Jeremy Brecher's “Strike for Your Life!”; Peter Rachleff and labor history's lessons for the COVID-19 crisis; plus a preview of Debs In Canton.
“The current situation has led us to reconsider the Minneapolis teamster strikes of 1934; their dramatic story shows that the labor movement is strongest when unions boldly organized workers on the job and in the community around a shared vision of fairness and justice.” Peter Rachleff, co-director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul, Minnesota, on how “Lessons from labor history can inform our labor movement during the COVID-19 crisis.”
“As a labor historian, the closest thing I can think of to the spread of coronavirus strikes is the epidemic of sitdown strikes to spread across the country in the mid-1930s.” Historian and writer Jeremy Brecher, from “Strike for Your Life!”
Also this week, we preview Debs In Canton, a new audio/radio drama from the filmmakers of American Socialist: The Life And Times Of Eugene Victor Debs.
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.
The 1938 Crisfield Crab Pickers Strike
“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
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