News: The clock has not quite run out on the effort to bring Ralph Fasanella’s painting "The Corner Butcher" to the Smithsonian. The collector who owns the painting “has given us through mid-January to finish raising the funds we need to purchase the painting,” reports Ron Carver. Some $4,000 is still needed to complete the purchase; for details on how to contribute, email [email protected]. Ralph Fasanella was a self-taught painter whose large, detailed works depicted urban working life and critiqued post-World War II America.
Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1918, a Mediation Commission appointed by President Woodrow Wilson found that "industry’s failure to deal with unions" was the prime reason for labor strife in war industries. In 1939, the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union led the Missouri Highway sit-down of 1,700 families. They had been evicted from their homes so landowners wouldn't have to share government crop subsidy payments with them. In 2003, the Bush administration declared that federal airport security screeners would not be allowed to unionize so as not to "complicate" the war on terrorism. The decision was challenged and eventually overturned. Today’s labor quote is by Ralph Fasanella: "I didn't paint my paintings to hang in some rich guy's living room." Ralph Fasanella, who also said: “I'm a society minded guy. I'm committed to life. But I can't shut myself off from the past. I don't forget yesterday, so I know who I am today. I hang onto what I was yesterday, so I know what I'm going to do tomorrow."
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