labor history

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  9/15/2022
  

  Is Biden Really the Most Pro-Union President?

  Labor historian Erik Loomis says Biden is spending limited political capital to support workers and strikers, and that the bar for pro-labor presidencies is set extremely low. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  9/15/2022
  

  Once More, Railroad Workers are Taking the Lead for American Labor

  by Nelson Lichtenstein

  Railroad companies' profits hinge on inhumane scheduling practices—cutting the workforce to the bone and squeezing everything possible out of those who remain—that will soon be part of every industry if workers aren't able to fight back. 

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• 9/18/2022
  

  What Casey Jones Tells Us about the Past and Present of America's Railroad Workers

  by Scott Huffard

  Although it's difficult to separate fact from fiction around his life, the famed railroad engineer had something in common with today's rail workers: being stretched to the limits of health and safety by companies' pursuit of profit. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/14/2022
  

  Centuries-Old Union Busting Playbook is Alive and Well

  by Henry Snow

  Since the days of labor agitation in the Royal Dockyards in the 18th century, employers have fought collective action by workers by keeping them separate and isolated. Modern unionization drives need to recognize and overcome this tactic. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  9/15/2022
  

  Minor League Baseball Union Part of a Long History of Organizing

  Along with baristas and warehouse workers, minor leaguers are organizing to fight back against poor pay and a lack of respect on the job, says labor historian Peter Rachleff. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  9/5/2022
  

  Eugene Debs: In a Just World, Every Day is Labor Day

  Read Debs's 1903 Labor Day Address in its entirety. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/1/2022
  

  Labor Day is a Chance for Unions and the Democrats to Renew Their Shared History

  by Michael Kazin

  The Democrats and American labor unions have enjoyed success proportionally to the strength of their partnership. Pro-labor rhetoric by President Biden and the upsurge of grassroots union organizing are a sign to renew a formal partnership, says a historian of the Democratic Party. 

• 
• 9/4/2022
  

  "Pour Myself a Cup of Ambition": The 1970s Echo in Today's Union Revival

  by Ellen Cassedy and Lane Windham

  This Labor Day, we’re hopeful about the renewed energy and excitement for workplace organizing—especially by women workers—and cautiously optimistic that today’s workers may overcome the sorts of corporate tactics that blocked organizing in the 1970s.

• 
• SOURCE: Wonkette
  8/19/2022
  

  When We All Boycotted a Lousy Beer

  by Erik Loomis

  Latino organizations and the AFL-CIO urged boycotts of Coors beer for its owners politics and the company's antilabor crusade. The company's national sales didn't take a serious hit until student, environmental, and gay activists helped form a broader coalition. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  8/24/2022
  

  Women Have Always Been at the Center of the Labor Movement

  by Amy Mackin

  The 1860 strike of male shoe workers in Lynn, Massachusetts floundered until the strikers allied with their female compatriots, but the movement largely failed to maintain gender unity. This lesson is critical for the service industry unions organizing today. 

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  8/25/2022
  

  How a Deadly Explosion Catalyzed Civil Rights Activism Among Black WWII Soldiers

  by Matthew Delmont

  Segregated Navy men had been assigned dangerous duty loading munitions onto ships without adequate training or appropriate limits on the pace of their work. The inevitable disastrous explosion at Port Chicago created a surge of racial justice and labor activism in the military. 

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• SOURCE: Labor and Working Class History Association
  8/2/2022
  

  Working 9 to 5: The Activism of Women Office Workers

  by Ellen Cassedy

  The author of a new firsthand history of a pioneering organization of women office workers discusses the history behind the movement for "Raises and Roses." 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/25/2022
  

  Companies Worried about Worker Turnover? Benefits and Baseball Worked at the Turn of the 20th Century

  by Jeffrey Smith

  A generation of industrialists adopted a slate of extracurricular benefits like baseball teams as part of a welfare capitalist movement to improve production and thwart unionization. 

• 
• SOURCE: In These Times
  7/14/2022
  

  America is Violating its Bargain for Labor Peace

  By starving the NLRB and other agencies that enforce the terms of union contracts and labor laws, the right wing is daring workers to take more militant action outside the system, says labor writer Hamilton Nolan. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  6/27/2022
  

  The Labor Upsurge Calls Us to Rethink Organizing Rules

  by Chris Brooks

  Do the successes of organizers at Amazon and Starbucks mean the age of slow, methodical and gradual organizing is over? Can workers use a union vote itself as an organizing tool to move quickly and defeat union-busting? 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/8/2022
  

  Anti-Sweatshop Crusader Charles Kernaghan, 74

  Kernaghan waged war against the dark side of free trade: the ruthless exploitation of workers in overseas factories. 

• 
• 5/29/2022
  

  There is a Real "Great Replacement" – But Not the One the Right Talks About

  by Guy Lancaster

  Arkansas history shows how the true Great Replacement in the United States has been organized by oligarchs hoping to use immigrant labor to undercut Black people's demands for economic fairness and human rights. 

• 
• SOURCE: Business Insider
  5/22/2022
  

  Labor Historian: Amazon's Warehouse Victory is a Big Step, But Just a Step

  Cornell's Ilene DeVault says the organization of Amazon's Staten Island warehouse is more important that unionization at Starbucks for the reversal of the decades-long attack on organized labor in the US. 

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• SOURCE: Labor and Working Class History Association
  5/4/2022
  

  The Laundry Workers' Uprising and the Fight for Democratic Unionism

  by Jenny Carson

  African American and Black Caribbean immigrant women were key organizers of New York laundry workers who pushed for a union movement that rejected divisions of occupation, race and nationality in favor of workplace democracy. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times
  5/1/2022
  

  Chicago Museum Expansion will Highlight Key Role of Pullman Porters in Black History

  Lyn Hughes was shocked that the public history of Chicago's Pullman factory and surrounding neighborhood overlooked the role of African American workers – who became a key core of civil rights activism.