Employment Books

This book written in a way that is easy to understand while giving the reader all of the details that he or she needs to truly understand this amazing patriarch who is held in high redard by thise of the Jewish, Christain, and Muslim faiths. Filled with accurate information, helpful maps, and beautiful illustrations this book is a must for thise with an interest in the history of religion.

Joyous child (female) involved in her mother's world. Daughter and mother live in a bright city apartment. Helpful, cheerful humans involved in neighborhood life. A real find!.

For those of us without formal economics training, Card and Krueger present an easy-to-read alternative view of the minimum wage controvery. They undermine powerfully the long held assumption that minimum wages decrease job opportunities for low wage workers, and elegantly descibe what poor workers have known for years.

This book was used in a class my senior year of college. It proved to be very helpful, and even now 6 years and 3 jobs later I still find myself using it as a guide. I'm not sure if it's been updated since 1996, so it may be missing some of the web and email tips, but it's still the best solid advice I've seen in all my searching for job books.

Much is rightly said about generosity towards the poor - yet generosity leaves the recipient inferior. It has always seemed to me that there is far too little said about simple justice, justice being about equality. Christ's "the poor you have always with you" too often seems to be taken only as a guarantee that there will always be the opportunity to be generous. Should it not also strike us as a rebuke? Is widespread poverty inevitable? This book addresses that question.

Some think of economics as a sort of super accountancy, as though to sum up the sums of all the bookkeepers in the land. Not to deny the usefulness of that, John Young contends in his new book _The Natural Economy_ that economics springs from something much more simple and fundamental - the quite natural inclination of us all to save effort in getting what we need in order to live.

To do this, we swap things, since people differ in their skills. Man is the only animal that swaps. Economics is at root the study of these exchanges. As such, it is the study of what is at the very root of the well-being of society - and it is truly a science of plenty since exchanges promote prosperity. In an economic act of exchanging, both parties to the exchange obtain, fundamentally, the saving of effort.

It is in this light that any artificial restrictions on these mutual exchanges are to be seen as a sort of brake on plenty. This is the study of abundance - utterly different from that perverse definition of economics which I had to learn as a schoolboy, that "economics is the study of the application of scarce means to alternative ends," the study of scarcity! Yet many have regarded economics in this light.

So, where do we find such artificial restrictions? According to the author, they abound. Thus, any influence which detracts from the mutual benefit in an exchange will be to the disadvantage of one, or perhaps of both, parties. For example, a monopoly supplier can dictate the price terms for what he sells, sometime! s even to the point of extortion. Or, a trade union, by its policies, can be as guilty of extortionate behaviour as the veriest 'robber baron' entrepreneur.

As a central part of what he has to say, the author deals clearly and at length with a notion much spoken of, yet frequently misunderstood - the common good. Some may wish to read the book for this section alone. It is in terms of fostering the common good, in the face of that which tends to corrupt and reduce it, that the book sees economic science. In this light, it is seen that there are many practices we condone which oppose it.

The book is by no means a detailed treatise on what is wrong and how to fix it. It simply points to certain ills by way of object lesson while leading us to understand the nature of economic reality, and shows in the process that there is an ethical dimension to economics. In its quiet and exact way it is more radically revolutionary than the works of Marx. It is more radical, because it goes more surely to the root of economics. It is also revolutionary. But far from advocating violent revolution, the book begins its revolution by engendering an understanding of what is wrong, by first giving us an inkling of what ought to be.

(John Ziegler teaches at the Centre for Thomistic Studies, Sydney, Australia.)

At the core of this wonderful work are six rich and evocative portraits of fascinating women from the early history of Massachusetts, each involved in the clothing trades. In her research, Miller has called upon diaries, contemporaneous journalistic accounts and public records, seeming to have left no scrap of historical cloth on the floor. Her careful attention to detail is as remarkable as it is welcome. For all this, the narrative is paced quickly and efficiently, and the result might have been fashioned--miraculously--from a single piece of cloth. Miller's vivid prose brings to life us an important and much-overlooked chapter in American history.

"Negotiating a Labor Contract" by Charles S. Loughran is an outstanding how-to book. It breaks down a highly complex subject in an easily understood manner. There is no legal mumbo-jumbo in this book - just a practical, to the point, step-by-step overview of the entire labor contract negotiating process. The book benefits not only the labor relations professional. Operations people will gain a strong understanding of the negotiating process, including the preparation required prior to beginnning bargaining. It will allow management to position themselves to get the best deal possible. The book's appendix includes detailed checklists on, among other items, negotiations and strike contingency preparation. It also includes a succinct overview of the law controlling labor negotiations. The book was indispensable for me as a member of the negotiating team during a protracted nine-month negotiation that included a union reneg, a tie ratification vote, elimination of dues check-off and declaration of impasse. With each twist and turn in the road, there are people who gladly will offer advice. Throughout it all, Charles Loughran was there to keep me pointed in the right direction. I also found the book invaluable when I was assigned to be chief spokesperson for several small bargaining unit negotiations. I recommend the book strongly to anyone who is involved, in any way, in labor contract negotiations. I must include in this group, members of Union negotiating committees. Union reps who read this book would benefit greatly (and so would their members). It has been three years since I read the book, but I refer back to it frequently. I also recommend it to others whenever possible. My hope is that the author is able to keep the book up-to-date. The second edition is now six years old. At least one line of his advice, that "management negotiators should seek to include a 'zipper' clause" (p. 465) appears to be a concept no longer in vogue among labor attorneys. Nevertheless, to me, Charles Loughran's work will always be a classic of business books. Don't negotiate a labor contract without it.

This is a beautifully written account, written by a Nigerian woman, about the gendered academic and socio-economic situation in Igboland, with implications for all of Nigeria, even Africa and the world. An important study for anyone trying to understand the needs and struggles of historically repressed people-groups. It is open-ended, as well - no simplistic conclusions - so it really makes you think!

The Black as a laborer and not simply as a slave was a novel concept in1927 when Charles H. Wesley wrote his treatise. Beginning with the Compromise of 1850, which highlights American sectionalism, he compares the plantation system in the South utilizing cheap human labor to the industrial North and West which relied on cheap mechanical labor.

According to Wesley slavery and industrialism were fundamentally incompatible. It was not because Blacks could not learn new industrial skills, but because slavery bound both races inextricably in a system that could not successfully industrialize. Wesley shows how plantation and freed individuals learned specialized skills prior to the Civil War. He then proceeds to answer contemporary perceptions about Black labor, such as whether Blacks would be willing to work with emancipation. During the Civil War Blacks served as laborers and soldiers. After the war antebellum opinion that Blacks would not work was disproved during reconstruction.

Another theme is the difficulty black laborers had in attempting to organize with white workers. Still from 1900-1910, Wesley notes that in the competition for skilled jobs and economic progress, Blacks advanced into manufacturing, mechanical, trade and transportation jobs. Wesley concludes by optimistically noting that by 1927 the door was opening to larger industrial opportunity. In his analytic essay Wesley shows how Black laborers as slaves and freedmen struggling and evolved as workers to surmount obstacles in order to improve their economic position in industry.

A key first point of Wesley's argument is whether black workers were willing and had the capacity to learn skilled industrial jobs. To prove his point, first of all Wesley must elevate Blacks from simply slave workers to that of laborers capable of attaining specialized skills. He proves that it was the system, not the race, that was holding back southern industrialization. Wesley's evidence is the advertisements placed in the New York Tribune, August 16, 1855 and January 9, 1855; Columbia South Carolinian January 2, 1855 and other papers calling for slave carpenters, blacksmiths, coopers, mechanics, machinery repairers, etc. Attainment of these skills proves that Black laborers were capable of industrial work.

In 1927 Wesley made the argument that slavery was incompatible with industrialism. The problem was not that the race was incapable of attaining the necessary skills, but that the economic system based on slavery was incompatible.

The New Professional should be required reading for every college graduate - traditional or non-traditional age. If you are a traditional age student, or one who does not have significant experience in the workforce, you will learn the facts about life in organizations. Mr. Holton points out the types of behaviors and attitudes most likely to enhance your long-term success, and those that will short-circuit it. His advice is solid and will truly help the new professional make the most of the transition period between college and successful professional.