If you ever want to be a best-selling author, take my advice: don’t write books about and for trade unionists. Our movement with its millions of members does many things very well but one thing we do not do well is buy and read books that are written for us.
A couple of years ago, I was having a discussion with what might be called a “labor intellectual” at a conference in Chicago. He was bemoaning the fact that even the most intelligent and best-informed trade union leaders he knew simply did not read the books that they should be reading, if they read books at all.
The best-seller lists reflect this. Even though there are millions of union members, the books aimed at trade unionists are never listed there. If you’re a gardener, or a cook, or a movie-goer, the books targetted at you may sell in the tens of thousands. History books are sometimes big best sellers — but not books about labor history.

I was thinking about this as I recently searched through online bookstores looking for candidates for the Labor Book of the Day, which is currently being promoted on LabourStart. There are so many books out there dealing with the issues of union-busting, organizing, globalization, labor history — and yet these books are not reaching nearly enough trade union activists. I’ll bet every one of you has heard of “The Da Vinci Code” but how many of you have seen “Reorganizing the Rust Belt”, “Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart” or “Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America”. And we’re not just talking about serious books for adult activists; online bookstores are full of children’s books which teach the next generation about why we need unions. In fact, the best selling titles in LabourStart’s online bookstore have been “Click, Clack, Moo – Cows That Type” and “Kids on Strike!”.
It’s not for lack of trying. There are companies like Union Communication Services which sell a whole range of union books. The IWW always devotes considerable space in its newspaper, Industrial Worker, to promoting labor books, and sells these online as well. There are groups like Labor Notes, whose latest book, “A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2”, is one of those essential titles which should be in hands of every union activist. And LabourStart has long been partnered with unionized Portland, Oregon bookshop Powells.com and more recently with UCS in efforts to promote the sale of books aimed at trade unionists.
The good news is that the Internet offers us a real chance to finally get labor books into the hands of labor activists. Amazon has shown the way, doing what many pundits thought impossible: they have helped stimulate sales of books during an era when many were predicting a decline in book sales. Thanks to the tremendous choice now available online — many times more than you’d find in a local bookshop — people are tempted more than ever to buy books.
I can almost guarantee that your local bookshop will not be carrying very many books like “A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2”. And this is a problem not only for small, local shops. I had the experience not so long ago of wandering through one of the best and largest bookshops in Toronto, trying in vain to find any books at all about Canadian unions. Such books exist, but you won’t find them will browsing in bookshops.
If union activists were to read more books about labor history and strategy, they would do their jobs better. They would know what works and what doesn’t. They’d learn from the experience of others. They’d expand their horizons and understand better our globalized world and how we fit in. I think it’s obvious that we in the labor movement should be doing all we can to promote the sales of such titles to our members.
This is what we’ve done on LabourStart: We’ve partnered with unionized bookshops. We’ve identified titles that trade unionists should own. We’ve asked our readers to recommend and review books. And we’ve selected and promoted a new title every day of the week. All this is just a beginning. We could do much more, but we’re just one website.
Unions could do even more. They already sell all kinds of goods and services to their members. The Teamsters, for example, sell a whole range of products through their online store including watches, clocks, jewelry, clothing, t-shirts, sport shirts, outerwear, leather goods, glassware, hats — but not books. Not a single book. The American Federation of Teachers has got the right idea — the front page of their website does promote online book sales through Powells.com, but the union doesn’t make even a single recommendation of a book one might want to buy there. It’s all well and good for the union to earn its share of sales of the latest Harry Potter book, but if you’ve already got the members doing their book buying online, why not also point them to books they might find useful and interesting as trade unionists?
Imagine what would happen if the Teamsters, with their 1.4 million members, were to aggressively promote the sales of a book like “Teamster Rebellion,” the great history of the 1934 Minneapolis strike. Don’t such books deserve to enjoy the same kinds of sales as, say, books about the Scott Peterson case? (This week, 3 of the top 15 nonfiction bestsellers are about that trial.)
Wouldn’t it be great to one day look at the New York Times Best-Seller list and see it topped by Paul Buhle and Nicole Schulman’s new book, Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World?
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