Employment Books

The Brotherhoods of Color written by Eric Arnesen is a well documented and historical account of African-American men and women attempts at obtaining social equality and opportunity while constructing and working working on in America's railroads. Arnesen masterfully provides dramactic details of Black railroad workers struggle to change a both the midset of the railroad industry, mangers, and their fellow white workers.

While tempted, the Author limits his judgements and personal perferences about the legal outcomes of the countless legal proceedings to overcome racist practices and obstacles. Instead, he draws the reader into to public policy debates with open ended ideas and powerful suggestions. His analysis of the African-American experiences neither surprising or profound. However, the effort to provide a foundation of truths and facts is achieved.

The reader will be enlightened by such candid facts and news reports from the African-American perspective, obtained from labor newspapers and journals. The Brotherhood of Color is an excellent read and a strong addition to the body of knowledge that is often too silent on the subject matter. The Brothhoods of Color is a Classic.

My mother bought this book and loaned it to me to read. If I had a daughter, I would give it to her to read. These women are the unsung heroes of time and history. From frontier days to modern civilization, women have always been the backbone of any social change. Women have fought for equal pay, equal rights and better working conditions. Women have fought for the right to vote. They fight to better society. They fight to keep the family farms. They raised children and worked in factories to keep food on the table. They may have been subjected to men and laws ~~ but they have always fought to have a better life.

This book is very inspiring. Buckeye women are strong and intelligent women who didn't let prejudice stop them from achieving their goals. They fought for what they believed in. And some of the Buckeye women have moved onto the national platform ~~ bringing Ohio into the forefront of history. It's a fascinating read ~~ very insightful and for those who don't care for long descriptives, this book is brief and straight to the point. I didn't feel like they've left anything out ~~ in fact, this book has piqued my interest in Ohioans and read more on Ohio history. It's a fascinating look into time. It also makes me very thankful that my foremothers fought to give me better opportunities in life ~~ it's a book that everyone should read.

4-17-03

That Dr. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr. is searching for the next level of diversity is not unusual considering his stature as a respected guru in the field. But when Dr. Thomas says diversity has become a politicized "code word for affirmative action," and we - meaning organizations and society - are going to have a hard time getting to any next level because we're stuck in muddle-headed thinking about diversity, well, that is unusual! (He defines affirmative action as "the recruitment, promotion and retention of members of 'protected classes'" in the United States.)

Thomas believes most organizational leaders, as well as society, have accepted the politicized definition of diversity, which positions it as a win/lose power struggle. We understand diversity through the lens of struggle because that's how we understand differences. The power struggle is a legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and of affirmative action, and we would argue it is also a legacy of other institutions which the United States has used to approach differences, such as Indian reservations, slavery, segregation and Jim Crow laws, Japanese internment, to name a few).

If you are looking for a book to clarify your thinking about diversity, the legacies of Civil Rights and affirmative action, and how to improve people's ability to manage diversity, this book is essential reading. If you are looking for a thorough description of what the next level of diversity is, you won't find it. If we understand Dr. Thomas correctly, we have to master the craft of diversity management in order to discover what the next level is. Care to join us?

By Kyla Meyers and Barbara Deane, editors at DiveristyCentral.com

For a reviewer of business books, Carol Frenier makes a very welcome change, for 'Business and the Feminine Principle' reads more like a good work of non-fiction than a 'business book' and this enhances rather than detracts from its relevance to people in business.

It is part auto-biography, part applied psychology, deeply reflective, discursive, and very concerned with values. I t manages to convey a lot of messages about the value of combining feminine and masculine ways of thinking and relating in the course of reflective discussion about situations that have influenced the author. Her style of presentation itself helps to illustrate the points she is making. Margaret Wheatley hits the mark exactly with her comment on the back cover blurb:

"This very personal and quietly passionate book asks us to explore aspects of human nature that have gone unregarded for too long. We could create so much more together if we would join Carol on this exploration."

And that is the point: to 'join Carol on this exploration' requires a willingness to engage in joint dialogue and joint reflection, which is too rare in the world of business and administration.

It is worth mentioning a couple of things that the book is not. It is not 'feminist' in any conventional sense, it does not seek to promote any one group over any other and it is not primarily about the place or even the roles of men and women in organisations. Frenier has been deeply influenced by Carl Jung and, if the book has a central theme, it is Jung's concept of individuation, the fullest possible development of the capacities that are present in all of us, through the way in which we enter into community with each other and value difference to aid growth. All women and all men have aspects of both the feminine and the masculine within them in varying degrees, and it is these qualities, not gender, that are the focus of Frenier's interest.

Throughout the book runs the sub-theme of the need to work for a truly sustainable world and the values involved in living simply. She is one of the rare authors who has the courage to challenge us to bring into explicit consciousness and think through the impact of the largely implicit assumptions on which business is based - 'more is better', 'growth is the name of the game' and others, which threaten our long term survival. She does this by example from her own experience and by inviting reflection, not by railing against 'the evils of today's society'. In doing so she displays a great faith in the capacity of small changes in attitude among a wide enough cross section of people to trigger major shifts for the better.

What comes through is the value, for results as well as the quality of all our lives, of engaging in open, reflective dialogue and entering into community around the issues that are important to us. The feminine within us has qualities which make it much more likely that this vital process will occur and be valued. It is an extremely important message in an environment in which the masculine is visibly cutting out all the time for reflection that - as the growing literature on knowledge management amply demonstrates - is vital not merely to our health and happiness, but to our commercial survival.

Encouraging the group we work with first to read the book and then to spend time discussing it would be an ideal way of opening up windows in our minds and expanding ways of relating.

John M. Freiermuth

Stella Mervin stops by the business office of Mrs. Paxton, the proprietress of a company that provides temporary stenographers for other business offices. Stella is the beautiful, daughter of a failed business tycoon who lost his company and life in a business crisis that left his wife and two children in a vastly reduced situation. Being raised in reduced circumstances, Stella adapts the outlook of the "Modern Woman" and prepares for a fall-back position as a stenographer, just in case she does not earn an MRS shortly after gaining her BA.
That same morning Mr. Peters, the private secretary and stenographer for Mr. Truscott, the chief executive of Truscott Refining Company, was fired. An urgent call went out to Mrs. Paxton to provide a temporary stenographer for a day or two until a new stenographer could be found. The temporary position is filled by Stella "Smith" as the plot starts to develop.
The latest posthumous novel of Charles W. Chesnutt, A Business Career, is the most timeless of his novels. It combines some epistolary elements made popular by Richardson's Clarissa, in the 18th Century; a delightful heroine like Jane Austen's Emma who fell in love with an older, patrician hero of the early 19th Century; a heroine who finds herself the "Modern Woman" as advocated by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Dorothy Dix, Marion Harland, and others at the beginning of the 20th Century; and deals with the modern Robber Barons of the early 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st Century where CEOs plead innocence of wrong doing after their Fortune-Fifty-equivalent corporations fail because the naïve CEOs were duped by cunning underlings. If you like the early through modern British and American novels, there is much that is familiar here.

Dr. Kathleen Waters Sander (Ph.D. - History, U. of MD.) has written an extremely valuable book centered on the women's industrial exchange movement of the 19th century. Ruthless 19th century capitalism (also known as "capitalism at its finest") was not controlled or regulated by government, and offered no "safety nets" or benefits. Many individuals and families lived the "genteel life" during the 19th century for temporary periods, then were unceremoniously tossed off of the gravy train into the world of poverty.....a world for which they were often tragically unsuited, often even than those impoverished their entire lives.

The women's exchange movement provided relief for previously "genteel" women suddenly or gradually reduced to circumstances bordering on desperation. In more than 70 American cities, a system of consignment retail shops was set up in which
"consignors" (previously genteel but subsequently impoverished women) could offer domestic products (mostly sewing and needlework items) for sales anonymously. The "shame" of impoverishment was hidden, capitalism's sins were uncomplained about, and some income for desperate women and their dependents was achieved. The brutal policing visited on those who complained about expoitation by the capitalist system was escaped.

The women's industrial exchange movement was remarkable for its ingenuity and its imagination, and also for its longevity. Today, women's industrial exchange tea rooms and other facilities still operate and function, in some situations (as in Baltimore, Maryland) in facilities more than a century old.

At the dawn of the 21st century, the model and mentality of the women's industrial movement, described well by Dr. Sander, is a shining light of hope for impoverished people in a world where protections against capitalistic rapacity and greed are clearly disappearing completely. Neither government nor disappearing "benefits" (retirement pensions, health insurance, etc.) offered by companies to gullible employees seem likely to protect vulnerable people any longer. The loss of government promised "benefits" in all catagories seems very likely for the great majority of citizens as the new century progresses.

Self-help actions independent of government and employers alike seem the best hope. The women's industrial exchange movement of the 19th century is a splendid model of how independent self-help action can work. It's truly inspiring, and a detailed history of its origins, successes, problems, and management such as that offered by Dr. Kathleen Sander is worth reading.

The most comprehensive treatment of California law governing employer-employee relations in the private sector. Includes in-depth discussion of the law, practice tips from experienced employment law practitioners, factual illustratioTopics covered include:

Wage and hour laws
Equal employment opportunity laws state and federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color religion, age, national origin and disability
Wrongful termination and discipline
Employee privacy issues AIDS testing, arrest records, office searches, drug testing, and much more
Employer trade secret and unfair competition issues
Occupational safety and health laws
Liability for employees work-related injuries including the exclusive remedy doctrine and its exceptions
Unemployment and state disability insurance how the system works and how to contest claims made by former employees
Employer liability to third parties for employee conduct
First published in 1989.

4 Volumes; Loose-leaf; updated with supplements and revisions.

This book looks at CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the newest attempt to bring "free trade" to the Western Hemisphere. A companion to the recently released DVD called "American Jobs," this book shows that the reality of free trade is nowhere near as bright as the promise.

If free trade in general, and CAFTA in particular, is such a wonderful thing, then a few questions come to mind. Part of the attraction of free trade is that people in Latin America are going to start buying lots of US-made products, leading to new jobs here in America. How is that going to happen when the trend in wages is very much downward, to see who can reach the bottom first? It takes years, and higher wages, to create any sort of consumer society in Latin America. If high American wages are an "inefficiency" to be gotten rid of as soon as possible, who is going to buy all those hundred-dollar sneakers and wide-screen TVs? Where are all these new industries for which laid-off American workers are supposed to retrain?

NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and outsourcing in general, has led to a large loss of jobs. In the 21st century, over 3 million American manufacturing jobs are gone, never to return. According to one estimate, almost 900,000 jobs headed to Mexico because of NAFTA. Those maquiladora jobs are now leaving Mexico and going to China, where the wages are even lower. Over 1.5 million Mexican farmers have been forced off the land because of cheap (and subsidized) American agricultural imports. The same thing will happen in Central America if CAFTA comes into effect. None of those displaced farmers are going to head north and illegally enter America?

This is an excellent book. It doesn't go into much detail (that's not the intention), but it gives the reader plenty to consider. It is written in easy-to-understand language, so even those who know nothing about free trade can understand it. Overall, it is very highly recommended.

As someone who has always been interested in human resource management, I was quite often approached with questions about issues such as leave of absences, etc. This was the one book that answered all their questions as employees in California. It is excellent !!!

This manual is right on target. It is succinct, easy to understand and provides in-depth guidance concerning the Cal/OSHA inspection process and the employer's response if it is cited. This information is absolutely critical for safety and human resource professionals needing to adequately represent their employers during the inspection and at the informal conference with Cal/OSHA. Every worker needs the right tool for the job. This is the right tool when faced with a Cal/OSHA inspection.