Labor History Today

Sisters, rebels and social justice in the Jim Crow South

On today’s show, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall discusses her new book, Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of the South in an excerpt from the Working History podcast. Also this week, Karen Nussbaum on Iris Rivera’s historic refusal to serve coffee, Jessica Pauszek reads poetry by a striking British miner’s wife and Tom Zaniello remembers Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times.
 

Voices from the Lansing Auto Town Gallery

On today’s show, auto worker Dorothy Stevens on her pioneering career at the Fisher Body plant in Lansing, MI.Also this week, Karen Nussbaum on Dolly Parton’s hit song, Bill Fletcher on the wildcat strike by the Eldon Avenue Axle Plant Revolutionary Union Movement, and the Cool Things from the Meany Archives team digs into the AFL’s cornerstone.
 

MLK: All Labor Has Dignity

On today’s show, historian Michael Honey on “Wisconsin to Memphis: King's gospel of labor rights on the rebound,” from the Michigan State University School of Human Resources and Labor Relations’ "Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives" Brown Bag series: https://hrlr.msu.edu/laborEdAlso this week, Linda Donahue on the strike by 10,000 clothing workers in Rochester, NY.

UAW’s Punch Press strike daily

This week's labor history: On today’s show, the Cool Things from the Meany Archives crew features The Punch Press, an auto worker strike publication. Also this week, Saul Schniderman remembers contributions to labor history by both Johnny Paycheck and Bruce Springsteen.

A very unusual strike

This week's labor history: On today’s show, originally released January 6, 2019, we talk with historian Erik Loomis about frustrated workers in a very unusual place who decided to strike in a very unusual way.
 

100 years of the ILO

Historians Eileen Boris and Jill Jensen on the complicated legacy of the International Labour Organization, ranging from its early challenge to the Bolshevik revolution to its role in the Cold War and as a countervailing force to the World Bank's model for international development. Plus, remembering Adolph Strasser, co-founder of the AFL.

Working-Class Christmas

On today’s special holiday show, professor Kathy Newman argues that it was the working class that invented Christmas and many of the traditions that are associated with the holiday season. A year ago, nearly a million government workers were locked out or working without pay; we talk to Gregory Guthrie, president of National Federation of Federal Employees Local 1627, about last year’s historic government shutdown. And Saul Schneiderman – with some help from Woody Guthrie – remembers the 1913 Massacre.

Hidden in the Fields

Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez on Invisible Agricultural Child Labor in the American Southwest and the Limits of Citizenship, from the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast. Plus Lane Windham on the Willmar 8, who organized the first strike against a bank in U.S. history.