Today's Labor History

​Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. On this week’s show: Dr. Heather Berg on the Soldiers of Pole, a union of erotic dancers in Los Angeles, who’ve been making headlines recently for a number of high-profile actions targeting strip clubs where they’ve been challenging the terms of their employment.   
And on this week’s “Cool things from the George Meany Labor Archives,” Alan, Chloe and Ben go searching for audio tapes of speeches, but discover a trove of vinyl.  
Interviews by Patrick Dixon and Allan Wierdak.
 
Unemployed riot in New York City’s Union Square - 1914

​Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, where he had been supporting a sanitation workers’ strike. In the wake of this tragedy, riots break out in many cities, including Washington, D.C. - 1968

Some 1,700 United Mine Workers members in Virginia and West Virginia beat back concessions demanded by Pittston Coal Co. – 1989

The Democratic governors of New York and California sign legislation enacting phased-in $15-per-hour minimum wages for workers in their states. Since 2009, the federal minimum had been stagnating at $7.25 - 2016
  
Labor history courtesy Union Communication Services. 

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