Working History

Fall for Liberation with Maria Harmon

Step Up Louisiana co-founder and co-director Maria Harmon joins the podcast to talk about the group’s Freedom Summer-inspired voter turnout campaigns and grassroots mobilization efforts in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Jefferson Parish, New Orleans’ proposed Workers Bill of Rights, and the future of economic and education justice organizing in Louisiana.

Organizing Faculty in Florida with Paul Ortiz

Dr. Paul Ortiz, a professor of labor history at Cornell’s ILR School, joins co-host Olivia Paschal to discuss the history of higher education labor organizing in Florida, the resurgence of right-wing and austerity politics in public universities, and Dr. Ortiz’s work in higher education labor organizing. Until last year, Dr. Ortiz was a professor of history and director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida, where he spent fifteen years. Dr. Ortiz is also the past president of United Faculty of Florida-UF and has organized with the United Farm Workers, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, and other labor organizing groups. His books include An African American and Latinx History of the United States and Emancipation Betrayed. Correction: In the episode, Olivia says that public-sector workers in Virginia can't collectively bargain. While that is true for state-level public sector workers (like university employees), collective bargaining is possible on the local level thanks to a 2020 law that gives local governments and school boards the authority to allow collective bargaining. Collective bargaining for all!

The Present and Future of Southern Labor: The UAW’s Historic Win at Volkswagen

Earlier this year, workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted to join the UAW in a landslide. The Southern Labor Studies Association held our biannual meeting in Chattanooga last week, just as UAW Local 42 began negotiating its first contract. This panel, recorded live at the conference, is moderated by labor journalist Sarah Jaffe and features Zach Costello of UAW Local 42’s organizing committee; Chris Brooks, chief strategist at the UAW; Michael Gilliland, the organizing director of CALEB in Chattanooga; and labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein.

Beyond Norma Rae

Welcome to a new season of Working History! Series co-host Dave Anderson talks with Aimee Loiselle about her book Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class

Southern Exposure at 50: Sue Thrasher, Bob Hall, and Leah Wise

This week’s episode features a panel recorded live at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of Southern Exposure magazine, held in March at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library. The panel, which reflects on the founding of the Institute for Southern Studies and the creation of Southern Exposure, features Sue Thrasher, a co-founder of the Institute who later worked at the Highlander Center; Leah Wise, one of the Institute’s early staff members and later the director of Southerners for Economic Justice; and Bob Hall, the founding editor of Southern Exposure, who spent many years at the Institute and was the longtime executive director of Democracy North Carolina. It is moderated by Chip Hughes, an early Institute staffer himself and occupational health and safety organizer before a career in public health. Produced in partnership with the Institute for Southern Studies. Show Notes: Visit the Southern Exposure digital archive: https://www.facingsouth.org/southern-exposure A note from the archives editor: https://www.facingsouth.org/2023/03/archive-time-crisis More about the 50th anniversary event: https://www.facingsouth.org/2023/03/gathering-marks-half-century-southern-exposures-founding