Labor History Today

This week's labor history: co-host Joe McCartin discusses the 1938 U.S. Supreme Court’s Mackay decision, which permits the permanent replacement of striking workers. Joe says this obscure decision was in fact a “ticking time bomb” that would go off to devastating effect more than 40 years later, when Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981, giving employers across the country a green light for union-busting. PLUS: Joe Hower on how Jerry Wurf built AFSCME into one of the most powerful unions in America, Lane Windham on the first union of public library workers, and Saul Schniderman and David Fernandez on the Matewan Massacre. Chris Bangert-Drowns even manages to sneak in baseball’s first labor strike, when the 1912 Detroit Tigers refused to play after team leader Ty Cobb was suspended.
Plus music from Brooklyn Cablevision workers – and CWA members -- Jaywalk, Grim and Shatoya Thomas-Flemmings and the immortal Hazel Dickens.
Joe McCartin is professor of history at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Joe Hower is Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX, and the author of "Revolution in Government: Jerry Wurf, the Rise of AFSCME, and the Fate of American Liberalism, 1919-1981." He’s interviewed by  Patrick Dixson, research analyst at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, and Managing Editor  of LABOR, Studies in Working Class History, the official journal for the Labor and Working-Class History Association for Labor and the Working Poor.Chris Bangert-Drowns is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland who helped organize workers on the College Park campus and now works at the Metro Washington Council.Chris Garlock, Union Cities Coordinator for the Metro Washington AFL-CIO, hosts Union City Radio on WPFW 89.3FM.
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 https://unionist.com/
This week's music:We Are The Union-Jaywalk, Grim and Shatoya Thomas-Flemmings
https://youtu.be/PxyKP8qQ-3YHazel Dickens - Fire in the hole
https://youtu.be/CiGPbHnpQks
 

This week's labor history: co-host Joe McCartin talks about the attack by construction workers on Viet Nam war protesters four days after the Kent State killings. Joe also remembers the Knights of St. Crispin shoemaker’s union. PLUS: Patrick Dixon interviews Jessica Champagne from the Workers Rights Consortium five years after the Rana Plaza disaster, and Larry Spivak, president of the Illinois Labor History Society, discusses the 1894 Pullman Strike. And we’ve got music from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane and Stagefright Tam with Dust and Tears, an original song about Rana Plaza.
Joe McCartin is professor of history at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Patrick Dixson is a research analyst at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, and Managing Editor  of LABOR, Studies in Working Class History, the official journal for the Labor and Working-Class History Association for Labor and the Working PoorChris Bangert-Drowns is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland who helped organize workers on the College Park campus and now works at the Metro Washington Council.Chris Garlock, Union Cities Coordinator for the Metro Washington AFL-CIO, hosts Union City Radio on WPFW 89.3FM.
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 https://unionist.com/
This week's music:Ohio- Crosby, Stills, Nash and Younghttps://youtu.be/TRE9vMBBe10
Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth 1967https://youtu.be/gp5JCrSXkJY
Jefferson Airplane - Volunteershttps://youtu.be/SboRijhWFDU
Dust and Tears [original Rana Plaza sweat shop song] Clothes to die for (by Stagefright Tam)https://youtu.be/5bq9EhnMet4

This week's labor history: Joe McCartin talks about the origins of May Day and its relevance today. Patrick Dixon interviews labor historian Kevin Boyle on anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, and Saul Schniderman tells us how Mother Jones celebrated her 100th birthday in Silver Spring, Maryland. Plus, Billy Bragg on how Pete Seeger got him to write a new verse for “The Internationale,” and music by Billy, Pete and Joan Baez.
Joe McCartin is professor of history at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Kevin Boyle teaches at from Northwestern University; he’s a historian of the twentieth century United States, with a particular interest in modern American social movements. Patrick Dixson is a research analyst at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Chris Bangert-Drowns is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland who helped organize workers on the College Park campus and now works at the Metro Washington Council.Chris Garlock, Union Cities Coordinator for the Metro Washington AFL-CIO, hosts Union City Radio on WPFW 89.3FM.
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 https://unionist.com/
This week's music:Pete Seeger-The Internationalehttps://youtu.be/v85NWc0RIKc
Joan Baez - Here's to you, Nicola and Barthttps://youtu.be/7oday_Fc-Gc
Billy Bragg - Internationalehttps://youtu.be/3BIvqbyku5g

This week's labor history: Joe Uehlein on the connections between labor and the environmental movement; Patrick Dixon’s interview with Peter Cole on the IWW’s 1923 West Coast strike, Damon Silvers on the arrest of Montgomery Ward Chairman Sewell Avery in 1944, and Saul Schniderman on Ida Mae Stull, the country’s first woman coal miner. Today’s music features Joe Uehlein and the U-Liners singing “You Can't Giddy Up By Sayin' Whoa” and “Power.” Joe McCartin is professor of history at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Joe Uehlein is the founding president of the Labor Network for Sustainability, and Voices for a Sustainable Future. Joe spent over 30 years doing organizing, bargaining, and strategic campaign work in the labor movement, as well as a musician and member of the American Federation of Musicians.Peter Cole is a Professor of History at Western Illinois University; he's the author of Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive Era Philadelphia.Patrick Dixson is a research analyst at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Chris Garlock, Union Cities Coordinator for the Metro Washington AFL-CIO, hosts Union City Radio on WPFW 89.3FM.
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 https://unionist.com/
This week's music:You Can't Giddyup By Saying' Whoa!https://youtu.be/3McU8znWCCA
Joe Uehlein & The Bones of Contention "Power"https://youtu.be/dmuaVz6M_Uw

This week's labor history: Founding of the American Federation of Teachers; first McDonald’s opens, leading to "McJobs"; 20,000 blockade D.C. meetings of the World Bank and IMF.Plus Saul Schniderman on A. Philip Randolph, Curtis Bateman on the strike by the first women-led American union, and music including Elizabeth Perry’s “Oklahoma Teacher Walkout Fight Song,” JY Media’s “mcjobs” and Seun Kuti’s “IMF.”
Joe McCartin is professor of history at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Patrick Dixson is a research analyst at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Chris Bangert-Drowns is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland who helped organize workers on the College Park campus and now works at the Metro Washington Council.Chris Garlock, Union Cities Coordinator for the Metro Washington AFL-CIO, hosts Union City Radio on WPFW 89.3FM.
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 https://unionist.com/
This week's music:Oklahoma Teacher Walkout Fight Song (Elizabeth Perry)https://youtu.be/y-X_Z29IRbc
mcjobs (by JY Media)https://youtu.be/L9_nc1UEHZU
Seun Kuti - IMF ft. M1 (from Dead Prez)https://youtu.be/8fGcf3GODKE

This week's labor history: the War Labor Board during World War 1, the 2006 national Day of Action by immigrants and their supporters, the arrests of farm workers for organizing in 1930, and the publication of “The Grapes of Wrath” in 1939.Plus Saul Schneiderman on Florence Reese, Kurt Stand on Gene Debs, and music by Tish Hinojosa and Natalie Merchant.
Joe McCartin is professor of history at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Patrick Dixson is a research analyst at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Chris Bangert-Drowns is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland who helped organize workers on the College Park campus and now works at the Metro Washington Council.Chris Garlock, Union Cities Coordinator for the Metro Washington AFL-CIO, hosts Union City Radio on WPFW 89.3FM.
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 https://unionist.com/
This week's music:Tish Hinojosa - De Coloreshttps://youtu.be/mR8Wc0ZwKZ8
Which Side Are You On (1931)~Florence Reece~Natalie Merchanthttps://youtu.be/A7DuVAbKeUQ

This week's labor history: Kohler strike, longest in U.S. history, begins; strikes by baseball and hockey players and minor league umpires; 15,000 union janitors strike in LA.
PLUS: Saul Schniderman on Rose Schneiderman of the New York Women's Trade Union League.
Music this week includes Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen, El Pueblo Unido, by Inti Illimani, One People, One Struggle, by Anti-Flag, and The People United Will Never Be Defeated! by Fredric Rzewski. 
Joe McCartin is professor of history at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Leon Fink, Professor Emeritus of the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago, edits the journal, "Labor: Studies in Working Class History."Patrick Dixson is a research analyst at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.Chris Garlock, Union Cities Coordinator for the Metro Washington AFL-CIO, hosts Union City Radio on WPFW 89.3FM.
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 https://unionist.com/
This week's music:Bruce Springsteen - Glory Dayshttps://youtu.be/6vQpW9XRiyM
Inti Illimani - El Pueblo Unidohttps://youtu.be/7F_9FEx7ymg
The People United Will Never Be Defeated (English lyrics)https://youtu.be/i86W93OPP2U
Anti-Flag - One People, One Strugglehttps://youtu.be/gi9_suDEdvU
Rzewski - The People United Will Never Be Defeated! [Audio + Score]https://youtu.be/yLGeJ9mrNfU

This week's labor history: U.S. Supreme Court rules that undocumented workers don’t have the same rights as Americans; Sam Walton’s anti-union legacy; remembering Harry Bridges; Texas cowboys strike.
PLUS: Saul Schniderman on Martin Luther King and striking sanitation workers in Memphis.
Music this week includes “Glory,” with Common and John Legend, from the motion picture "Selma” and “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke.
Joe McCartin is professor of history at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Leon Fink, Professor Emeritus of the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago, edits the journal, "Labor: Studies in Working Class History."Patrick Dixson is a research analyst at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.Chris Garlock, Union Cities Coordinator for the Metro Washington AFL-CIO, hosts Union City Radio on WPFW 89.3FM.
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 https://unionist.com/
This week's music:Common, John Legend - Gloryhttps://youtu.be/HUZOKvYcx_oFrom the motion picture "Selma”
Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Comehttps://youtu.be/1omvWb9Is4U