International Labour Day – May 1st

Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements (PRISM), a digital collection, is being highlighted in observance of International Workers’ Day or Labor Day. PRISM, a digitization collaboration of Florida Atlantic University and University of Central Florida libraries, features a collection of pamphlets from the 19th and 20th centuries reflective of leftist and liberal views and experiences not dissimilar to those of today.

PRISM is one of several collections in the Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM), a cooperative digital initiative of the 11 state university libraries of Florida to provide access to source materials for research and scholarship.

Struggle for Quality of Life through the PRISM of Work

In observance of International Workers’ Day or Labor Day, FAU Digital Library brings you PRISM (Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements), a collaboratively digitized collection of the Florida Atlantic University and University of Central Florida libraries. PRISM, a collection of pamphlets, from the 19th and 20th centuries, reveals a gamut of burning issues reflective of leftist and liberal views  from around the world.

These issues are similar to the experiences of today. For example, fair trade is moving at a slow pace. Despite the growing number of organizations and projects addressing labor rights, social equality continues to be a rallying cry as was made apparent in parts of the Middle East, Europe, and even in Wisconsin, United States.

In a recent statement to observe World Day of Social Justice, International Labour Organization Director-General Juan Somavia declared:

Women and men without jobs or livelihoods really don’t care if their economies grow at 3, 5 or 10 per cent per year, if such growth leaves them behind and without protection.

International Workers’ Day, also referred to as May Day, had its origins in the United States with the 1886 founding of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). In 1955, AFL merged with the splinter group, Congress of Industrial Organizations, to become the AFL-CIO.

PRISM is one of several collections in PALMM (Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials), a cooperative digital initiative of the public universities of Florida to provide access to source materials for research and scholarship.

Teachers and Merit Pay

April 11, 2011

Teachers and Merit Pay

In the News: Florida has adopted a new law that changes the way teachers will be evaluated and paid. It ties teachers’ pay to their overall effectiveness and relies heavily on student test scores as a way of judging teacher quality.

Conflicting Missions?: Teachers Union and Educational Reform
Edited by Tom Loveless. Brookings Institution Press, 20000
Call Number: LB2844.53 .U62 C66 2000

Curriculum Alignment: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
By David A. Squires. Corwin Press, 2009
Call Number: LB2806.15 .S732 2009

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education
By Diane Ravitch. Basic Books, 2010
Call Number: LA217.2 .R38 2010

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Labor Unions and Collective Bargaining (Part 2) / Dr. Seuss

Library titles related to the latest headlines…

Labor Unions and Collective Bargaining (Part 2) / Dr. Seuss

In the News: Anti-union measures have been proposed in some state legislatures throughout the Midwest. This week we once again share some resources on
labor unions and collective bargaining. (Be sure to take a look at our post on unions from 2009.)

Also In the News: Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss! The National Education Association’s Read Across America event took place on March 2, 2011, Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Here are some books about the author himself, a.k.a. Theodor Geisel.

LABOR UNIONS AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Academic Collective Bargaining
Edited by Ernst Benjamin and Michael Mauer. American Association of University Professors, 2006
Call Number: LB2335.885 .U6 A233 2006

Black Americans and Organized Labor: A New History
By Paul D. Moreno. Louisiana State University Press, 2006
Call Number: HD6490 .R22 U649 2005

Black and Blue: African Americans, the Labor Movement, and the Decline of the Democratic Party
By Paul Frymer. Princeton University Press, 2008
Call Number: HD8072 .F86 2008

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In the News: Labor Unions

Week of February 2, 2009

News Item: On January 30th, President Barack Obama signed three executive orders that would “level the playing field for labor unions in their struggle with management,” and undo Bush administration policies that heavily favored employers over workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently announced that in 2008 the number of U.S. wage and salary workers who were members of a union increased by 428,000 to 16.1 million, or 12.4 percent of the overall workforce.

Autobiography of Mother Jones
By Mother Jones. Arno, 1969
Call Number: HD8073 .J6 A3 1969

Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson
By Tom Sito. UP of Kentucky, 2006
Call Number: Available online through NetLibrary

Fighting Against the Odds: A History of Southern Labor Since World War II
By Timothy J. Minchin. UP of Florida, 2005
Call Number: HD8083 .S9 M56 2005

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