Labor History Today

No longer newsworthy?

Why did so many working-class Americans desert the traditional news media in the 1990s in favor of Fox News, talk radio and Christian broadcasting? It's a complicated question, but Christopher Martin thinks he knows why. Heartland Labor Forum host Judy Ancel talks about media coverage of labor with Martin, author of  No Longer Newsworthy: How the Mainstream Media Abandoned the Working Class.
Plus Florence Reece and Rebel Diaz ask Which Side Are You On? and this week’s Labor History in 2.Produced by Chris Garlock; edited 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.A longer version of the Christopher Martin interview first aired on the Heartland Labor Forum radio show. You’ll find more Labor History in 2:00 here.

Confederate monuments and the Knights of Labor

Professor Peter Rachleff on the Robert E. Lee memorial and the history of the Knights of Labor in Richmond, Virginia, where Black and White workers united against both Democrats and Republicans who supported capitalism. Plus a tribute to the late John Lewis, a special moment in labor history from the Machinist’s union, Cesar Chavez talks boycott, and this week’s Labor History in 2.Produced by Chris Garlock; edited by Evan Papp and Alan Wierdak. 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.A longer version of the Rachleff interview first aired on WorkWeek Radio.

Strike!

As Black Lives Matter protests continue to spread across the country this summer, we delve into the Labor History Today archives for stories of mass uprisings from our past. In this show, originally released on July 15, 2018, labor historian Joe McCartin discusses the 1934 San Francisco Longshoremen's strike -- which spread into a four-day general strike -- and the Great Steel Strike of 1959.   Then, Donna Haverty-Stacke tells us about the 1934 Minneapolis truckers strike. And union convention badges are the Labor History Object of the Week, as Ben Blake takes another deep dive into the George Meany Labor Archives. Produced by Chris Garlock; edited 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.

“Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work”: the Housewives League of Detroit

Wayne State history PhD candidate, archivist, and former Reuther Library staff member Allie Penn talks with Tales from the Reuther Library podcast host Dan Golodner about the Housewives League of Detroit. Plus, Labor History in 2 tells the story of Oscar Neebe, one of eight men convicted of inciting violence at a workers rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886. And, from our own archives, the former union building right in downtown DC that you’ve probably passed many times without realizing the key role it played in American labor history. Produced by Chris Garlock; edited 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.

2020 Great Labor Arts Exchange contest winners!

This year’s contest winners include People’s Music Networks’ Executive Director Ben Grosscup and Paul McKenna for the Julie McCall Best Parody; Songwriter Inez West from the NYC Labor Chorus for the Bread and Roses Best Labor/Social Justice Poem; Steve Jones, Music Director of the DC Labor Chorus for the Joe Glazer Best Union Song; NYC artist and activist Dilson Hernandez, for the John Fromer String Buster Ballad; and first timer and youngest winner of the contest ever, JustLove, for the Talkin’ Union Spoken Word. “These last two young winners are our hope that the labor and social justice movement is once again on the rise!” Also this week, Joe Glazer’s recording of "Solidarity Forever" from the Songs of Work and Freedom album, and the Cool Things from the Meany Archives gang brings us the July 4th, 1964, issue of the AFL CIO news, which featured the signing of the Civil Rights Act, and Ben and Allen tie that into the ongoing protests for social justice that we see in the streets today. Produced by Chris Garlock. Alan Wierdak produced the Meany Archives segment. 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:2020 Great Labor Arts Exchange videosLabor Heritage FoundationGeorge Meany Memorial AFL-CIO Archive

Why America’s most radical union shut down ports on Juneteenth

“The origins 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

SCOTUS bans LGBTQ workplace discrimination; Queer history of the UAW

“You're 36% more likely if you're LGBTQ to have either lost your job or had your hours reduced since COVID-19 hit and for black queer folks, that's over 40% more likely.”Pride At Work Executive Director Jerame Davis and activist and author (“Steel Closets” and “Semi Queer”) Anne Balay on last week’s historic Supreme Court ruling banning workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.  “The MCS -- the Marine Cooks and Stewards union -- had this turn of phrase that said ‘For solidarity, no red baiting, no race baiting and no queen baiting.” Wayne State history PhD candidate James McQuaid, on the gradual awareness and acceptance of queer workers in the twentieth century.           Plus, a celebration of The Power of Unity on the anniversary of the founding of the steelworkers union.
Produced by Chris Garlock. Patrick Dixon edited the Jerame Davis interview from the June 18 Your Rights At Work WPFW radio show; the James McQuaid interview is excerpted from the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast. 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:Your Rights At Work (WPFW 89.3FM)Tales from the Reuther Archive

Painters join Black Lives Matter protests; the history of black police in America; Race and Rebellion

“We're sick and tired of being left out. We're sick and tired of not being heard. And we're sick and tired of our communities, where we live and work, are not being heard.” That’s Ken Rigmaiden, president of the Painters union. Our Cool Things at the Meany Archive team caught up with him last Monday when the Painters joined the Black Lives Matters protests in downtown Washington, DC… “I'll be frank with you, I've watched police behavior and reform and policies over time. It's been sort of a surprising, shocking that many of the police departments have sort of reverted to tactics, you know, that mirrored or that represented how police operated before African American mayors and before African-Americans became police chiefs and police commissioners.” W. Marvin Dulaney, emeritus professor of history at the University of Texas Arlington and the author of Black Police in America talks with LHT’s Patrick Dixon about the history of black police in America.             “Just the fact that they've devoted so much space to trying to explain how we got here I think sort of validates the idea that you really need to understand the past to understand what's happening in the present.” Archivist Megan Courtney talks about the 1968 Kerner Commission Report with Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English in their podcast Tales from the Reuther Archive…
That’s all on this week’s Labor History Today, along with a song from the R.J. Phillips Band recorded three years ago for the families who have lost loved ones as a result of police brutality. And, on Labor History in 2, we hear about a miner shot dead trying to organize.
Produced by Chris Garlock. Patrick Dixon produced and edited the W. Marvin Dulaney interview; Alan Wierdak produces Cool Things from the Meany Archives. 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:Tales from the Reuther Archive
Labor History in 2