Labor History Today

Chris talks with labor historian Dana Frank; her new book is What Can We Learn From the Great Depression? Stories of Ordinary People and Collective Action in Hard Times. The book takes a new look at working-class activism during the 1930s from the perspective of our own time, examining mutual aid, eviction protests, the expulsion of a million Mexicans, a sit-down strike by African American women working as wet-nurses, and a white supremacist fascist organization in Ohio known as the Black Legion. Dana will be in conversation with Bill Fletcher Jr. this Tuesday, October 7, at the K Street Busboys and Poets; click here for details.  On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1918. That was the evening that a series of explosions began at the T.A. Gillespie Company near Morgan, New Jersey.  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. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

William Lucy – an icon of the labor movement -- died this past Wednesday at the age of 90. “Bill Lucy served as a brilliant strategist whose words instantly cut to the heart of an issue,” said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, who called Lucy “a bridge across generations of our movement; and a leader in connecting the fights of working people all across the world.” As Shuler noted, when Lucy was just 34 years old, “he wrote four simple words—'I Am a Man’—that would change the course of history in Memphis, Tennessee,” helping “all Americans see the humanity of Black sanitation workers in their struggle for dignity and respect on the job.” Bill Lucy also co-founded the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and it’s that aspect of his extraordinary career that we’re going to explore on today’s show. In January 2021, Lucy talked with the Black Work Talk podcast about the relationship between Black unionists, the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, and the labor movement during the 60s and 70s. Labor Movement Celebrates Extraordinary Life and Career of Bill Lucy “Tired of Going to Funerals”: The 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary 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. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

The Animation Guild (TAG), Local 839 of the Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), resumed negotiations with Hollywood studios this week and are fighting for pay equity for color designers, a job historically staffed by women. Today’s show originally ran on July 6, 2023, when the strike by Hollywood writers was in its’ 10th week. Among those turning out to support that strike were members of the Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839); in March of 2023, the animators staged a “solidarity walk” around Walt Disney Studios in Burbank with dozens of the studio’s animation production workers protesting Disney’s refusal to voluntarily recognize its unionization efforts. Those who know their Hollywood labor history will have recognized the echoes of another Hollywood strike, the 1941 walkout by hundreds of animators at Walt Disney Studios. On today’s show, animation historian Jake Friedman joins us to discuss his book The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation’s Golden Age. (Original airdate 7/6/2023) On this week’s Labor History in Two: The Squeegee Strike. 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 @jakesfriedman #thedisneyrevolt @WGAWest #WGAStrike  

Labor journalist Hamilton Nolan on the labor movement past, present and future and his new book “The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor.” Recorded live at the eighth annual Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium on August 31 in Wheeling, West Virginia. Music by the Pittsburgh Labor Choir.  On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 1970; that was the day 350,000 GM workers kicked off a 67-day strike. 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. Today’s show recorded by Patrick Dixon and produced by Chris Garlock; photo by Garlock.  @hamiltonnolan @FoundationWals #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

J. Albert Mann, author of “Shift Happens: The History of Labor in the United States,” a children’s book that’s unusual not just in its subject matter but in the way it treats kids seriously as the future citizens they are. Recorded live at the Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium in Wheeling, West Virginia on August 31, 2024. Recording by Patrick Dixon, produced by Chris Garlock. On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 2011; that was the day hundreds of ILWU strikers blocked railroad tracks near Longview, Washington. 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. @JAlbertMann @FoundationWals #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

Walter Reuther’s name is forever linked to Detroit, Michigan, where he and his brother Victor built the United Automobile Workers -- the UAW -- into one of the largest and most progressive labor unions in American history. In Wheeling, West Virginia, where he was born on September 1, 1907, Reuther is a hometown boy who made good. Each year for the last eight years, the Wheeling Academy of Law and Science Foundation (WALS) has organized the Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium on Labor Day weekend. The annual event also celebrates the life and work of local stogie maker -- and union supporter -- Augustus Pollack. LHT producers Chris Garlock and Patrick Dixon drove out to Wheeling last Friday to cover the symposium, which included presentations by “Shift Happens” author J. Albert Mann, labor journalist Hamilton Nolan, West Virginia Mine Wars Museum co-founder Lou Martin and the Pittsburgh Labor Choir. We’ll be sharing audio from those presentations in upcoming shows. West Virginia historian Hal Gorby led a walking tour on Saturday to statues of both Reuther and Pollack in a park along the Ohio River in downtown Wheeling. The noontime walk was interrupted by an intense but thankfully brief mountain thunderstorm, so you’ll hear the rain and thunder in the background as we took shelter and the intrepid Dr. Gorby continued his local history talk beneath his oversized umbrella. On this week’s Labor History in Two:  the year was 1921. On that day the “Battle of Blair Mountain” raged in Logan County, West Virginia.  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. @FoundationWals @hamiltonnolan @JAlbertMann @WarsWV @UAW_Archivist @ReutherLibrary #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

Labor action is effectively one of two things: political action, or direct action. This week, from the Solidarity Forever podcast, we learn about political action, in the courts through the landmark Pullis decision, and charting the rise and fall of the Working Man's Parties in the days of Andy Jackson. On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1925. Five hundred African American sleeping car porters gathered at the Elks Hall at 129th Street in Harlem. 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. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

Blood in the Streets, photographer Chuck Avery’s illustrated history of American labor struggles, and Kurt Stand shares an excerpt from his essay, Peekskill, 1949: What Was Lost, What Remained, What It Means Today. On this week’s Labor History in Two:  the year was 1918; that was the day that 101 leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies were convicted in a Chicago Federal Court. 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. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

Labor historian Peter Rachleff on how a Midwest strike helped shape national labor law plus a preview of his talk on the 1886 takeover of the Richmond (VA) City Council by black and white union activists.   On this week’s Labor History in Two: the birth of the original Rebel Girl, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. 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. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

Between 1955 and 1965, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) investigated numerous southern institutions of higher education that had dismissed faculty members for publicly supporting desegregation and racial equality. In today’s episode, from the AAUP Presents podcast, a discussion with Joy Ann Williamson-Lott, dean of the graduate school and professor of social and cultural foundations in the College of Education at the University of Washington, drawing on her recently published article, "The AAUP and the Black Freedom Struggle, 1955–1965.” On this week’s Labor History in Two:  The year was 1821. That was the day Knights of Labor founder Uriah Smith Stephens was born near Cape May, New Jersey. 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. @AAUP #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory