labor history

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  9/10/2020
  

  American Democracy Is in the Mail

  by Daniel Carpenter

  The Postal Service has been a circuit of information vital to democracy, a non-exclusionary employer, and a service connecting all communities in the nation. It's also been a tool of conquest and voracious capitalism. For good and ill, the history of the USPS is the history of America. 

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  9/10/2020
  

  The Wages of Whiteness (Review Essay)

  Hari Kunzru's review essay examines the current vogue for white antiracism (and antiracist training) through the history of whiteness as a political and academic concept, concluding that many  of the most popular books and multicultural pieties strip the idea of its structural elements and reduce it to a question of personal purification. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  8/27/2020
  

  Abolishing Child Labor Took the Specter of ‘White Slavery’ and the Job Market’s Near Collapse During the Great Depression

  by Betsy Wood

  Reformers who sought to ban child labor had to make significant compromises with agricultural interests and white supremacists, explaining why significant loopholes in the ban exist.   

• 
• SOURCE: Vanity Fair
  8/25/2020
  

  Blue Bloods: America's Brotherhood of Police Officers

  by Eve L. Ewing

  “How many unions are there where you’re assigned a gun and told you can shoot people?” Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner asked me during a phone interview. “I mean, they have superpowers. They are given superpowers over the lives and freedom of other people. Over the integrity of their bodies.” 

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• SOURCE: Labor and Working Class History Association
  8/3/2020
  

  Remembering Our Friend and Colleague, Professor David H. Bensman

  A champion for workers, Bensman mentored two generations of future labor activists, organizers, and scholars during a 42-year career at Rutgers.

• 
• 7/7/2020
  

  Unions Are Essential for Eliminating Racism

  A new study finds that unions don't just increase wages and benefits for workers on the job — union membership is also linked to diminished racist attitudes among white workers. If we want to defeat racism, building strong, democratic unions is essential.

• 
• SOURCE: The Progressive
  7/7/2020
  

  The Story Behind the Lee Statue in Richmond, Virginia

  by Peter Rachleff

  Now the time has come for the story of the Workingmen’s Reform Party, the building of Richmond’s City Hall, and the solidarity-based politics of the Black and white members of the Knights of Labor, to come out into the light.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  6/29/2020
  

  The Long, Unhappy History of Working From Home

  As the coronavirus keeps spreading, employers are convinced remote work has a bright future. Decades of setbacks suggest otherwise.

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  6/25/2020
  

  21 Lessons From America's Worst Moments

  Historians reflect on the lessons to be learned from the worst episodes of American history (if Americans can look unflinchingly on them). 

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  6/24/2020
  

  How Police Unions Became so Powerful — and How they Can Be Tamed

  Over about half a century, police unions have become one of the most powerful lobbies in local government. Historian Will Jones is among the experts who explain how. 

• 
• 6/21/2020
  

  The Twisted History of Domestic Military Intervention

  by Alan Singer

  The use of federal troops to enforce domestic law and order has usually served the interests of big business and white supremacy; recent calls to send in the troops are not concerned with protecting freedom.

• 
• 6/21/2020
  

  The Great Upheaval of 1877 Sheds Light on Today’s Protests

  by Richard Schneirov

  1877 saw a wave of mass protests and strikes by the urban poor of multiple ethnicities, violent repression by the forces of law and order, and a news media that focused on sensational instances of looting and property damage while ignoring the protesters' complaints about inequality during a brutal economic downturn.

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  6/2/2020
  

  5 Ways to Rebuild Labor and Transform America

  The COVID-19 crisis presents an opportunity for organized labor to fight for a more equitable economy and society, not just better pay and benefits, if the movement learns from historical successes and failures.

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  5/23/2020
  

  You Should Know More About A. Philip Randolph, One of America’s Greatest Socialists

  As the Left attempts to chart a new course in the wake of the Bernie Sanders campaign, there’s no better time to learn from America’s most underrated socialist, labor leader, and civil rights legend, A. Philip Randolph.

• 
• SOURCE: Labor Online
  5/18/2020
  

  The Contagion and a Cure

  by Mark Lause

  Mark Lause looks at the 1793 yellow fever pandemic in Philadelphia from a working class history perspective, and finds it informs us today.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/30/2020
  

  The Coronavirus Could Rewrite the Rules for Silicon Valley

  by Margaret O'Mara

  The blue-collar workers who power the digital economy — including fulfillment center workers and app-based couriers — are pushing for higher pay and better protection, just as Detroit autoworkers did 90 years ago.

• 
• SOURCE: St. Paul Union Advocate
  5/4/2020
  

  Lessons from Labor History can Inform our Labor Movement During COVID-19 Crisis

  by Peter Rachleff

  The story of the 1934 Twin Cities' Teamsters strike story shows how the union won better lives for its members by linking workers and their families to the union, other unions, and the community.

• 
• SOURCE: HowStuffWorks
  4/29/2020
  

  Frances Perkins: The Unsung Creator of U.S. Social Security

  Author Kristin Downey covered Social Security for years, which has driven her to correct the tendency to overlook Frances Perkins's key contributions to the most important social welfare program in America.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/23/2020
  

  Front-Line Workers in the Covid-19 Fight Need Unions

  by William P. Jones

  Without strengthening labor laws, and extending them to all sectors, we cannot ensure workers have the power to protect their own health and safety on the job and the health and safety of our communities.

• 
• 4/19/2020
  

  We Had a Better Social Safety Net. Then We Busted Unions.

  by Lane Windham

  For a time, union contracts were the closest thing the U.S. had to the kinds of robust social safety nets found in European countries.