labor history 
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SOURCE: Jacobin
5/25/2023
"Salts" are Part of Labor's Fight to Organize. They were once Part of the Antiwar Movement
by Derek Seidman
Taking a job with the covert intention of organizing the workplace is a time-honored labor tactic that's back in the news. Some dedicated activists in the 1960s "salted" the U.S. military in the hopes of building an antiwar movement within the ranks.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
5/15/2023
Hollywood Strikers Carry the Legacy of Ned Ludd
by Gavin Mueller
Our techo-utopian society holds the Luddites in low regard, but their actual history helps explain what's at stake in the screenwriters' strike and any labor conflict where new technology threatens workers' livelihoods.
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
5/19/2023
The Writers' Strike Opens Old Wounds
by Kate Fortmueller
The plot of each sequel of negotiations between the producers and writers has followed a formula of compromise for mutual self-preservation. Technological advances have convinced studio heads that they no longer need the labor of writers enough to keep compromising.
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SOURCE: New York Times
5/17/2023
New Hampshire Honored its Native "Rebel Girl"—Until Locals Realized She was a Red
Two weeks after the state installed a commemorative marker near Concord, New Hampshire, the state legislature removed the monument, with Republican members calling the honoring of the labor organizer "a slap in the face" because of her association with the Communist party.
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SOURCE: History Workshop
5/11/2023
Ayahs, Amahs and Empire: The History of Domestic Care Work under Colonialism
by Julia Laite
The history of domestic and child care work has become increasingly robust, but museums and public exhibitions have struggled to find ways to represent the work and experiences of women, many from south Asia, who traveled with white colonial families to perform this labor, putting marginalized people in charge of the empire's children.
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5/7/2023
Buried Footage Helped Chicago Police Get Away with Killing 10 Labor Activists in 1937
by Greg Mitchell
Paramount's newsreel division shot footage of the murderous attack on a steelworkers' march in 1937. They sided with the bosses by burying the footage. Even after Senator Robert LaFollette pushed for the film's release, cities banned it from the screen as Chicago prosecutors ruled the killings justifiable. A new documentary tells the story of the film.
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SOURCE: New Labor Forum
4/28/2023
Wins at Amazon and Starbucks Shouldn't Obscure the Hard Road Independent Unions Face
by Erik Loomis
The improvised and worker-led efforts to organize the new economy giants has led some commenters to proclaim the end of big labor. A labor historian says that workers still need the resources and support of legacy unions – if they commit to organizing new workplaces – to win against employers more determined than ever to bust unions.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
5/1/2023
How Labor Won the Repeal of "Right to Work" in Michigan
by Jennifer Standish
Labor and its political allies must recognize the importance of state level legislation and coalition-building and resist the temptation to nationalize politics if they hope to repeat their success in Michigan and roll back the state-by-state advance of anti-labor legislation.
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SOURCE: Sojourners
5/1/2023
When a Leading Evangelist Held a Revival to Thwart Labor
by Matt Bernico
The events surrounding the 1886 Haymarket Affair, when a Chicago general strike for the 8 hour day became violent, revealed tensions present in Christianity today: what happens when Christians side with the bosses?
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
4/18/2023
Child Labor is Back; History Says Don't be Surprised
by Beth English
In an effort to attract investment from key industries, state governments in the south actively rescinded existing laws banning child labor, showing that there has been no straight line of progress on the issue.
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4/9/2023
The Power and Betrayal of Cross-Ethnic Solidarity in the 1903 Oxnard Beet Strike
by Frank P. Barajas
The Japanese Mexican Labor Association overcame the deliberate ethnic division of the farm labor force in Oxnard, California to win a major strike in the sugar beet fields in 1903, overcoming violent repression. Anti-Asian prejudice in the broader labor movement ended this successful experiment to the detriment of generations of workers.
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SOURCE: WNYC
3/29/2023
Do We Need a Four-Day Workweek?
Labor historian Erik Loomis discusses reducing the workweek with Melissa Harris-Perry.
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SOURCE: Fast Company
3/29/2023
Howard Schultz Gets Roasted More than Starbucks Beans by Senators
by Kim Kelly
The CEO's reluctance to appear before a Senate Committee was made clear when Senator Bernie Sanders, labor law experts, and Starbucks workers confronted him with allegations that he violated labor laws in seeking to keep the coffee chain union-free.
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SOURCE: The Nation
Debate: Should Workers Organize Workplaces or Industries?
The history of broad organizing in whole industries like automobiles offers both inspiration and caution to workers who see organizing in the service industry as the key to a fairer economy. Two labor experts discuss.
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SOURCE: Jewish Currents
3/14/2023
The History and Politics of the Right to Grieve
by Erik Baker
Grief isn't a personal psychological and emotional process; we experience it through the demands a capitalist economy makes on our time, energy and attention. It's time to make bereavement a matter of right, instead of a favor doled out at the whim of your boss.
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SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
3/1/2023
Academic Workers Looking to History for Organizing Strategies in Antiunion States
The United Public Workers of America were pioneers in organizing academic workers across professional and occupational lines, until being red-baited.
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SOURCE: Jewish Currents
2/24/2023
Little Bargains for Big Issues
by Michael Paul Berlin
Bargaining teams representing University of California graduate workers focused narrowly on economic issues, and not on building unity of workers and the communities around universities. This is a historical pattern of a "business unionism" model eclipsing a view of unions as social movements. Workers need to change this.
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SOURCE: In These Times
2/24/2023
It's Time for Labor Spring
by Cindy Hahamovich, William P. Jones and Joseph A. McCartin
In 1996, labor unions connected with campus activists to support anti-sweatshop movements, living wage campaigns for campus workers, and graduate student union organization. Now, labor must expand that effort for "wall-to-wall" organizing to make campuses better and more democratic workplaces.
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2/26/2023
What Airports Can Tell Us About Histories of Regional Development
by Eric Porter
From the perspective of travelers, airports appear as generic "non-places." But for people who aren't just passing through—entrepreneurs, activists, and especially workers—their particularity makes them sites of struggle that shape the life of a region. Historians have much to learn from them, too.
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2/26/2023
Christopher Gorham Gives the Remarkable Anna Marie Rosenberg the Bio She Deserves
by Kathryn Smith
From the New Deal's NRA to the Manhattan Project's labor needs, and from the launch of Social Security to JFK's famous birthday party featuring Marilyn Monroe, Rosenberg was a master facilitator who had a hand in many of the policies that shaped modern America, as a compelling new biography explains.
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