labor

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/9/2020
  

  During the Civil War, the Enslaved Were Given an Especially Odious Job. The Pay Went to Their Owners.

  The National Archives has made available online a trove of almost 6,000 Confederate government payroll records that account for money issued to hundreds of owners and others for the work of the enslaved.

• 
• SOURCE: KTVU
  3/22/2020
  

  Local Activists on How this Racial Justice Movement Fits in Oakland's History

  Protests on Oakland reflect the energy of young organizers but also a legacy of African American activism. Five community leaders reflect on continuity and change in the city. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Globe
  6/23/2020
  

  Cancel the Fall College Football Season

  by Victoria L. Jackson

  For too long, instead of facilitating the intellectual advancement and economic empowerment of young Black men, college sports have helped make American universities another institution perpetuating the undervaluing of Black lives.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/29/2020
  

  Women’s Household Labor Is Essential. Why Isn’t It Valued?

  by Alexandra Finley

  Covid-19 has exposed enduring inequality in domestic divisions of labor.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/22/2020
  

  Immigrant Workers Have Borne the Brunt of COVID-19 Outbreaks at Meatpacking Plants

  by Anya Jabour

  The COVID-19 epidemic should remind us of the hazards faced by immigrant meatpacking workers a century ago, and the labor and industry reforms needed to secure their safety.

• 
• SOURCE: Equal Justice Initiative
  5/25/2020
  

  On This Day in 1943: White Workers Riot After Black Workers Promoted in Mobile, Alabama

  Wildcat strikes by white workers were not uncommon protests against the workplace gains made by African Americans on the World War II homefront; they were frequently violent.

• 
• SOURCE: NBC News
  5/25/2020
  

  The Coronavirus Is Threatening Diversity In Academia

  As budgets are stricken and mass layoffs become routine, scholars of all levels are fighting back to make sure diversity in academia won’t become collateral damage in the pandemic.

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  5/26/2020
  

  The Day My Coworkers and I Chose Our Survival Over Our Supervisor

  A union doesn’t automatically protect you from unsafe working conditions, but it can give you the freedom to follow your survival instincts instead of your supervisor.

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  5/18/2020
  

  You Don't Have to Choose Between Jobs and Safety. Just Ask West Virginia

  We can guarantee economic security and keep every working family safe, paid for by an end to grotesque wealth inequality. Here’s how.

• 
• SOURCE: Associated Press
  5/18/2020
  

  ‘Matewan Massacre’ A Century Ago Embodied Miners’ Struggles

  Historian Lou Martin, a board member of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, recounts the oppressive atmosphere in mining towns that led to a violently repressed unionization drive.

• 
• SOURCE: Axios
  5/12/2020
  

  "Disposable Workers" Doing Essential Jobs

  Labor historian John Logan reflects on how the coronavirus crisis has impacted Americans' attitudes towards workers.

• 
• SOURCE: Labor and Working Class History Association
  5/5/2020
  

  COVID-19, the Halifax Explosion, and Crises of Care

  by Jacob Remes

  Because disasters are part of history, not outside of it, they can bring into relief structures of society that were always there.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/1/2020
  

  Meatpacking Work has Become Less Safe. Now it Threatens Our Meat Supply

  by Chris Deutsch

  The modern food system rests on a thin reed of worker abuse and poor sanitation that covid-19 has finally broken.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/2/2020
  

  The New Great Depression Is Coming. Will There Be a New New Deal?

  Leaders like Elizabeth Warren are hoping that the current crisis will spur the kind of labor organizing that happened in the 1930s as workers fight for economic survival. 

• 
• 5/3/2020
  

  If Farmworkers Are “Essential,” Why Are They Treated So Badly?

  by Lawrence Wittner

  Farmworkers are essential. Our government, businesses and laws treat them as expendable.

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  4/28/2020
  

  Prominent Scholars Threaten to Boycott Colleges That Don’t Support Contingent Faculty During Pandemic

  Historians Nell Irvin Painter, Samuel Moyn, and Premilla Nadasen are early signatories of a letter aimed at pressuring universities to offer greater job security to adjunct, contingent, and term-contracted instructors, noting that institutions' pledges to delay tenure decisions for tenure-track faculty do not help the largest group of university faculty.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  4/28/2020
  

  Another Way the 2020s Might Be Like the 1930s

  The strikes and protests of the past month have been small, but they aren’t inconsequential.

• 
• 5/3/2020
  

  Robots Don't Catch the Coronavirus

  by Alan Singer

  Companies have used federal funding in previous crises for selfish, rather than public, ends. In the COVID-19 crisis some are using bailout funds to make jobs permanently disappear. 

• 
• SOURCE: Bloomberg
  4/28/2020
  

  OSHA Inspectors Are Key to Re-Opening. Their Ranks Are at a 45-Year Low

  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a key role to play in reopening the economy, but it has fewer inspectors than at any time since 1975, continuing a pattern of decline that dates to 1981. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/24/2020
  

  Martin Luther King Jr. Predicted This Moment

  by Gene Sperling

  Today, we are forced to confront the dissonance between our nation’s labeling of workers as “essential” and “heroes” and their limited wages, benefits and ability to organize.