June is Indigenous History Month in Canada, and this year, the country has been rocked by the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children who attended residential school over the decades.
Today we bring you a report from the always excellent podcast On the Line: Stories of BC Workers, which takes note of Indigenous History month with a different aspect of British Columbia's Indigenous history: one that is not tragic, and not very well known. They examine the contribution of Indigenous workers to the port of Vancouver, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, largely through the voices of those who worked the waterfront - and it's a union story, too. In 1906, the independent Lumber Handlers Union was established as local 526 of the Industrial Workers of the World – or I.W.W. -- with most of the 50 or 60 members being Indigenous. This is their story.
This week we’ve also got an interesting story that reminds us that labor history is all around us and can pop up in some pretty unusual places. This one started with an odd photograph that sent me down some interesting – and unexpected – paths, from a long-forgotten strike to a racist TV show.
And on this week’s Labor History in 2:00…
The year was 1944. That was the day Local 212 UAW workers at Briggs returned to work.
Produced by Chris Garlock. 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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @iww @BC_LHC
MORE LINKS
Milwaukee Public Library Remember When…
NAACP Bulletin
Ludlow: My name is Louis Tikas (Encore)
Bitter Kisses for Labor
Tom Breiding’s songs of struggle
The 1922-23 Windber Coal Strike
Erasing Virginia’s labor history
The Strange Career of “the Working Class”
Fred Redmond: “Why Labor History Is Important”
The Tractor Princess
Buffalo Soldier turned revolutionary
Celebrating Black History Month (Encore)
Domestic worker, Mother of the Movement
Reconciling a Slaveholding Past (Encore)
A meatpacker’s American dream
Bill Lucy on MLK; Shubert Sebree on Debs
Strong Winds and Widow Makers
The Cambridge Movement
“No Labor Dictators for Us”
A Working-Class Christmas Story Christmas
Red Jerseys in Detroit
Julia Reichert: “Documentarian of the Working Class”
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
American Scandal