In Ghana, the General Agricultural Workers' Union of Ghana is reducing child labor through a community based approach that harnesses the collective power of its 30,000 cocoa farmer members and their families in more than 180 cocoa farming communities. Read more at the Solidarity Center. “Power is not a means; it is an end...The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” graphic from Climate & Capitalism This week’s Labor History Today podcast: O Canada, organize! How a little newspaper started labour journalism in Canada. The 1931 Fraser Mills Strike. And “Through Rain, Sleet, Snow and Terrorism.” Contributors: Radio Labour; On the Line: Stories of BC Workers; Labor History in 2 Last week’s show: One Day More October 30 Ed Meese, attorney general in the Ronald Reagan administration, urges employers to begin spying on workers "in locker rooms, parking lots, shipping and mail room areas and even the nearby taverns" to try to catch them using drugs - 1986 October 31 George Henry Evans publishes the first issue of the Working Man’s Advocate, “edited by a Mechanic” for the “useful and industrious classes” in New York City. He focused on the inequities between the “portion of society living in luxury and idleness” and those “groaning under the oppressions and miseries imposed on them.” - 1829 Tennessee sends in leased convict laborers to break a coal miners strike in Anderson County. The miners revolted, burned the stockades, and sent the captured convicts by train back to Knoxville - 1891 After 14 years of labor by 400 stone masons, the Mt. Rushmore sculpture is completed in Keystone, South Dakota - 1941 Int'l Alliance of Bill Posters, Billers & Distributors of the United States & Canada surrenders its AFL-CIO charter and is disbanded - 1971 November 1 Nation's first general strike for 10 hour day; Philadelphia - 1835 Thirty-seven black striking Louisiana sugar workers were murdered when Louisiana militia, aided by bands of "prominent citizens," shot unarmed workers trying to get a dollar-per-day wage. Two strike leaders were lynched - 1887 Malbone tunnel disaster in New York City; inexperienced scab motorman crashes five-car train during strike, 97 killed, 255 injured - 1918 Some 400,000 soft coal miners strike for higher wages and shorter hours - 1919 The UAW begins what was to become a successful 172-day strike against International Harvester. The union turned back company demands for weakened work rules, mandatory overtime - 1979 Honda assembles the first-ever Japanese car manufactured in a U.S. plant, in Marysville, Ohio. By 2009 the plant was making 440,000 cars a year and Honda – just one of the foreign manufacturers with multiple plants operating in the U.S. – said it had sold 20 million cars since its American operation launched - 1982 - David Prosten click here for latest listings
Union City Radio: 7:15am daily WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; click here to hear today's report No Contact Lit Drop at NoVA Labor: Thu, October 29, 11am – 2pm 4536 B John Marr Drive in Annandale, VA Union City Radio: Your Rights at Work: Thu, October 29, 1pm – 2pm WPFW 89.3 FM or listen online On today's show: MWC Political Director David Stephen on DC-area 2020 election actions/endorsements. Plus: The San Francisco Mime Troupe's Tales of the Resistance, "The Beginning of the End (Part One)": Will the Resistance become a Revolution? Or will the fascist corporate overlords maintain their control over the workers? Phone Bank for Elaine Luria (U.S. Congress, VA 2): Thu, October 29, 5:30pm – 7:30pm MD/DC AFL-CIO Labor 2020 phonebank (PA): Thu, October 29, 6pm – 9pm Arlington Dems Labor Caucus: Thu, October 29, 6pm – 7pm Metro Washington Council, Community Services Agency and Claimant Advocacy Program staff are teleworking; reach them at the contact numbers and email addresses here. Labor Radio Podcast Weekly Podcast Extra: America’s Work Force; The Gig; Working People; Working To Live In Southwest Washington Election 2020 Podcast Extra: Working-Class Perspectives Co-Editor John Russo discusses whether union members will vote for President Trump again. Why California’s Proposition 22 ballot initiative is opposed by drivers and gig workers in both California and Nigeria. Catching up with two members of California's Labor Slate. History professor Donna Sinclair – and candidate for Washington's 18th Legislative District in Olympia – on how historians play a role in determining what's fake and what's real. Click here for the previous pod extra, with AFL-CIO Director of Government Affairs Bill Samuel, Washington State Representative Monica Stonier and Westchester/Putnam Central Labor Council Director Jenn Puja. |