Cindy Hahamovitch

Not a “Sack of Potatoes”: Why Labor Historians Need to Take Agriculture Seriously

Each individual peasant family is almost self-sufficient, directly produces most of its consumer needs, and thus acquires its means of life more through an exchange with nature than in intercourse with society A small holding, the peasant and his family, beside it another small holding, another peasant and another family A few score of these constitute a village, and a few score villages constitute a department Thus the great mass of the French nation is formed by the simple addition of homonymous magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes In sofar as millions of families live under conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their interests, and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class Insofai as there is mere ly a local interconnection among these small-holding peasants, and the identity of their interests forms no community, no national bond, and no political organiza tion among them, they do not constitute a class They are therefore incapable of as serting their class interest in their own name

Florida's Farmworkers in the Twenty-first Century

In a book that combines both oral history and documentary photography, Nano Riley and Davida Johns tell the story of Floridas farmworkers in the 21st century. Largely ignored by mainstream America, migrant laborers often toil under adverse labor and living conditions to provide the nations food supply. Intimate photographs and lucid text offer a look not only into the difficulties faced by these laborers but also into the rich cultural heritages of their communities and the close ties of their family life. Until now, most publications on migrant farm labor focused on California or the Southeast in general, offering little information on conditions particular to farmworkers in Florida. Floridas Farmworkers focuses on the history of Florida agriculture, the unique climate, ecology, crops, and working conditions that distinguish the situation of Floridas farm laborers from those in other states. Organized thematically, the book explores the issues facing these migrant workers, who are largely Hispanic, Haitian, and other Caribbean immigrants. Among the issues addressed are low wages, childrens problems, education, substandard living conditions, health, pesticide exposure, and immigrant smuggling. Riley and Johns draw attention to a labor system greatly in need of reform.

Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers

Fifty years ago, in May 1946, the CIO inaugurated Operation Dixie to organize the South. Again, blacks and women flocked to the call. But the CIO squandered this window of opportunity in an underfinanced campaign. They also centralized decision making in a small group and implemented a conservative strategy of purging communists and integrationists from positions of power while ignoring job discrimination and civil rights issues. Renewed state repression, the Taft-Hartley Act and the Cold Wars Red Scare turned the CIO inward, to raiding CIO radical locals instead of organizing.