Labor History Today

Keokuk before the strike

In 1970, a strike by school workers in Keokuk, Iowa sent shockwaves through the state and jump-started a movement for collective bargaining rights for Iowa’s public-sector workers.Our story of this explosive event in a little industrial town on the Mississippi River comes to us from the Speaking of Work podcast, which goes back to the 1950s and 1960s to explore the roots of the Keokuk strike. Episodes 2 and 3 are available now! Music this week by Matthew Grimm.And on this week’s Labor History in 2:00… The year was 1934. That was the day National Guard troops in Minneapolis raided Teamsters local 574 headquarters.
Produced 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.
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Indigenous Longshoremen & the I.W.W.

June is Indigenous History Month in Canada, and this year, the country has been rocked by the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children who attended residential school over the decades. Today we bring you a report from the always excellent podcast On the Line: Stories of BC Workers, which takes note of Indigenous History month with a different aspect of British Columbia's Indigenous history: one that is not tragic, and not very well known. They examine the contribution of Indigenous workers to the port of Vancouver, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, largely through the voices of those who worked the waterfront - and it's a union story, too. In 1906, the independent Lumber Handlers Union was established as local 526 of the Industrial Workers of the World – or I.W.W. -- with most of the 50 or 60 members being Indigenous. This is their story.
This week we’ve also got an interesting story that reminds us that labor history is all around us and can pop up in some pretty unusual places. This one started with an odd photograph that sent me down some interesting – and unexpected – paths, from a long-forgotten strike to a racist TV show.And on this week’s Labor History in 2:00… The year was 1944. That was the day Local 212 UAW workers at Briggs returned to work.
Produced 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.
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MORE LINKSMilwaukee Public Library Remember When…NAACP Bulletin 

Houston, We Have a Labor Dispute

For decades, rumors have circulated about a strike in space. The story goes that in 1973, the three astronauts on the Skylab 4 mission took an unplanned day off to protest ground controls management style, and the job action resulted in improved working conditions. It's a great story, but according to crew member Ed Gibson, that's not exactly what happened. Reporter Meagan Day says the real story is still a testament to the potential of strikes — or even just the threat of strikes — to shift the balance of power in the workplace. She wrote about it in Jacobin last month and brings us her report today. MULTIVERSE composed & produced by SutheeComposer.And on this week’s Labor History in 2:00… The year was 1969. That was the day hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina won union recognition.
Produced 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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @jacobin @meaganmday

Dramatizing The Murals

THE MURALS is a play dramatizing the ongoing conflict over the George Washington High School murals painted by WPA artist Victor Arnautoff in 1936. The play premieres online at the LaborFest Saturday, July 17 – click here for free tickets – and LHT producer Patrick Dixon chats with playwright Howard Pflanzer about the debate and the issues.The Meany Labor Archive’s Alan Wierdak and Mieko Palazzo explore the Fascinating and Complicated Legacy of Bayard Rustin.  
And on this week’s Labor History in 2:00… The year was 1968. That was the day that the American Indian Movement began at a meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Produced by Chris Garlock; editing by Patrick Dixon. 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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @sf_laborfest

2020/2021 Joe Hill award-winners

Labor cartoonists Gary Huck and Mike Konopacki, the 2021 Joe Hill Award winners, were joined at this year’s Great Labor Arts Exchange -- hosted by the Labor Heritage Foundation -- by musicians Steve Jones and Ysaye Barnwell, the 2020 winners. Today’s labor history: Duluth strikers killed.   Today's quote: The New York Times.
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Supported by our friends at Union Plus; founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.

The Memphis Fire Fighter Strike of 1978

On July 2, 1978, fire fighters in Memphis went out on strike, one of several groups of fire fighters across the country who struck that year. On today’s show – which originally aired on the IAFF Podcast, from the International Association of Fire Fighters – two Memphis fire fighters tell the story of the conditions that led up to the strike, the obstacles they faced on the job and how fire fighters in Memphis reached their boiling point and walked off the job not once but twice in the summer of 1978.And on this week’s Labor History in 2:00…The year was 1930. That was the day some 1300 labor radicals and Communist Party supporters assembled in Chicago to establish The National Unemployed Council. 
Produced 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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @IAFFNewsDesk @ILLaborHistory

Marvel Cooke, a Journalist for Working People

Marvel Cooke, a groundbreaking Black woman journalist who reported on labor in the 1940s and organized a union with the Newspaper Guild in the 1930s, is one of countless storytellers nearly forgotten by history because they were too radical. Lewis Raven Wallace brings us this report from The View from Somewhere: A Podcast About Journalism With A Purpose, which features stories of marginalized and oppressed people who have shaped journalism in the U.S. The podcast focuses on the troubled history of “objectivity” and how it has been used to gatekeep and exclude people of color, queer and trans people, and people organizing for their labor rights and communities.
Also this week: In June of 1990, hundreds of striking janitors and supporters peacefully demonstrated in Century City, Los Angeles. Police in riot gear attacked, injuring hundreds of people. The violent encounter -- which became known as The Battle of Century City -- would mark a turning point in the janitors' fight for justice. Check out the video here.
On this week’s Labor History in 2:00: Milwaukee transit workers join the ‘34 strike wave.
Produced 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.
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LHT Archives: Why America’s most radical union shut down ports on Juneteenth

NOTE: This show was originally released on June 28, 2020“The origin of the word strike goes back to the port of London in 1768, when dock workers and sailors struck. When sailors stop work, they take down the sails of their ship and that's called, nautically, striking your sail. And that term becomes the de facto word for all work stoppages.”Peter Cole, professor of history at Western Illinois University and author of two books on dockworkers, Wobblies on the Waterfront and Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area, talks with Ben Blake and Alan Wierdak about the historic Juneteenth strike by dockworkers this year, and the long history of dockworker activism.
Plus, Arlo Guthrie sings “The Ballad of Harry Bridges” and Elise Bryant reads “Ready To Kill,” Carl Sandburg’s poem about who should be memorialized in our statues.
Produced by Chris Garlock. Alan Wierdak (George Meany Archives) produced the Peter Cole interview. 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.
Links:The Most Radical Union in the U.S. Is Shutting Down the Ports on Juneteenth (In These Times, June 16, 2020)Your Rights At Work radio show (WPFW 89.3FM)Labor Heritage FoundationArlo Guthrie: The Ballad of Harry Bridges
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