In the late 1970s, San Jose city employees were frustrated with flat wages and pay inequities for women workers. They believed that job categories dominated by women were undervalued and underpaid, and they proved it through a multi-year campaign for pay equity led by AFSCME Local 101/Municipal Employees Federation, AFSCME Council 57. Their efforts went a long way towards closing pay gaps, but it wouldn’t have happened without a strike in 1981. AFSCME secretary-treasurer Elissa McBride brings us the story of the first pay equity strike in U.S. history.
In December of 1954, Boston meatpackers in CIO Local 11 were just over a month into a strike against the Colonial Provision Company. That strike went on to make history, continuing for 14 months, the longest in Massachusetts history. Interracial cooperation was also a hallmark of the struggle by the Boston meatpackers, who were also redbaited and had their union decertified. The story of how these workers fought back – and won – is still inspiring and has lessons for today’s battles.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1947. That was the day that the United Mine Workers leader, John L. Lewis wrote the AFL stating “We disaffiliate.”
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
Our story of the Boston meatpacker strike came from the film Glory Days: Boston Colonial Packinghouse Workers Recall the Strike of 1954 – 55, produced and directed by Cynthia McKeown, released in 1988; remastered in 2019. Labor history sources include Today in Labor History, compiled by David Prosten.
This week's music: 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton (plus a funk cover by Love Raptor) and Celebration by Kool and the Gang, both top hits in 1981, the year of the pay equity strike.
A cold wind and a hot summer sit-down
Tragedy and Resistance at Port Chicago Naval Magazine (Encore)
“The Port of Missing Men”
A Supreme disaster for workers
Working People’s Hidden Histories
Labor history at the AFL-CIO & Labor Notes
“We Remember You”; the AFL-CIO’s tribute to Rich Trumka
Detroit Remains: Using historical archeology to connect the past to the present
The Memorial Day Massacre
Forced labour during the ”Dirty Thirties”
Blood, guts, and organizing
The Haymarket Martyrs Monument: Past, Present, Future
We Mean to Make Things Over: A History of May Day
The death of “Big Steve” Sutton
Working on Earth Day
Big Top Labor: Life and labor in the circus world
Michael Honey on Dr. King: “All Labor Has Dignity”
Industrial murder at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver
Union women heroes, past and present
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
Lore