labour day reading list

Image: Ricardo Levins Morales

Last year, I created and led a labour book club through my union, the BCGEU. 

I navigated my way through multitudes of obstacles to make this happen, so I was disappointed that our local leadership chose not to continue it. Sadly, Labour Book Club was a one-off project, at least for the foreseeable future. 

It was a great experience and I'm glad I saw it through. This was our reading list. The criteria was simply fiction about labour.

The Cold Millions, Jess Walter

In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck

God's Bits of Wood, Ousmane Sembene

The Last Ballad, Wiley Cash

In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje

Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey

For the Win, Cory Doctorow

Gilded Mountain, Kate Manning

Our most surprising, most challenging, and most rewarding read was God's Bits of Wood, by the Senegalese filmmaker, writer, and activist Ousmane Sembene. I had never heard of Sembene; I found the title strictly through research. 

Because it is out of copyright, God's Bits of Wood is legitimately available to read online at no cost, and I highly recommend it. It is a gripping, eye-opening, moving, and inspiring story of people organizing themselves at the intersection of labour, racism, and colonization. It is also a lightly fictionalized version of actual events that took place in 1947 Senegal, then a colony of France. The event is referred to as a "railway workers' strike" but that does not begin to describe the breadth and power of this struggle -- especially actions taken by the women, who were not themselves railway workers.

On the other end of the spectrum, I found Sometimes a Great Notion nearly unreadable. However, the others in our small group enjoyed it much more than I did. 

All the other titles are good, interesting, and worth reading if they look interesting to you.