"Bring on your tear gas, bring on your grenades, your new supplies of Mace, your state troopers and even your national guards. But let the record show we ain't going to be turned around." Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. Hosts Joe McCartin and Chris Garlock talk with Joe Uehlein about the connections between labor and the environmental movement; Patrick Dixon’s interview with Peter Cole on the IWW’s 1923 West Coast strike, Damon Silvers on the arrest of Montgomery Ward Chairman Sewell Avery in 1944, and Saul Schniderman on Ida Mae Stull, the country’s first woman coal miner. This week's music features Joe Uehlein and the U-Liners singing “You Can't Giddy Up By Sayin' Whoa” and “Power.” The New York Times declares the struggle for an 8-hour workday to be “un-American” and calls public demonstrations for the shorter hours “labor disturbances brought about by foreigners.” Other publications declare that an eight-hour workday would bring about “loafing and gambling, rioting, debauchery and drunkenness” - 1886 IWW Marine Transport Workers begin West Coast strike - 1923 The Reverend Ralph David Abernathy and 100 others are arrested while picketing a Charleston, S.C., hospital in a demand for union recognition, which led to a living wage increase and improved working conditions for thousands of hospital workers - 1969 Supreme Court rules that employers may not require female employees to make larger contributions to pension plans in order to obtain the same monthly benefits as men - 1978 Compiled/edited by Union Communication Services Five years after the April 24, 2013, disaster that killed 1,134 Bangladesh garment workers, the horror of the incident spurred international action and resulted in significant safety improvements in many of the country’s 3,000 garment factories. But union organizers say employers often are not following through to ensure worksites remain safe, and the government is doing little to ensure garment workers have the freedom to form unions to achieve safe working conditions. Find out more at the Solidarity Center.
Want to get your hands on some free film passes and LaborFest gear while supporting working class culture? Then click here to sign up to volunteer at any of the dozens of 2018 LaborFest events featuring art, history, music, film, and radio from the local labor movement! Volunteers pass out LaborFest program guides and get a pair of film passes and the iconic LaborFest hat, helping ensure that DC workers enjoy both bread and roses |