​“We can’t sit here and declare a general strike, obviously. There has to be approval, agreement, willingness to take the risk, to participate.”

From this week's Labor History Today podcast

Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. On this week’s show, Patrick Dixon interviews union organizer and labor historian Doug Nesbitt about the 1995 general strike by forty thousand workers in London, Ontario, Canada. Plus Noam Chomsky on general strikes and Leon Fink on the AFL-CIO's support for the Viet Nam war. 

A small group of Black farmers organize the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union in Houston County, Texas. They had been barred from membership in the all-White Southern Farmers’ Alliance. Through intensive organizing, along with merging with another Black farmers group, the renamed Colored Alliance by 1891 claimed a membership of 1.2 million - 1886

Ten days after an Illinois State mine inspector approved coal dust removal techniques at New Orient mine in West Frankfort, the mine exploded, apparently due to accumulated methane gas, killing 119 workers - 1951

The U.S. Department of Labor announces that the nation's unemployment rate had dropped to 3.3 percent, the lowest mark in 15 years - 1968

Forty thousand workers go on general strike in London, Ontario—a city with a population of 300,000—protesting cuts in social services - 1995

Michigan becomes the 24th state to adopt right-to-work legislation. The Republican-dominated state Senate introduced two measures—one covering private workers, the other covering public workers—by surprise five days earlier and immediately voted their passage; the Republican House approved them five days later (the fastest it legally could) and the Republican governor immediately signed both bills - 2012

Labor history courtesy Union Communication Services

​Providence Hospital owner Ascension is moving forward with a plans to effectively close Providence this Friday, despite recent reports that it would remain open until at least the end of April, 2019. A rally at the hospital is planned for 10a Tuesday morning (see Calendar). If Ascension's plans are implemented, "people will die unnecessarily without adequate access to care,” warns Elissa Curry, a registered nurse at Providence Hospital.  DC’s  State Health Planning and Development Agency (SHPDA) had rejected Ascension’s plan to close Providence in December because they had not done enough to inform patients and prepare the community for the change, but “Now Ascension is acting like they are above the law,” reports DC Jobs With Justice Executive Director Elizabeth Falcon, who says Ascension plans to shut down the Providence operating rooms and Intensive Care Unit, leaving just 10 patient beds. “This is not OK,” said Falcon. “We will not allow this company to abandon the patients, workers, and neighbors who rely on their care.

​Today is International Human Rights Day, commemorating the 1948 signing at the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes several articles directly addressing worker rights, including the rights to work and to organize, the right to rest, and the right to an adequate standard of living. As part of WPFW’s day-long commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration, Union City Radio’s Chris Garlock and Dr. Faye Williams will co-host "Workers Rights are Human Rights" from 1-3pm today (tune in or click here), with guests Eileen Boris, President of the International Federation for Research in Women's History; Jill Jensen, a Visiting Assistant Professor who teaches courses on the history of capitalism and workers in the global economy; the Solidarity Center’s Jeff Vogt, who's helping build a global network of union and worker rights lawyers; Lance Compa, Senior Lecturer at Cornell, where he teaches U.S. labor law and international labor rights; Mark Dudzic, National Coordinator, Labor Campaign for Single Payer​, and Earamichia Brown, a fiber artist whose quilt "A Woman's Worth: Equal Pay for Equal Work" is in the forthcoming book "Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium; Quilting the World’s Conscience."
photo: "Right to Work" quilt by Sylvia Hernandez, from "Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium."