labor history

• 
• 4/5/2020
  

  Pandemic Exposes Vulnerabilities of Workers on Farms

  by Verónica Martínez-Matsuda

  Defying the broader conservative political forces of the time, the Farm Security Administration extended health care to tens of thousands of migratory agricultural workers because it understood that farmworkers’ health was vital to the nation’s wellbeing.

• 
• SOURCE: AFL-CIO
  3/3/2020
  

  AFL-CIO Is Profiling Labor Leaders and Activists for Women's History Month

  The AFL-CIO's blog announced that it will spotlight female labor leaders of past and present in honor of Women's History Month.

• 
• 3/6/2020
  

  Jack Welch Was a Bitter Foe of American Workers

  by Erik Loomis

  Most national obituaries left out or downplayed Jack Welch’s greatest impact in shaping the unequal and unfair America of today: unionbusting.

• 
• 2/23/20
  

  Trump Betrays His Promise to Protect and Fight for American Workers

  by Lawrence Wittner

  Campaigning for the presidency in 2016, Donald Trump promised that, if he was elected, “American worker[s] will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them.” Has he kept this promise?

• 
• 2/9/20
  

  The Making of a Periphery

  by Ulbe Bosma

  How did the once-prosperous islands of Southeast Asia transform into a “peripheral” region?

• 
• 12/22/19
  

  Pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act

  by Martin Halpern

  If unions and their allies win passage of this legislation, they may begin to shift the country away from the glaring inequality that is at the core of the country’s discontent. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  12/11/19
  

  Historians Kirsten Weld and Erik Baker Interviewed About Harvard Graduate Worker Strike in Chronicle of Higher Education

  Graduate workers at Harvard are striking. Here’s what they want, and how they plan to get it.

• 
• 12/8/19
  

  A Boss is a Boss: Nurses Battle for Their First Union Contract at Albany Medical Center

  by Lawrence Wittner

  A nonprofit employer is not necessarily a better boss than a profit-making one. That sad truth is reinforced by the experience of some 2,200 nurses at Albany Medical Center, who have been fighting for a contract since April 2018, when they voted for union representation.

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  11/4/19
  

  The Wagner Act and Why It's A Liberal President Is Not Sufficient To Create Democratic Change

  by Jamelle Bouie

  And without reform, neither is a Democratic Senate.

• 
• SOURCE: San Diego Union-Tribune
  10/16/19
  

  A history of key United Auto Workers strikes against GM

  General Motors and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative contract deal Wednesday.

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  10/10/19
  

  Labor Historian Staughton Lynd's Book Is Embraced by Google Workers and Uber Drivers

  A book based on ideas associated with a labor group from the early 20th century has provided a blueprint for organizing without a formal union.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/23/19
  

  The woman behind Elizabeth Warren’s blueprint for the presidency

  by Rebecca Brenner Graham

  Frances Perkins, the first female Cabinet secretary, is a model for how to bring activism to government.

• 
• SOURCE: History.com
  9/17/19
  

  The 1936 Strike That Brought America’s Most Powerful Automaker to its Knees

  The historical precedent to this week's GM United Auto Workers union strike. 

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  9/11/19
  

  The Necessary Radicalism of Bernie Sanders

  by Jamelle Bouie

  Conflict was the engine of labor reform in the 1930s. And mass strikes and picketing, in particular, pushed the federal government to act.

• 
• SOURCE: Time
  8/30/19
  

  Beyond Labor Day: 3 Ways Unions Have Helped American Workers

  by Peter Cole

  “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/1/19
  

  One of the most iconic photos of American workers is not what it seems

  Photo buffs know the truth behind the classic photo "Lunch Atop a Skyscraper": It was staged.

• 
• SOURCE: The Activist History Review
  8/27/19
  

  Graduate Worker Organizing is Scholarly Praxis

  by Hannah Borenstein

  For many inside and outside of academia the notion that graduate students are indeed workers is not readily clear. In large part, I came to see this as mirrored through the reproduction of academia’s lack of emphasis on scholarly praxis.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/29/19
  

  Why anti-immigration politics hurt white workers

  by Inés Valdez

  No, immigrants aren’t taking your job — but vilifying immigrants helps undermine worker protection.

• 
• 8/25/19
  

  Trump Has Blocked Wage Gains for American Workers

  by Lawrence Wittner

  Although the pundits say the U.S. economy is booming―and it certainly is for the country’s billionaires―it’s not doing much for the incomes of American workers. 

• 
• SOURCE: Time
  8/22/19
  

  It Takes Black Women in the U.S. 20 Months to Earn What White Men Make in a Year. Here's the History Behind That Wage Gap

  by Andrea Flynn

  In order to understand the present day race and gender wage gaps we must first look to slavery and the Jim Crow era that followed.