labor history

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/6/2021
  

  Too Few Today Remember the Bloody Uprising of Miners at Blair Mountain

  In a region still marked by rampant inequality, the public forgetting of the Battle of Blair Mountain seems like a concerted effort to suppress working people's history. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/3/2021
  

  The Filibuster is an Anti-Worker Rule, Too

  by Emily DiVito and Suzanne Kahn

  Since 1948, the filibuster has blocked three major labor reform bills affecting "right to work" laws, streamlining the union recognition process, and protecting workers from retaliation during labor disputes. Eliminating it is critical for economic justice. 

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• SOURCE: Vox
  8/24/2021
  

  How the "Job" Became the Center of American Life

  "Since about the 1940s, Americans have been encouraged to look to their jobs for nearly all of life’s necessities: a living wage, health insurance, and retirement benefits, as well as intangibles like friendship, identity, and a sense of purpose." Historians Nelson Lichtenstein and James Livingston explain why. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/6/2021
  

  When the United States Almost Adopted a 30 Hour Work Week

  Historian Benjamin Hunnicutt describes the political negotiations that took place during the Depression to shorten the work week to put more Americans to work. Could similar changes work today? 

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• SOURCE: Jacobin
  9/1/2021
  

  Socialist Actor Ed Asner Fought for Labor

  by Jeff Schuhrke

  Ed Asner fought for the representation of small-time actors in the Screen Actors Guild and protested American support for right-wing autocrats in Central America. 

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• SOURCE: The Hill
  9/2/2021
  

  There's No "Labor Shortage," Just a Shortage of Wages and Worker Protection

  by Lane Windham

  American workers, especially women, aren't being lazy. They're taking part in an unrecognized general strike against low wages, inadequate childcare, and dangerous workplaces made more dangerous by COVID. 

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  8/30/2021
  

  The 100th Anniversary of the Biggest Uprising Since the Civil War

  by Samuel Fleischman

  West Virginia coal country needs to recover the tradition of solidarity that developed during the state's deadly mine wars to move to a fair post-coal future. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  8/27/2021
  

  New History of Chicanos in Ventura County

  Historian Frank Barajas discusses his new book on Chicano activism in California's Ventura County with columnist Gustavo Arellano.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/26/2021
  

  The Failed Plan to Replace the South's Black Labor Force with Chinese Immigrants

  James Loewen's work "The Mississippi Chinese" is a touchstone for writer Jay Caspian Kang, who reflects on the connections between race and exploitation in history. 

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• SOURCE: Labor and Working Class History Association
  8/29/2021
  

  Richard L. Trumka, 1949-2021

  by Lane Windham

  Richard Trumka started in the labor movement as a miner, but came to recognize as the AFL-CIO president that the movement would have to organize new sectors and more diverse workers to survive. 

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• SOURCE: Economic Policy Institute
  8/25/2021
  

  A Century After Blair Mountain, the Right to Organize is as Vital as Ever

  by Dave Kamper

  "In many mining regions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mine companies for all practical purposes were the government."

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• SOURCE: Slate
  8/24/2021
  

  Liz Shuler's Leadership of AFL-CIO Comes at Critical Time for Women in the Workplace

  by Katherine Turk

  "As Shuler takes office, union women will look to her to champion their expansive visions and specific concerns; employers will continue to try to pit groups of workers against one another in their crusade to depress conditions for everyone."

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• SOURCE: Jacobin
  8/20/2021
  

  The Contemporary US Right’s Roots in 1930s Union-Busting: Interview with Kathryn Olmsted

  The New Deal's support for labor rights pushed the large California agricultural interests, who previously embraced "big government" irrigation projects, to an aggressive anti-statist position based in keeping control over their workplaces and their profits. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  8/23/2021
  

  America Once was Eager for Chinese Immigration. Mae Ngai's Book Explains What Happened

  The first wave of the California Gold Rush was "a nettlesome experiment in multiracial democracy that had little precedent in the country's history," but resulted in the development of institutionalized anti-Asian nativism as a political force.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  8/23/2021
  

  What Connects 2021's "Stillwater" and 1979's "Norma Rae"?

  by Aimee Loiselle

  Both Amanda Knox, an American student accused of murder in Italy, and Crystal Lee Sutton, the southern labor organizer portrayed in "Norma Rae," have challenged the way that Hollywood films have reinterpreted their stories for commercial gain. 

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• SOURCE: The American Prospect
  8/5/2021
  

  Is the PATCO Era Ending?

  by Joseph A. McCartin

  Forty years ago, Ronald Reagan's handling of the air traffic controllers' strike enshrined the era of union-busting. Can labor start to recover now? 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  8/2/2021
  

  Simone Biles is the Latest Olympian to Withhold Her Labor for Change

  by Johanna Mellis

  Simone Biles' decision not to compete in several gymnastic events is part of a legacy of athletes' refusal to compete dating back to Hungarian athletes' protests of Communist repression in 1956. 

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• SOURCE: Jacobin
  7/27/2021
  

  The KKK was also a Bosses' Organization

  by Chad Pearson

  While the membership of the Reconstruction-era Klan was broad, its leadership was drawn from the Southern elite, whose vision of white supremacy was inseparable from the exploitation of Black labor. 

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• SOURCE: HuffPost
  6/17/2021
  

  Amazon’s Greatest Weapon Against Unions: Worker Turnover

  Labor historians Nelson Lichtenstein and Joe McCartin say that Amazon's corporate turn against retaining employees reverses longstanding business strategies because it makes organizing unions extremely difficult. 

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• 6/13/2021
  

  Valor Roll: American Newsies in the Great War and the Flu Pandemic

  by Vincent DiGirolamo

  Newsies were a critical labor force in the early 20th century, connecting Americans to information. The author of a history of Newsies shows that their service drew praise in the First World War but suspicion in the ensuing influenza pandemic.