Mollie's Job: A Story of Life and Work on the Global Assembly Line

Book Description

Following the flight of one woman's factory job from the United States to Mexico, this compelling work offers a revealing and unprecedented look at the flesh-and-blood consequences of globalization.

In this absorbing and affecting narrative history, investigative journalist William M. Adler traces the migration of one factory job as it passes from the cradle of American industry, Paterson, New Jersey, to rural Mississippi during the turmoil of the civil rights movement, to the burgeoning border city of Matamoros, Mexico. The story of Mollie James, Dorothy Carter, and Balbina Duque, their company, and their communities provides an ideal prism through which to explore the larger issues at the heart of the new economy: the decline of unions and the middle class, the growing gap between rich and poor, public policies rewarding U.S. companies for transferring jobs abroad, and the ways in which "free trade" undermines stable businesses and communities.

Combining a deft historian's touch with first-rate reporting, Mollie's Job is a provocative and fresh perspective on the global economy -- at a time when downsizing is unraveling the American Dream for many working families.

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William Adler's absorbing and affecting narrative history traces the postwar migration of one factory job as it passed from the cradle of American industry, Paterson, New Jersey, to rural Mississippi during he turmoil of the civil rights movement, to the burgeoning border city of Matamoros, Mexico. This fascinating story follows the intersecting lives and fates of three women who held the same job, in each of three locales. The story of these women, their company, and their communities provides an ideal prism through which Adler explores the larger issues at the heart of the book: the decline of unions and the middle class, the growing gap between rich and poor, public policy that rewards companies for transferring U.S. jobs abroad, the ways in which "free trade" undermines stable businesses and communities, and how the global economy exploits workers on both sides of the border. Combining the deft historian's touch with first-rate reporting, Mollie's Job is an unprecedented and revealing look at the flesh-and-blood consequences of the global economy.

Customer Reviews:

Roots of globalization: cheap labor.......2004-03-02

The book starts painfully slowly and drags on for several chapters, but don't give up. It eventually takes us through decades of American history seen from the eyes of workers, factory owners and, finally, globalizing financiers. One learns how the racist governor of Mississippi, Ross Barnett, inadvertently contributed to integration by attracting northern factories to his state in the Johnson era. We learn that the Mexicans started attracting US factories in the same era, the 1960s. And we get a picture of the rise and fall of the US labor movement, as well as examples of the crimes of the Teamsters. The transition from emphasis on product-quality to 'profits at any cost', the heart and soul of the philosophy of globalization via deregulation, in the age of leveraged buyouts and junk bonds is accurately and concisely described.

Lyndon Johnson gave us the Vietnam War, a terrible mistake in US foreign policy. But for those of us who grew up in the south or border states and can tell you what life was like under segregation, Lyndon was a real hero when it came to civil rights enforcement. In my Ky. town in the fifties, before the civil rights Act was passed, the only thing that was integrated was little league baseball. I still remember listening to the daily news from Alabama and Mississippi in the early sixties, beatings, murders, acts that were consistent with a fascist state government, but not a democratic one. Southern states like Mississippi used the same excuse for brutality against blacks, union organizers, and civil rights workers that Hitler and the Nazis used against the Jews and socialists: right wing violence and killing 'protected' society from 'the communist threat'.

THE TRUE COSTS OF GLOBALIZATION...........2000-12-30

Since about the time NAFTA passed Congress, we have heard endless paeans of praise for free trade, the mobility of capital, and the new competitive global economy. We have heard less about the costs of globalization. This book takes the free trade issue and brings it down to earth by showing how jobs that originated in Paterson, New Jersey were sent to Mississippi, and later on Mexico, by corporate conglomerates searching for higher profits and a pliable, docile (and above all cheaper) workforce. The book focusses in on one firm, Universal, which specializes in making electrical fixtures. At first, the firm offers good jobs at good wages to all comers in New Jersey. However, as the founder of the company sells his interest out to a large railroad conglomerate, the firm heads south for cheaper labor....and then south again into Mexico. The story of how these jobs migrate is also the story of how institutions that are supposed to protect the American worker fail that worker in the end. Labor unions become complacent and somnolent, spending more resources on jurisdictional disputes and factional feuding than on organizing the workers. And when they aren't lazy, they are corrupt, doing deals with the Mafia for added perks. Federal agencies pull back from their duties as the nation drifts to the right. Read the segment in this book on how the U.S. Commerce Department (funded in great part from employee taxes) cheered on American businesses relocating to Mexico and your blood will boil. Read the segment on the so-called transitional assistance offered to displaced American workers (pamphlets given to people in their 40s and 50s on how to join the army) and you will get apoplexy. The book ends on an especially bitter note, as the conglomerate prepares to move to an even more depressed area of Mexico, with a woman worker wailing "must I chase my job all over the world?" Indeed.

In a larger, balance sheet sense, globalization may be beneficial. But ultimately, as Mr. Adler makes it clear with this well-written, thoroughly documented book, somebody is footing the bill with a lost job, a defaulted mortgage, missing benefits, and dread of the future.

Progress in Practice.......2000-10-09

Among the various beliefs which make up the American civil religion surely the dogma of Free Enterprise is dominant. Business and enterprise have made us the best, richest, freest, and most just country in the world. Almost any action can be explained and excused as an economic necessity; whether downsizing, i.e. firing your workers, or moving the plant or polluting the environment. The company must remain competitive, and the firm profitable. Free Enterprise is good for you, ever and always. As Ivan Boesky put it, six months before he went to prison for three years: "Greed is alright. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself." (P. 241) This story deals with the effects of American industrial progress over the past fifty years, not in abstract terms and numbers, but in the history of what happened to Mollie James' Job as it went south to more liberal climes, where wages are low, unions weak, environmental laws unenforced, and workplace safety nonexistent. The book reads very well, almost like a novel, but it deals with real people, names, and places. In fact, it is a good idea to keep a map handy to follow the action from Paterson, New Jersey, to Mendenhall and Gallman, Mississippi, to Blytheville, Arkansas, and Matamoros, Mexico. The action begins at the end of the War with an immigrant, go-getter, entrepreneur who builds an electrical components company from nothing. A classical, paternalistic workplace in which the boss works alongside his employees and knows everyone by name. He even welcomes organized labor for electricians will not install his product unless it bears a union label. Yet, neither he nor his workers can rid themselves of a crooked and corrupt teamster local. In the early sixties the company expands into rural Mississippi, a county without equal rights, without NAACP, much less CORE or SNCC. It is a place where the whites celebrated the assassination of President Kennedy. Yet, it is the company which in many ways escorted the region into the late twentieth century. In control of the only work and wages and backed by federal law the company could defy the Klan, the Sheriff, and the white newspapers, by insisting on an integrated workforce. Which, incidentally, helped to hold down wages as well. The founder's death in 1968 marked the passing of an era of management by men who thought as industrial manufacturers. While he venerated the bottom line as much as any capitalist, he achieved success by "a steely-eyed focus on high quality and customer service"(p. 220). The company was sold to a multi-branched electrical products company, which soon after was swallowed whole by another conglomerate. It thus fell into the hands of people who had no idea of the realities of production, nor did they have any interest in the nuts and bolts of the operation. In fact, the company, now a mere subsidiary, changed hands several times in the financial go-go years of the eighties. By now the personal relationships and life long job security of the early days were well forgotten. A cavalier attitude infected all aspects of the company. A director of human resources fired many of the old line leaders and executives. The company used their new maquiladora plant in Mexico to hold a loaded gun to the union local's negotiation committee. Reduce hourly pay or we close the plant. None the less, the reprieve was brief. Workers in Mexico earned as much in day as Americans in an hour, and by 1997 all manufacturing operations in the U.S. were shut down. Wages in Mexico were insufficient to raise a family. Workplace conditions are described as stiflingly hot, with air unbreathable from polluting chemicals, and without break, cafeteria, or adequate toilets. Living conditions were not one whit better. Yet, young women workers continued to stream in from the rural areas. At the end, ironically we may all "Thank God for NAFTA" the title of the epilogue.

Book Description

"Sweeping and important.... Provides a fascinating vision of justice and history." --The Washington Post Book World

From the head of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission comes a landmark study of the ways in which prejudice has shaped American justice from the Civil War era to the present. With an ear tuned to the social subtext of every judicial decision, Mary Frances Berry examines a century's worth of appellate cases, ranging from a nineteenth-century Alabama case in which a white woman was denied her divorce petition because an affair between a white man (her husband) and a black woman (his lover) was "of no consequence," to such recent, high-profile cases as the William Kennedy Smith and O.J. Simpson trials. By turns shocking, moving, ironic, and tragic, each tale ends in the laying down of law. And because the law perpetuates myths of race, gender, and class, they are stories that affect the lives of us all.

Customer Reviews:

Thorough yet disturbing discussion of 'justice'..........2001-07-01

While there are probably very few people who think justice is truly blind to race, gender, class and sexual orientation, this look at the courts from Restoration until today is still shocking. The systemic protection of 'white male privilege' has made it impossible for just about anyone and everyone to get a fair trial. And throughout this book Berry argues convincingly, logically, simply and clearly why this has been the case.

Berry's thesis is that the court - through judges' decisions and verdicts - uphold the prevailing 'stories' of the day, explaining why some black men - under the protection of white male privilege - were punished less harshly than others. Or why black men were so quickly and easily convicted of raping white women, or why it was considered pretty much impossible to rape a black woman or a poor white one. And on and on and on... According to Berry, judges would twist the understanding of statutes and laws to conform to and support the stories. When, after WWII, stories began to change, the different attitudes and ideas were reflected in court decisions, and Brown vs. the Board of Education, Roe vs. Wade, and other cases were possible.

Berry certainly creates a very compelling case, showing the effects of these 'stories,' the efforts to change them and the ensuing results. Although I do believe that other elements - even, as the Supreme Court illustrated so clearly during the election fiasco, personal ideology - play a role, I still think that Berry is describing a very powerful phenonmenon. And Berry's evidence of a strong bias in the courts is something every American should know about. In fact, I think this should be mandatory reading for pretty much everybody.

An eloquent exposition........1999-06-15

The "Pig Farmer's Daughter" is a stalwart exposition describing the fault line of bigotry, and bias that runs through the historical bedrock of the American judicial system. Berry offers a seamless narrative, written eloquently and without malice. Her book is an irrefutable unveiling of the ignorance that so often poses as the truth of popular culture. What is so ironic is that the players she exposes were and are supposed to be the very people who are without bias. Everyone and anyone who has a desire to understand racism and sexism in this country needs to read this book. No lawyer or judge serious about racial justice should enter a courtroom without having read it.

The Pig Farmer's Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice: Episodes of Racism and Sexism in the Courts from 1865 to the Present.: An article from: Journal of Southern History

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The Pig Farmer's Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice: Episodes of Racism and Sexism in the Courts from 1865 to the Present.: An article from: Journal of Southern History
Lisa Lindquist Dorr
Manufacturer: Southern Historical Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Southern Historical Association on February 1, 2001. The length of the article is 686 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Pig Farmer's Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice: Episodes of Racism and Sexism in the Courts from 1865 to the Present.
Author: Lisa Lindquist Dorr
Publication: Journal of Southern History (Refereed)
Date: February 1, 2001
Publisher: Southern Historical Association
Volume: 67 Issue: 1 Page: 220

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Viral Marketing. Get your audience to do your marketing for

The worst book I have ever read

Viral Marketing: Get Your Audience to Do Your Marketing for You
Russell Goldsmith
Manufacturer: Financial Times Management
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Email is a very powerful, all reaching medium. Get your message right and your friends and customers will do your work for you. They can forward on your message, your brand, and your product name - and begin a process that could reach millions around the world. But what, if any, are the rules? It's not easy to get it right when so far there hasn't been much information on what works. Viral marketing is THE marketing buzzword. So what's it all about? How does it work? How did it all start? How effective is it? When is viral marketing appropriate? Who has succeeded? How can we learn from those who have succeeded and those who have failed? These are just some of the questions answered in viral marketing. It also provides an understanding of what it is about people that make them want to pass on an email to a friend or colleague - and how to ensure they do so for your benefit. This is a practical, informal, informative, easy-read guide to explain what viral marketing is, how to do it and how to measure success.

Customer Reviews:

Viral Marketing. Get your audience to do your marketing for.......2006-06-11

"I'm afraid that if you were hoping this book would provide you with an all-encompassing step-by-step guide on how to create the perfect viral marketing campaign, you will be sadly disappointed...because there are too many variables". My words, no. A direct quote from author Russell Goldsmith, page 103.
Too much tell and not enough show. If I'd wanted theory, I could have bought a college text book on marketing. Nothing new here, and expensive for a 125 page paperback at £14.99 in the UK.

The worst book I have ever read.......2006-01-27

The title says it all. This book contained nothing of any value, examples of the inane mutterings within include "email enables us to influence more people than does word of mouth" Duh! The book(pamphlet) ran to 120 pages of double spaced nonsense, 40 or so of which were taken up by the pointless analysis of his market survey. Had I of written this book I'd of recalled all the copies. The 4 or so hours it took me to read this book would have been better spent polishing my earlobes, or weaving toffee. the Uk price of £14:99 is incredible. In fact this book is so bad I'm placing a dollar inside the pages to encourage someone to take it off my hands at the princely (pricey) sum of 1 cent.

Viral Marketing:Get Your Audience to Do Your Marketing For You

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Manufacturer: Financial Times Management
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Making ends meet: pawnbroking and working-class credit
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Software and technology companies spend billions in their quest to win new customers. Yet they invest minimal resources to keep them. The result? Even clients who claim to be satisfied are quick to defect to other suppliers offering similar technology at the same price. As a software vendor, what can you do to hold onto your client base?

Using years of market research, William A. Porter introduces the Customer Loyalty Model, a powerful tool with which high-technology companies can build client allegiance. As Porter explains, customer loyalty stems from four key components - value, quality, service, and partnership - each with its own subtleties and nuances that are commonly overlooked by technology firms. Drawing on interviews with virtually thousands of technology customers, Porter shows where vendors fall short in meeting a client' s true needs. He then provides benchmarks, case studies, and implementation strategies for building a satisfied and loyal client base. For those trying to survive and thrive in today' s hyper-competitive market, Quest for Loyalty is a must-read. Packed with practical advice and hands-on strategies, this benchmark book gives vendors the tools they need for building lasting and profitable customer relationships.

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THE WAY TO KEEP CUSTOMERS. READ THIS BOOK

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Manufacturer: Harvard Business School Press
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A Harvard Business Review Book, edited and with an introduction by Frederick F. Reichheld and foreword by Scott Cook. The authors' Harvard Business Review articles set the context for this collection and demonstrate the need for understanding loyalty within the larger context of customers, investors, and employees--and how they interact. The introduction by Scott Cook, co-founder and chairman of Intuit, discusses the role loyalty has played in a company's strategy for growth and profits. Also includes articles from leading scholars and practitioners in management, including Peter Drucker, Charles Handy, Michael Porter, and C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel. Interviews with Sir Colin Marshall of British Airways and General Robert F. McDermott provide the perspective of the CEOs of loyalty-based firms, and how they can create financial success by targeting the right customers and levels of service and value through investing in their employees.

Customer Reviews:

THE WAY TO KEEP CUSTOMERS. READ THIS BOOK.......1998-02-18

This book is great. We read it in the management team in our company. It gave focus to our customer satisfaction strategy. It is easy to read, and the examples given are very appropiated.

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