Labor History Today

City Workers Strike Song

LHT producers Patrick Dixon and Mel Smith head to the Meany Labor Archives at the University of Maryland College Park to check out a special exhibit put together to amplify the momentum of the current wave of labor strikes. In the second half of the show, Dr. Eleanor Mahoney, host of the Ballot Blocked podcast, explores the strong historical connection between voting rights and labor rights; in this episode, we learn about the barriers to voting faced by Mexican American women and workers in the years after World War II. 
On this week’s Labor History in Two: Philly Garment Workers Win (1910); Seattle General Strike (1919).
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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This week's music: City Workers Strike Song, by Dave Rovics; a song he wrote for members of the District Council of Trade Unions in Portland, Oregon, who are set to go out on strike on February 10th if they don’t get a better offer from the city.

“America Works” launches new season

Mario Cervantes, a skilled factory worker -- and proud union member -- who makes the tools that make the planes for Boeing aircraft in Wichita, Kansas, kicks off the new season of America Works, the podcast series from the Library of Congress that features the voices of contemporary workers from throughout the United States talking about their lives, their workplaces, and their on-the-job experiences. Also this week, Saul Schniderman brings us the touching true story of Rex, the Mine Pony, saved by the coal miners who he helped save from a mine collapse (subscribe here to Friday’s Labor Folklore). Bonus track: commemorating the 25 years since the last pit pony left the final deep coal mine in Northumberland, England. On this week’s Labor History in Two: Saul Alinsky (1908); Chicago Gravediggers End 43-day Strike (1992); A Day for Remembering (2011).
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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This week's music: Pit Pony's Tale, by Gordon Carter from his album Diary of a Coaltown, available on Bandcamp.

The Bread Uprising

On the 18th of January, 1977, Egypt erupted into a huge popular uprising against the government's removal of food subsidies. For two days, hundreds of thousands of people across the country were variously involved in strikes, riots, occupations, looting, and sabotage. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat described it as “the uprising of thieves”; the Egyptian people called it by a different name: The Bread Intifada. Our report on the uprising, the decade of worker-student militancy leading up to it, and its relevance today comes to us from the Working Class History podcast.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: If Poison Doesn’t Work, Try Briggs! (1933) & More Labor Than They Planned (1936).
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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This week's music: Sheikh Imam’s Build Your Palaces; performed by Fadi Al Naji.

MLK at the AFL-CIO in 1961

On December 11, 1961, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the AFL-CIO’s Fourth Constitutional Convention at the Americana Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida.The speech is not long, just 30 minutes, but it’s tremendously historic, both in its content and its timing. In this speech, King connected the civil rights movement and labor movement, calling them “the two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country.” King encouraged the AFL-CIO to "help erase all vestiges of racial discrimination in American life, including labor unions," as well as to provide financial support to the civil rights movement.Until recently this speech only existed on a reel of tape in the Meany Labor Archives at the University of Maryland College Park, but for this year’s AFL-CIO Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference (Jan. 16-17 online) the AFL-CIO and the Archives digitized the speech and gave us permission to bring it to you here on Labor History Today. Labor historian Joe McCartin tells us how had King come to be there, the context for his quiet but powerful challenge to the American labor movement, and what that speech says to us now, 61 years later. Our other story today is the perfect follow-up to Dr. King’s speech; it’s about the fight by DC trash collector Marvin Fleming and his union, AFSCME, against job discrimination in the 1960’s. On this week’s Labor History in Two: Give Us Our Daily Bread (1898) and Standing Against Wage Theft (1915).
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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SEE ALSO: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Speech to AFL-CIOExploring Dr. King’s Radical LegacyTrumka in Memphis: We’re Reaching for that MountaintopThis week's music: Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round (The Roots); Everybody's Got A Right To Live: Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick & Jimmy Collier and The Soul Chance; Woke up this morning (The Freedom Singers).

Who was Zelda D’Aprano?

On this week’s show, one day in 1969, a working woman by the name of Zelda D’Aprano took her lunch break, and proceeded to chain herself to the front door of a busy building in Melbourne, Australia in a protest that caused a sensation. What was Zelda protesting about? We find out from our friends Down Under at the On The Job podcast. On this week’s Labor History in Two: the 1922 Chicago building trades split; in 1939, Missouri farmers and their families begin a highway sit in; and in 2003, do national security concerns outweigh the right of workers to form a union?
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle #LaborHistory This week's music: Lola Wright sings the Equal Pay song; #LeaveAt343-Growing Up Gracefully.

Women in the coal mines; Billionaires in Space

On this week’s show, Kipp Dawson, a woman coal miner active in the women miners' movement of the 1970s, '80s and '90s, on women's empowerment and recent labor history. Kim comes to us from the Willamette Wake Up Labor Report, which airs on KMUZ in Salem, Oregon.
Then, the DC Labor Chorus on Billionaires in Space and, on this week’s Labor History in Two: industrial unionists hold a secret meeting in Chicago.
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle This week's music: We Were There, Billionaires in Space and Nancy on the Med-Surge floor, all from the DC Labor Chorus’ 2021 Holiday Concert.

Labor’s Untold Stories

On this week’s show, the history of one of labor’s most well-known songs, “Which Side Are You On?” from Labor’s Untold Stories, a brand-new labor history radio show, hosted by Marty Horning every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. CST on Riverwest Radio, WXRW in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and available on Soundcloud). The show takes listeners on a journey through the rich history of labor’s struggles for a better world for all, using narratives, songs, and interviews and we’re very pleased to welcome Marty and his show to the growing family of labor history radio shows and podcasts. On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1914. That was the day garment workers gathered in New York City to found the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle #LaborHistory @AFLCIO This week's music: Which Side Are You On? REMIX - Rebel Diaz ft. Dead Prez and Rakaa Iriscience, plus versions by Florence Reese, Pete Seeger and The Dropkick Murphys.  

Striketober & The Great Resignation: Take this job and shove it!

This week’s show explores the question of how “Striketober” and “The Great Resignation” happened simultaneously. Union organizing and strikes surged this Fall while millions of workers quit their jobs. Labor historian Gabriel Winant spoke about “Putting the current labor upheaval in historical context” at a December 10 labor history discussion hosted by the East Side Freedom Library in St Paul, Minnesota. Winant is the author of The Next Shift: The Fall of Manufacturing and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America and his latest essay, Strike Wave, was published in the British journal New Left Review in late November. Winant’s historical perspective seems especially useful as we look ahead to a new year and a rejuvenated labor movement, and we’ve included an inspiring report on local organizing in St Paul bookstores: these are the sparks that are firing the tinder of worker discontent across the country.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1945. That was the day workers ended their ninety-nine-day strike against the Ford Motor Company in Windsor, Ontario.
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
This week's music: Take This Job and Shove It: Moonshine Bandits, Dead Kennedys, Canibus With Biz Markie.
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