Books
On the Global Waterfront
On the Global Waterfront: The Fight to Free the Charleston 5 (Monthly Review Press 2008) is Suzan Erem and Paul Durrenberger’s provocative story of the well-led, well-organized and well-financed black longshoremen of South Carolina bucking the white establishment locally and the shipping industry internationally to free five men wrongly-charged with crimes that would permanently ruin their own lives and the effectiveness of their historic union. It’s a fast-paced narrative laced with the historical and economic descriptions seldom voiced in the South, but very much part of the forces they opposed as Local 1422 President Ken Riley, with the support of South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna Dewitt and AFL-CIO Assistant to the President Bill Fletcher, take on racism, classism, the inertia of the labor movement and international corporations to save some of the best-paid jobs in South Carolina.
Labor Pains: Inside America’s New Union Movement
Suzan Erem’s first book, Labor Pains, (Monthly Review Press 2001) tells the stories of Chicago union staff and service workers struggling to build a new labor movement in the 1990s, when hope was high with new leadership at the top of the AFL-CIO, the umbrella group of nearly all labor unions. Poignant, sad, sometimes hilarious, Erem tells it like it is, using the demise of her own marriage as the narrative string that ties these stories together. The paperback version is now out of print. The hardcover is still available on Amazon.
Do I Want to be a Mom? A woman’s guide to the decision of a lifetime
Suzan Erem conducted two years of research, interviewing hundreds of women and a few men to get the true story of what it’s like to be a mom – the good, bad and ugly most people don’t share. She couples this with research of the impact of children on your finances, your career and your psyche. Erem partnered with Dr. Diana Dell, a women’s health psychiatrist and former ob-gyn to provide women with the tools to make this life-changing decision. Published by Contemporary Books/McGraw-Hill.
Then and Now: American Federation of Government Employees
Suzan Erem was commissioned by the American Federation of Government Employees to manage the writing and production of the book telling the 75-year history of America’s largest federal government employees union. Through historic photos and mapping key moments in the union’s history to those in America’s history she and a professional graphic designer were able to assemble this beautiful coffee table book distributed to AFGE members at their annual conventions. Additionally, I was commissioned to write a book-length manuscript for a large AFSCME council in Pennsylvania, which I completed. Due to a change in staff, it was never published.
Class Acts and Other Books
In collaboration with cultural anthropologist E. Paul Durrenberger, Suzan Erem has co-authored and/or edited a number of books including
Class Acts, An anthropology of service workers and their union,