Labor History Today

Making the Woman Worker

Eileen Boris on “Making the Woman Worker: Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards” from the Working History podcast. Plus this week’s labor history highlights!

FWW&CP, the ILO and Lattimer Redux

Jessica Pauszek on the Federation of Worker Writers And Community Publishers; Mark Anner and Tula Connell on the International Labor Organization, and Cool Things at the Meany Archives team dig into their files on the Lattimer Massacre of 1897 and discover, not only the names of those killed, but perhaps a personal connection as well.

Remembering Lattimer, GINA and Newsies

Paul Shackel, author of “Remembering Lattimer,” on one of the largest labor massacres in U.S. history. Lewis Maltby on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, the major workplace protection measure celebrating its’ 10th anniversary. Plus a sneak preview of “Newsies,” now at Arena Stage in DC.

Debs, Sanders, Socialism and 2020

Leon Fink talks with Patrick Dixon about Eugene Debs, Bernie Sanders, American socialism and the 2020 race for president of the United States. On this week’s Cool Things from the Meany Archive, Alan Wierdak and Chloe Danyo explore a document from two decades ago that links the newly-formed Pride@Work with a push to include alternative medicine in Medicare for All legislation.
 
This week's music:Bernie Sanders Brand New Campaign Theme Song (2016 Official Anthem)https://youtu.be/YNS6qaXVwzw
Our Revolution: Bernie Sanders 2020 Theme Song by Tony Tighttps://youtu.be/BX216znrtP0

Precarious work in the movies

Tom Zaniello talks with Sherry Linkon about his next book, an exploration of media accounts of precarious work, ranging from Edward R. Murrow's famous 1960 documentary Harvest of Shame to the storytelling of modern video game.

Cannabis organizing; 2007 Writers Guild Strike

(Originally posted 11/4/2018) This week's labor history: Patrick Dixon talks with Clara Mejía Orta about workers in the cannabis industry in California, and Writers Guild of America West president David Goodman remembers the 2007 strike by 12,000 film and television screenwriters. Plus: Bill Fletcher on the 1892 general strike that brought 20,000 black and white workers together in New Orleans; David Fernandez-Barrial on the four million jobs created by the Civil Works Administration in 1933 for Depression-era unemployed; and Dan Duncan pays tribute to the workers lost when the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in 1975.
This week's music:Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard - It's All Going to Potyoutu.be/S-sBlrClJc0
Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfootyoutu.be/Rjhah6Y_1dQ

Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman

On this week’s show: Robbin Légère Henderson talks about her grandmother, Matilda Rabinowitz Robbins, on the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast. Henderson shares stories from Robbins’ autobiography, Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century, explaining how the optimism of a 13-year-old immigrant from the Ukraine was soon undone by the realities of working in garment sweatshops on the East Coast, leading to Matilda Robbins’ brief but influential role as a labor organizer for the International Workers of the World from 1912 to 1917. She was one of only two women organizers for the IWW during its early years, along with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.Plus a clip from Mother Jones In Heaven, a one-woman musical by Si Kahn, starring Vivian Nesbitt as “Mother” Jones, with musical accompaniment by John Dillon, recently performed at The Robin Theatre in Lansing, Michigan.
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. Produced & engineered by Chris Garlock.

John Brown, Lewis Hine & Labor’s Magna Carta

On this week's Labor History Today: Heroic martyr and visionary or madman and terrorist? Leon Fink on abolitionist John Brown. Art historian Alexander Nemerov on why Lewis Hine’s powerful photographs of young children at work still speak to us today. Plus fascinating finds illuminating "Labor’s Magna Carta" in the Meany Labor Archives and four different versions of "John Brown's Body."
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. Engineered by Chris Garlock.
Labor history sources include Today in Labor History, from Union Communication Services. 
This week's music:Sonny Stitt - John Brown's BodyJohn Browns Body-Paul Robeson Van Morrison - John Brown's BodyWoody Herman Big Band-John Brown's Other Body