Our Picks for Holiday Gift-Giving

by Tula Connell, Dec 9, 2008

Now more than ever, this holiday season is the time to support our flailing economy with holiday gifts that are union made and made in America. The AFL-CIO Union Shop Online^TM offers CDs, DVDs, books, buttons and more. Our blog and Web team has assembled our favorites here. Items ordered no later than Dec. 17 are guaranteed for delivery in time to be wrapped and ready. 

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Mike Hall’s pick: If you’re like most of us this holiday season, thrifty will trump extravagant during your shopping adventures. But for under $25, I came up with a fun-and somewhat practical-six-piece, activist, pro-union gift set. Or, if you’re into quantity, you can wrap each one individually.

For just a buck each, you get the now classic “Kickin’ Ass for the Working Class” button along with a “Fight Ignorance, Not Immigrants” button and the Mother Jones “Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflict” bookmark.

Next up is a set of four bicep-flexing Rosie the Riveter coasters, and with winter here, a practical AFL-CIO ice scraper-both for only $5 each. The big ticket item in our The Union Shop Online^TM gift box is a coffee mug emblazoned with words to live by: “Got as Boss? Get a Union!”

It all adds up to just $23. 

Seth Michaels’ selection: Anybody who’s jockeyed a cash register, an espresso machine or a mop bucket in recent years (and I’ve done all three), knows what the U.S. economy has really felt like over the past decade for millions of workers. Writer Barbara Ehrenreich captures it well in Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. In this compelling and humane book, Ehrenreich takes a trip behind the scenes of America’s chain stores and hotels to highlight the day-to-day struggles of low-wage workers.

From Danielle Hatchett (Web coordinator): I have never been one to choose plain, understated holiday cards. Christmas is my favorite time of the year and I like to share that cheer with family and friends. The Circle Dance holiday cards are artistic, bold, colorful and full of movement. The message inside, “Together we will make a better world,” also is very appropriate in these tough times we’re facing. 

Tula’s take: It’s never too early to start educating a new generation about the role of unions. Even if the gift is tongue in cheek, like a fun bib for the wee one identifying its wearer as a member of The International Babyhood of Eaters, Soilers and Snugglers. For the slightly older set, there’s a fine progressive preschooler counterpoint to Animal Farm: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type, by Doreen Cronin. I won’t give away the ending, but it’s udderly amazing. (There’s also a DVD version.) The older tykes also can don a T-shirt that promotes a tiny-tot version of the evergreen union motto: An Owie to One Is an Owie to All.” And for the truly budget-conscious, you can’t go wrong with the Workers Coloring Book, by Marilyn Anderson, for $1.50. After the holidays, these gifts would make a great set for baby showers-where you just might remind some of the adults about the role of workers and their unions in building this nation.

Our anonymous blogger says: Going Down Jericho Road, by Mike Honey, is finely crafted history, artfully written prose and a great story. Those would be reasons enough to read it. But Going Down Jericho Road is also more than that. It’s a beautiful moral drama of beaten-down workers who rise up against all the odds, organize, suffer great loss and ultimately win. It’s also a reminder (just in case we need one) of the raw and magnificent heroism in the union movement. Available in hardback and paperback. 

One from Donna Jablonski: This cardigan is great. It’s dressy enough to wear for work, even with a skirt, but also nice with jeans. Can’t beat it. (It also comes in white.) 

James Parks’ pick: “I Am A Man” poster/Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope-What a difference 40 years make. My favorites both have to do with the struggles of people of color to have a better life. One is the “I Am A Man” poster, which depicts African American sanitation workers marching in Memphis in 1968 for a union and basic human respect. The other is a two-book set, Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope, by President-elect Barack Obama, which gives us insight into the forces and beliefs that shaped his path in life. The fact that he will be president on Jan. 20 also is testament to the strength, courage and faith in the cause of justice that animates the entire progressive movement.

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