Registration is now open for the 2022 AFL-CIO Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference Jan. 16-17. Find information on how to register here. This year’s theme is Honoring Our Past and Protecting Our Future. “History tells us where we’ve been,” say organizers, “And it shows us the path for moving forward. This conference will challenge us to look to the future. To ask and answer how we can build a multiracial, progressive labor movement reflective of America’s changing workforce—as working people of color will be the majority in just a few years.” Democracy enables workers and their unions to flourish, and as it is increasingly threatened around the world, democracy also depends on working people and their organizations to keep it vibrant, according to speakers at the high-level event, Worker Organizations’ Vital Role in Democracy. The forum, an official side event of the November 9-10 U.S. Summit for Democracy, included AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and a host of global union leaders, labor ministers and philanthropists to highlight the role of worker voice and worker rights as fundamental components of democracy and spur global action in support of freedom of association and collective bargaining. “No social or political progress happens by magic. Change is pushed by people working collectively," said Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau. "And legitimacy of the government comes from the people.” Read more at Solidarity Center.
“There ain’t no easy way out We won’t back down And together, we will stand our ground And we won’t back down.” Jerry Levinsky’s “We Won’t Back Down”, based on Tom Petty’s classic “I Won’t Back Down.” This week’s Labor History Today podcast: This week's show: Labor’s Untold Stories. Last week's show: Striketober & The Great Resignation: Take this job and shove it!
December 31 60,000 unemployed workers rally at a Pittsburgh stadium - 1931 United Mine Workers reformer Joseph "Jock" Yablonski, his wife and daughter are murdered by hitmen hired by union president Tony Boyle, who was to be convicted of the crime and eventually die in prison - 1969 OSHA adopts a grain handling facilities standard to protect 155,000 workers at nearly 24,000 grain elevators from the risk of fire and explosion from highly combustible grain dust - 1987 January 1 Women weavers form union, Fall River, Mass - 1875 John L. Lewis is elected president of the United Mine Workers. Fifteen years later he is to be a leader in the formation of what was to become the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) -1920 Country music legend Hank Williams attends what was to be his final Musician’s union meeting, at the Elite Café in Montgomery, Ala. He died of apparent heart failure three days later, at age 29 - 1953 January 2 Conference of hundreds of industrial unionists in Chicago leads to formation of IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as Wobblies - 1905 In what became known as Palmer Raids, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer arrests 4,000 foreign-born labor agitators. He believed Communism was “eating its way into the homes of the American workman,” and Socialists were causing most of the country’s social problems - 1920 An underground explosion at Sago Mine in Tallmansville, W. Va., traps 12 miners and cuts power to the mine. Eleven men die, mostly by asphyxiation. The mine had been cited 273 times for safety violations over the prior 23 months - 2006 - David Prosten. |