“The origins of the word strike goes back to the port of London in 1768, when dock workers and sailors struck. When sailors stop work, they take down the sails of their ship and that's called, nautically, striking your sail. And that term becomes the de facto word for all work stoppages.”
Peter Cole, professor of history at Western Illinois University and author of two books on dockworkers, Wobblies on the Waterfront and Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area, talks with Ben Blake and Alan Wierdak about the historic Juneteenth strike by dockworkers this year, and the long history of dockworker activism.
Plus, Arlo Guthrie sings “The Ballad of Harry Bridges” and Elise Bryant reads “Ready To Kill,” Carl Sandburg’s poem about who should be memorialized in our statues.
Produced by Chris Garlock. Alan Wierdak (George Meany Archives) produced the Peter Cole interview. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University.
Links:
The Most Radical Union in the U.S. Is Shutting Down the Ports on Juneteenth (In These Times, June 16, 2020)
Your Rights At Work radio show (WPFW 89.3FM)
Labor Heritage Foundation
Arlo Guthrie: The Ballad of Harry Bridges
“I'm taking pictures of the history of today”
“UAW’s Southern Gamble” pays off
The Return of John Brown
The ’34 Toledo Auto-Lite strike
Trumka remembers Pittston
Connecting the ACLU, NRA and IWW
“Changing Lives, Changing L.A.”
B.C.’s Tough and Fearless Truck-Driving Woman
The 2024 Labor Oscar winners!
When Mother Jones teamed up with a U.S. Senator to battle West Virginia feudalism
We Were There
Life and Times of a Black Wobbly (Encore)
Mingo, Matewan and the Coal Wars of West Virginia
The myth of “highly paid” Alabama auto workers
Art Shields: The People’s Scribe
Saving "the Diego Rivera of Pittsburgh"
The lost Matchgirl Strike leader
MLK at the AFL-CIO in 1961 (Encore)
Woody’s resolutions
”Please Buy My Last Paper, I Want to Go Home”
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