erik Loomis
• No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age – Jane F. McAlevey
• A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy – Jane F. McAlevey
• There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America – Phillip Dray
• Why Unions Matter – Michael D. Yates