Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast, featuring The Memorial Day Massacre, striking Walt Disney animators, and the Labor History Object of the Week (UFW banner). The Ford Motor Company signs a "Technical Assistance" contract to produce cars in the Soviet Union, and Ford workers were sent to the Soviet Union to train the labor force in the use of its parts. Many American workers who made the trip, including Walter Reuther, a tool and die maker who later was to become the UAW's president, returned home with a different view of the duties and privileges of the industrial laborer - 1929 In what became known as the Memorial Day Massacre, police open fire on striking steelworkers at Republic Steel in South Chicago, killing ten and wounding more than 160 - 1937 The Ground Zero cleanup at the site of the World Trade Center is completed three months ahead of schedule due to the heroic efforts of more than 3,000 building tradesmen and women who had worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week for the previous eight months - 2002 Compiled/edited by Union Communication Services “We are excited and honored to announce that legendary labor leader Dolores Huerta, co-founder with Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers union, is coming to NoVA Labor tonight (see Calendar) to speak with us and share her insights,” reports NoVA Labor president Virginia Diamond. “This is an extraordinary opportunity to have a conversation with one of our movement's great leaders and organizers -- the person who originated the phrase ‘Si se puede!’" photo of Huerta speaking at a 2011 march in San Antonio; credit Kin Man Hui/ San Antonio Express-News Who was this unidentified pair wading in the Reflecting Pool on the Mall during the weeks-long Poor People's Campaign in 1968? Longtime labor organizer Richard Bensinger -- just 17 at the time -- took this photo during the 1968 Poor People's Campaign and he and his wife, Virginia Diamond, were newly energized to unravel the mystery after ceremonies commemorating the 50th anniversary earlier this year. “These are people who have lived a righteous, just life,” Bensinger (right) speculates. Click here to read the whole story in The Washington Post. photo by Salwan Georges/The Washington Post "Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world."
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