Labor History Today

The Hardhat Riot

In May, 1970, construction workers in downtown Manhattan beat up young men and women who were protesting against the Vietnam War, which was killing working-class soldiers who had been drafted into the war. Hard hat workers and hippies, who might seem natural allies against nearby Wall Street, were instead pitted against each other. Today we talk with David Paul Kuhn; in his book The Hardhat Riot, he tells the story of when the white working class first turned against liberalism, siding with the party of big business and paving the way for presidencies from Reagan to Trump.And, on today’s Labor History in 2: Police Attack UE Amid the ‘46 Strike Wave. PLUS: Two songs commemorating the 110th anniversary of The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
Produced/edited by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network, more than 100 shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. #LaborRadioPod
#LaborRadioPod @ILLaborHistory #History #Conservatism #WorkingClass #ClassStruggleEdited/produced by Chris Garlock and Patrick Dixon; social media guru: Harold Phillips

We Were There; Pins and Needles; Dust for Blood

Tanya Hutchins, from the Machinist’s union, is American labor organizer Lucy Parsons in an excerpt from We Were There, which will be performed this Wednesday night, March 24 at 7p EST when the Coalition of Labor Union Women celebrates its 47th anniversary with a free online performance of this play, which features inspiring women leaders from the past through the present. Library of Congress Archive Processing Technician Melissa Capozio Jones explores the story behind Pins and Needles, the only Broadway-hit musical revue ever produced by a labor union with a cast of union members singing about unions. Labor History Today producer Patrick Dixon talks with author Mark Torres about his forthcoming book “Long Island Migrant Labor Camps: Dust for Blood.” And, on today’s Labor History in 2: Truman Signs Loyalty Order.
Produced/edited by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network, more than 100 shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. #LaborRadioPod
#LaborRadioPod @ILLaborHistory @CLUWNational @librarycongressEdited/produced by Chris Garlock and Patrick Dixon; social media guru: Harold Phillips

Bootlegged Aliens; UPPER CASE WOMAN

Almost a hundred years ago, the United States was focused on undocumented immigrants coming across the border. Except it was the Canadian border and these illegal immigrants were from Europe. Dr. Ashley Johnson Bavery explores Bootlegged Aliens in our excerpt from the Tales from the Reuther podcast.I want to see my name and upper case letters. No little alphabet will do. Cause though I'm a secretary, I'm an uppercase person too…Confidential Administrative Assistant Janine Hightower performs UPPER CASE WOMAN, introduced by Coalition of Labor Union Women president Elise Bryant. The movie "Salt of the Earth" opened on this date in 1954. It’s now recognized as one of the greatest American movies ever made but at the time it was banned across the country. Find out how this drama about a strike led by Mexican-American and Anglo zinc miners in New Mexico became one of the first movies to advance the feminist social and political point of view. And, on today’s Labor History in 2: The day British socialist illustrator Walter Crane died…
Produced/edited by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network, more than 100 shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. #LaborRadioPod
#LaborRadioPod @ILLaborHistory @ReutherLibrary @CLUWNationalEdited/produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America

Historian Joe William Trotter, Jr. traces black workers’ complicated journey from the transatlantic slave trade through the American Century to the demise of the industrial order in the 21st century. Joe Trotter is Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University; he discussed his book Workers on Arrival last month at an East Side Freedom Library History Book Club virtual event co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Department of History, the Ramsey County Historical Society, and the Labor and Working-class History Association. The talk was moderated by William Jones, Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. On today’s Labor History in 2: Work Faster! Work Faster!
Produced/edited by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network, more than 100 shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. #LaborRadioPod
#LaborRadioPod @ILLaborHistory @ESFLibrary Edited/produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

Singing About Food Labor; Bill Lucy on the ’68 Memphis strike

The Gravy podcast explores how, from Punchin' the Dough to Peach Pickin' Time in Georgia, music has long included songs about labor.On Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts talks with labor icon William A. Lucy, whose more than fifty-year career included working on the sanitation workers campaign that brought Martin Luther King to Memphis in 1968.  And, on today’s Labor History in 2:00: Fighting for Equal Pay
Produced/edited by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network, more than 100 shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. #LaborRadioPod
Gravy is a production of the Southern Foodways Alliance.  The episode included in this week's LHT was produced by Matt Pearl and derives from a presentation originally shared at the 2019 Southern Foodways Symposium on Food and Labor. Visit southernfoodways.org for more helpings of Gravy.#LaborRadioPod @southfoodways @BlackWorkTalk @ILLaborHistoryEdited/produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly

Peter Cole on “Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly”; the second edition of his book about one of the greatest heroes of the American working class has just been released.  We’ll also talk with Dr. Laura Warren Hill about her brand-new book “Strike the Hammer: The Black Freedom Struggle in Rochester, New York, 1940-1970,” which comes out next month.
Peter Cole is Professor of History at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois; Laura Warren Hill is Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies, Bloomfield College in Bloomfield, New Jersey.
We talked with them both on the Your Rights At Work radio show, which airs Thursdays from 1-2pm on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington DC.
PLUS: On Labor History in 2:00: The Elusive Eight Hour WorkDay.
Produced/edited by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network, more than 100 shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. #LaborRadioPod @ILLaborHistory @dclabor @ProfPeterCole @mohojoloEdited/produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

The Valentine’s Day Strike of 1921

Today’s show is from On the Line: Stories of BC Workers, the podcast from the Labour Heritage Centre in British Columbia. One hundred years ago on Valentine's Day, 1921, a group of courageous public school teachers in New Westminster, British Columbia -- -- most of them young women -- defiantly took a stand…PLUS: On Labor History in 2:00: Kansas City Laundresses Walk Off the Job. 
Produced/edited by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network, more than 80 shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. #LaborRadioPod
#LaborRadioPod @BC_LHC @ILLaborHistory @dclaborEdited/produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

Remembering John Sweeney and Anne Feeney

Today’s show is from the Labor Radio Podcast Weekly, where this week, labor news and labor history came together… We lost two giants of the labor movement this week, former AFL-CIO president John Sweeney and labor folksinger and activist Anne Feeney; on today’s show, we remember them both.In our first segment, on this week’s Your Rights At Work radio show (WPFW 89.3 FM in Washington, DC), Stephen Lerner, Marilyn Sneiderman, Harold Meyerson and Joe McCartin talked with hosts Chris Garlock and Ed Smith about Sweeney’s legacy as a visionary labor leader. Stephen and Marilyn both worked closely with Sweeney, Harold covered him as a journalist and Joe, as our resident labor historian, provides the historical context for Sweeney’s life and work in the movement. Click here for Sweeney tributes. On that same show, Coalition of Labor Union Women president Elise Bryant told us about the free online screening by the DC Labor FilmFest of the new documentary, 9to5: The Story of A Movement, coming up this Tuesday at 7pm Eastern Standard Time. The brand-new film captures the real-life fight that inspired a hit by Dolly Parton and changed the American workplace. Get your free tickets here.Elise also shared her memories of Anne Feeney, the labor folksinger and activist who died on Wednesday, and in our second segment, we’ve got an excerpt from the interview the We Do The Work radio show did with Anne recently. In a bonus track that was not on the Labor Radio Podcast Weekly show, Anne Feeney and George Mann talk about the role of music in the great wave of union organizing during the late 1930s. We conclude with a medley of a few of Anne Feeney’s songs. You can find and order Anne’s music here. PLUS: On Labor History in 2:00: Strike at Cripple Creek
Produced/edited by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network, more than 80 shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. #LaborRadioPod
#LaborRadioPod @aflcio @annefeeneyEdited/produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips