Labor History Today

Brecher’s “Strike!”

Part 1 of our 2018 interview with Jeremy Brecher, the historian, documentary filmmaker, activist, and author of books on labor and social movements, including the classic book Strike!Plus: Patrick Dixon talks with history professor Sarah Rose about the Americans with Disabilities Act and the complex history of disability and work. Jordan Biscardo, communications director at the Seafarers Union, tells us about the 1946 general strike that shut down the U.S. maritime industry.And our labor history Object of the Week is the cover of the September 1949 edition of The American Federationist, depicting the first Labor Day march.Originally posted 9/3/2018.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 the Labor Heritage Foudnation 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: There is Power in a Union by The Street Dogs 

“The waterfront is my life”

The story of Cleophas Williams, the first African American president of Local 10 of the ILWU, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Thanks to WBAI’s Building Bridges radio show, where a longer version of this originally appeared. On this week’s Labor History in Two: The Packers.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  @bbridgesradio @ilwulongshore

Debs’ radio station

Filmmaker Yale Strom ("American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs") remembers WEVD, the Chicago radio station named for labor leader Eugene Victor Debs; Dan Duncan celebrates the founding of the AFL-CIO’s Maritime Trades Department; Saul Schniderman marks the anniversary of the publication of the IWW’s "Little Red Song Book," and Ben Blake’s labor history Object of the Week.This show was originally released August 12, 2018.Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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 the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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The union archive that almost didn’t make it

The story of how the International Woodworkers of America Archive began, was almost lost, and continues to preserve the records of what was once British Columbia's largest and most powerful union. Today’s report comes from On the Line: Stories of BC Workers. On this week’s Labor History in Two:  Singing a union tune.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory @BC_LHC

Coit Tower’s New Deal Murals

From 1935 to 1943 the Federal Art Project -- a project of the Works Progress Administration, or WPA-- employed some 10,000 artists and craft workers, helping them survive the Great Depression. The artists created hundreds of thousands of visual arts: paintings, murals, prints, posters, and renderings. Many of them survive to this day, but you have to know where to look for them. That’s why LHT host Chris Garlock found himself on Telegraph Hill yesterday, during a visit to San Francisco, meeting up with Harvey Smith, who leads tours of local WPA sites. Find out more at LivingNewDeal.orgCoit Tower is home to a stunning collection of murals that have recently been restored; Chris had seen them many years ago and had been struck by the depictions of workers and bosses that managed to be simultaneously beautiful and politically powerful and arranged to meet up with Harvey so he could shed some light on their creation and meaning.
Harvey does a terrific job describing the art, but we’ve also got a great album of photos of the murals posted on the Labor Heritage Foundation’s Facebook page.On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 1917; that was the day IWW leader Frank Little was buried in Butte, Montana.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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 Chris Garlock for the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Coit Tower mural photos by Lisa Garlock.
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Who Killed Frank Little?

The Death In The West podcast re-opens the case of Frank Little, a union organizer whose brutal unsolved murder shocked the nation during the tumultuous summer of 1917. Features Frank Little, a brand-new song from the R.J. Phillips Band.On this week’s Labor History in Two:  The year was 1970. That was the day the United Farm Workers, led by Cesar Chavez, signed their first union contract in California.  
Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

Life and Times of a Black Wobbly

Ben Fletcher was one of the most important black labor leaders in American history. Yet he’s almost entirely unknown. In today’s show, from the Working Class History podcast, we learn about this little-known dock worker and labor organizer, who helped organize thousands of workers on the Philadelphia docks into the most powerful multiracial union in the country. Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory @ProfPeterCole

The Port Chicago Mutiny (Encore)

On July 17, 1944, two ammunition ships exploded at Port Chicago, Calif., killing 322, including 202 African-Americans assigned by the Navy to handle explosives. It was the worst home-front disaster of World War II. The resulting refusal of 258 African-Americans to return to the dangerous work underpinned the trial and conviction of 50 of the men in what is called the Port Chicago Mutiny.Today, the disaster and its aftermath are memorialized at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial, one of a small number of National Park sites that commemorate death and dying on the job. In October 2021, as part of "Monumental Labor," a three-part online series that explored the memory of work and working peoples in National Parks and National Historic Landmarks, a distinguished panel discussed “Tragedy and Resistance at Port Chicago Naval Magazine.” The "Monumental Labor" series was organized by Labor History Today contributor Dr. Eleanor Mahoney and Dr. Emma Silverman. Thanks also to the National Park Service, and to the National Park and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations, which helped make the series possible.On this week’s Labor History in Two: Ida B. Wells and Bloody Thursday.  
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, 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. Editing this week by Patrick Dixon & Chris Garlock.
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