A new book has just been published by ILR Press/Cornell University.Entitled
"Working Sober: The Transformation of an Occupational Drinking Culture," it
is written by William Sonnenstuhl.  There is a review of it in "In These
Times," December 9, l996, written by David Futrelle. Futrelle argues that
"as heavy drinking has come to be seen less as a pleasure or a sin and more
as an addiction, many within the labor movement and without have concluded
that such drinking (while conducive to an elemental worker solidarity) is
hardly in the best interests of the workers themselves."  He writes that
sociologist and recovery expert William Sonnenstuhl "provides us with labor
history for the clean and sober age," describing how one particularly group
of workers, tunnel diggers in New York, transformed their "occupational
drinking culture" into a sober one, and initiated this transformation
themselves.