"Imagine an environment dominated by men unconsciously comfortable with sexism, racism, and brute force. Further imagine a young working-class woman courageously embracing the principle of justice for all workers and compelled to navigate a terrain dominated by complex, flawed, sometimes deeply compromised and always powerful men. Such elements are typically the ingredients of wonderful fiction, but in Terry Spencer Hesser's colorful and personal portrait of labor leader Regina V. Polk, we have a truly inspirational story for anyone who believes in fighting against the power of patriarchy and abusive employers. 'I am a Teamster' is how Regina Polk defined herself and in the accounts of her tragically brief life, as told by Ms. Hesser, the reader finds an exemplary model of what the very best of union leaders can offer workers and society." --Robert Bruno, Director of Labor Education Program, University of Illinois A Whole-Hearted Life On Valentine's Day, 1950, a beautiful and determined child was born with a birthmark between her eyebrows in the shape of half a heart. She spent the rest of her life living fully, caring deeply for those around her, and advocating for the things she believed in, particularly the dignity of all work and all workers. She recognized early the growing service and clerical sectors of the economy and the need to unionize this overlooked group of low-paid employees. An utterly compassionate and confident woman, she sparkled with excitement and mystery. Her intelligence and passion were formidable. She lived easily in a world of comfort and high culture as well as that of the streets, the workplace, and the tough, male-dominated union halls. Regina V. Polk was a Teamster. A warrior. A champion. A humanitarian. And the most remarkable American labor leader you haven't heard of until now.

Stalwart and powerful, oxen are employed as working cattle all over the world. Stronger, steadier, less expensive, and easier to keep than draft horses, oxen can plow fields, haul stones, assist in logging, improve roads, and showcase traditional farming techniques. Oxen can help smallscale farmers keep costs down and productivity up without expensive machinery. Oxen is the definitive resource for selecting, training, feeding, and caring for the mighty ox. It shows you how to choose an ideal team, properly feed and house your oxen, train calves and mature cattle, fit a yoke and bows, address common challenges, and maintain a team's overall health. You'll also learn how to use oxen safely for a variety of farming and logging tasks and how to train a team for demonstrations and competitions.

The spellbinding saga of Teamster boss Jackie Presser’s rise and fall In his rise from car thief to president of America’s largest labor union, Jackie Presser used every ounce of his street smarts and rough-edged charisma to get ahead. He also had a lot of help along the way—not just from his father, Bill Presser, a Teamster power broker and thrice-convicted labor racketeer, but also from the Mob and the FBI. At the same time that he was taking orders from the Cleveland Mafia and New York crime boss Fat Tony Salerno, Presser was serving as the FBI’s top informant on organized crime. Meticulously researched and dramatically told, Mobbed Up is the story of Presser’s precarious balancing act with the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the Justice Department. Drawing on thousands of pages of classified files, James Neff follows the trail of greed, corruption, and hubris all the way to the Nixon and Reagan White Houses, where Bill and Jackie Presser were treated as valued friends. Winner of an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award for best reporting on organized crime, it is a tale too astonishing to be made up—and too troubling to be ignored.

"This is the story of the strikes and union organizing drive the men and women of Teamsters Local 574 carried out in Minnesota in 1934, paving the way for the continent-wide rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as a fighting social movement. Through hard-fought strike actions, which were in fact organized battles, they made Minneapolis a union town, defeating not only the trucking bosses but strikebreaking efforts of the big-business Citizens Alliance and city, state, and federal governments. They showed in life what workers and their allies on the farms and in the cities can achieve when they're able to count on the leadership they deserve."--BOOK JACKET.

Sixteen year old Willem Stoner and his father, together with other New York teamsters, are hired by Colonel Henry Knox to haul almost sixty cannons, some weighing more than a ton, on wagons and sleds 300 miles from Ft. Ticonderoga, New York to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the brutally cold winter of 1775-1776. The artillery is desperately needed by General Washington and the Continental Army, preparing to attack the British in Boston. At the beginning of the arduous trek, Will is befriended by Ensign Nathaniel Holmes of the Marblehead Mariners. Their friendship deepens as the "Noble Train of Artillery," struggles through snow drifts and storms, across the partially frozen Hudson River and over the Berkshire Mountains during a blizzard and on into Cambridge. Using ropes, chains and freshly cut trees as levers, Will and his companions hungry and poorly clothed against the harsh winter, battle to maneuver the massive cannons up steep inclines and to slow the wagons and sleds from running away on the precipitous icy downward slopes and crushing the drivers and their teams of horses and oxen. After the treacherous descent from the Berkshires, the caravan slogs through axle deep mud as the frozen roads thaw at the end of their fifty-day journey. Arriving in Cambridge, Will stays in the barracks with the Mariners who are serving as General Washington's Headquarters troops. He makes friends with Private Adam Cooper one of several African American soldiers, free men who enlisted in Colonel Glover's regiment along with other fishermen from Marblehead and Salem. When a race riot breaks out between the Mariners and some backwoods riflemen, Will finds himself in the midst of the melee, fighting alongside the Mariners. In the early morning hours of the sixth anniversary of the Boston Massacre, Washington's troops occupy Dorchester Heights, overlooking Boston and its harbor. Will, now assigned to Colonel Knox's artillery regiment, hauls a cannon up to the Heights and tensely awaits the assault by the battle tested and disciplined Redcoats and the feared Death's Head Cavalry. Later, on an exposed promontory overlooking the Boston Neck, he is caught in a fierce British artillery bombardment. When the British leave Boston, Will searches for his older brother, Johan who is apprenticed to a Boston merchant. After inquiring in the more respectable areas of the city, he wanders among the grog shops and taverns along the wharves. There, he makes a surprising discovery and is almost tarred and feathered as a Tory sympathizer. Will is rescued at the last minute by his friends in the Mariners and Knox's artillery. Through Will's experiences, this novel explores the divided loyalties that tore families apart and the motives of ordinary people taking up arms against King George. Unlike many historical novels that take substantial liberties with established facts, "Cannons for the Cause," is carefully researched. The End Notes include background information about the events described, different interpretations by prominent historians, and quotes from the historical figures' own correspondence. Original sources used are diaries, newspapers, gazettes and broadsheets. The historical figures emerge from under the cloak of hero worship and the fog of historical mythology as real people, not too unlike modern Americans in their doubts, concerns and aspirations. The fictional characters, based on solid research of those who actually lived through the tumultuous years of 1775-1776, add to the novel's historical authenticity.

"I Heard You Paint Houses" will soon be a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese. The working title for the movie is "The Irishman". The first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran were, "I heard you paint houses." To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa. Sheeran learned to kill in the U.S. Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat duty in Italy during World War II. After returning home he became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually he would rise to a position of such prominence that in a RICO suit then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani would name him as one of only two non-Italians on a list of 26 top mob figures. When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, he did the deed, knowing that if he had refused he would have been killed himself. Sheeran's important and fascinating story includes new information on other famous murders including those of Joey Gallo and JFK, and provides rare insight to a chapter in American history. Charles Brandt has written a page-turner that has become a true crime classic.

One of America's greatest investigative reporters brings to life the gripping, no-holds-barred clash of two American titans: Robert Kennedy and his nemesis Jimmy Hoffa. From 1957 to 1964, Robert Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa channeled nearly all of their considerable powers into destroying each other. Kennedy's battle with Hoffa burst into the public consciousness with the 1957 Senate Rackets Committee hearings and intensified when his brother named him attorney general in 1961. RFK put together a "Get Hoffa" squad within the Justice Department, devoted to destroying one man. But Hoffa, with nearly unlimited Teamster funds, was not about to roll over. Drawing upon a treasure trove of previously secret and undisclosed documents, James Neff has crafted a brilliant, heart-pounding epic of crime and punishment, a saga of venom and relentlessness and two men willing to do anything to demolish each other.

Drawing on a textual analysis of over five hundred news reports, Deepa Kumar presents a rare, in-depth study of media representation of the 1997 United Parcel Service (UPS) workers' strike. She delineates the history of the strike, how it coincided with the rise of globalization, and how the mainstream media were pressured to incorporate pro-labor arguments that challenged the dominant logic of neoliberalism.

It Takes More Than A Donut To Make A Movie: The Adventures of a Hollywood Teamster is as unconventional and wide-ranging as David Marder's remarkable career as a Teamster in the fast paced and competitive world of Hollywood film production. Marder chronicles the highlights and the lowlights of his 40 year career of making movies. Some of the stories and events depicted in his book read like fiction; there going to challenge your logic, make your common sense feel like it just went 10 rounds with a proctologist, but their all true; that's just the way it happened David Marder's Teamsters career started in 1973, fresh from a brief stint as a guitarist in a Southern California rock band. Through a series of amazing events and "being at the right place at the right time," Marder climbed the ladder from driver to transportation coordinator-the head Teamster responsible for coordinating the army of people, vehicles and equipment needed to produce a movie. David Marder's reputation as a "get it done," problem solver, led to him being in demand for massive, "car crash" stunt intensive films such as Days of Thunder, The Fast and The Furious, Against All Odds, and XXX to name a few. It was "business as normal" for Marder to be responsible for coordinating the movements of 250 Teamster, 300 pieces of rolling stock and over 400 picture vehicles, simultaneously filming in three different states and sometimes, in two different hemispheres. Marder has taken his unique brand of "problem solving," on the road, filming, Beyond Rangoon in Malaysia, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor in China, Moon Over Parador, in Brazil, Ruby Cairo in Mexico, Germany, Greece, and Egypt. All total, Marder has worked in 14 foreign countries and 22 US cities. David Marder has worked on mega movie hits and a few ill-fated flops, but he has endured, witnessing the peaks of the movie business from the driver's seat. Weather it be responsible for the fabrication of hundreds of race cars, the movement of thousands of pieces of equipment, working with impossible budgets and tight schedules; or being assigned to chauffeur the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, 2-year old twin girls, or the director's beloved Bassett hound--Marder has done it all. It Takes More Than A Donut To Make A Movie is packed with intriguing stars and stories, directors with drama, prodigious producers as well as Marder's practical problem-solving skills which have contributed to the successfully completion of over 40 movies and TV shows. Interwoven through his personal history, Marder humorously illustrates the intense nature and complexity of film production, from the early 70's with pictures like Days of Thunder, to gigantic franchises like The Fast and Furious that when on to gross $3.9 billion worldwide. Full of chaos, overblown egos and quick thinking found in the stressful environment of movie-making-these colorful and hilarious experiences-offer vivid, first-person accounts of real-world Hollywood that are as genuine as David Marder himself.