The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a conversation with author Eric Lotke about his newly published novel, Union Made.
Recent events have raised our awareness about the challenges faced by service and retail workers and by their efforts to organize. From Twin Cities brew pubs and coffee shops to Amazon warehouses in Alabama, Staten Island, and Shakopee, diverse workers are organizing to have a say about their working conditions and wages. Our friends at Hard Ball Press have just published a novel, Union Made, which takes readers inside this world.
This novel is a fast-paced romance with a political edge, revealing the tactics, strains, and risks of mobilizing a multiracial group of workers to stand together against a merciless management holding them down. With a strong female lead and a gripping labor campaign that explores union organizing from the inside, Eric Lotke puts the reader in the shoes of Catherine Campbell, a labor organizer, and Nate Hawley, an accountant whose company is planning a hostile takeover of Pac-Shoppe, the company she’s trying to organize. There are sparks between the union activists and the company’s dirty tricksters, and sparks between Catherine and Nate. As Catherine’s campaign falters in the face of Pac-Shoppe’s illegal hardball tactics, Nate’s sympathy for the workers and his fascination with Catherine grow. Can the lonely accountant interest the determined labor organizer by sharing evidence of Pac-Shoppe’s dirty tricks? How much trouble will he be in if he reveals corporate secrets to the union? Find out in this touching love story wrapped in a contemporary labor battle.
Eric Lotke is an author, activist and scholar. His early work, The Real War on Crime, was groundbreaking on criminal justice policy. His original research on Prisoners of the Census has led to new law in ten states so far. His lawsuit over the exploitative price of phone calls from prison led to new rules by the FCC.
Joining Eric for this conversation will be Cathy Hanson, editor of the Minneapolis American Postal Workers Union’s newspaper, KaeJae Johnson, staff director of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, and Luke Mielke, who has been an organizer for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees in Chicago. They have read Union Made, and they will help draw out its implications for organizers, activists, and readers.
To view the video: https://youtu.be/iHZVdldiauE
