The Laboring of Communication examines the transformation of work and of worker organizations in today's Information Society. The book focuses on how traditional trade unions and new worker associations growing out of social movements are coming together to address the crisis of organized labor. It concentrates on the creative responses of the technical and cultural workers in the mass media, telecommunications, and information technology industries. Concentrating on political economy, labor process, and feminist theory, it proceeds to offer several ways of thinking about communication workers and the nature of the society in which they work. Drawing on interviews and the documentary record, the book offers case studies of successful and unsuccessful efforts among both traditional and alternative worker organizations in the United States and Canada. It concludes by addressing the thorny issue of outsourcing, describing how global labor federations and nascent worker organizations in the developing world are coming together to develop creative solutions.

"...would be worth reading for labor educators, since they help us understand some of the possible directions for the future labor movement, which will certainly be more focused on creative, knowledge, and professional workers than in the past. The theoretical focus and readability level... as well as the background needed, ensure that [The Laboring Community] cab ibky be ysed selectively in noncredit labor education classes. However, in upper-division labout studies classes, both of these books could find a place on the list." - Labor Studies Journal, March, 2010