News & Updates

LABOR ARTS NEWS BRIEFS

‘Saturday Night Live’ VFX Workers Win Voluntary Recognition

Visual Effects (VFX) workers for “Saturday Night Live” (“SNL”) are organizing with the Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and have won official recognition of their union. The unit includes 16 VFX artists and leads who all signed union authorization cards. Click here to read more.

Baltimore Museum of Art Workers Overwhelmingly Ratify First Contract

With a nearly unanimous vote, workers at the Baltimore Museum of Art represented by AFSCME Maryland Council 3 overwhelmingly ratified their first union contract. “I believe that everyone, everywhere, should unionize,” said John Young, a gallery officer at the museum. Click here to read more.

Workers Launch Union Drive at RadicalMedia

Workers at the nonfiction entertainment arm of RadicalMedia are seeking to organize with the Writers Guild of America East (WGAE). Click here to read more.

Casa Bonita Cast and Crew Unionizing with Equity and IATSE

Entertainers and crew members at the Casa Bonita immersive restaurant have announced their intent to organize with Actors’ Equity Association (Equity) and the Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). The Colorado-based restaurant is owned by “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Click here to read more.

AFL-CIO Daily Brief

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The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane (Trailer)

The acclaimed folk, jazz and blues singer and activist died Sunday at the age of 97.

@reiunion

“Why would I want to stand in front of a band with a low-cut dress singing stupid words when I could be singing for workers who are on strike?”

Barbara Dane; hear her on this week's Labor Heritage Power Hour

Mary Palmer was a spinning frame worker and Nathaniel Banks was a “bobbin boy” when they met as child laborers in a textile mill in Waltham, Massachusetts. Eager to obtain an education and improve their prospects, they studied together in night schools at the end of their long hours at the mill. Following a lengthy courtship, the couple married in 1847 and Banks became a state legislator, congressman and governor. They’re featured in Powerful Partnerships: Civil War-Era Couples, an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, on view through May 18, 2025.

Spotted labor art? Email us at info@laborheritage.org

Revolution Must Come

We are the ones who hammer the steel and turn the wheels

Of commerce and capitalism

We care for the sick and seniors and our children

We make the entire economy work

We believe in our families, children and neighbors,

And justice, love

And the common good of everyone

We hate and chafe at corporate dominion

It riles and raises our natural rebellion

Which runs with the blood of our veins

We hate all they demand and take

To raise profits

Instead of raising wages

In our hands clasped in solidarity

Is the greatest power of humanity

If we rise from accepting scraps to demanding enough

For everyone

Revolution must come

Because they're running out of excuses

For hungry children,

Mass gun deaths,

And poisoned earth and dirt, air and water

Revolution will come when we learn and decide

Scarcity is a deadly lie

There is enough for all of us

Revolution will come when workers take our share.

Stewart Acuff, in the Blue Collar Review

CLICK HERE for our complete labor arts calendar; look for our Labor Arts Calendar edition on Monday

WEEKEND LABOR ARTS CALENDAR

The Old Oak

November 1, 2024, 7:30 PM until 9:20 PM

Dryden Theatre, 900 East Avenue, Rochester, NY  14607

Closing Night of the 2024 Rochester (NY) Labor Film Series! After a long and successful career, Loach, who is 87 years old, has announced that The Old Oak will be his final film. It tackles the issue of asylum and anti-immigrant prejudice in a once-thriving mining village in Northern England.

Musical Tribute to Gilberto Soto 1954 -2004

Nov 3, 1pm to 3pm

Seamen's Church Center, 118 Export Street, Newark, NJ  

Gilberto Soto was a U.S.-based union organizer assassinated 20 years ago in El Salvador.

Special Encore of 'Gumbo Coalition' with Barbara Kopple for Director Q&A

Monday, November 4, 2024, 7:15 PM Eastern Time

Cinema Village, 22 East 12th St, New York, NY 10003

Archives in Motion: The ATU Workers of Metro Transit

November 5-7

East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN  55106

This photo exhibit will be up at ESFL until November 9 during regular weekday hours.

November 1, 2018: Some 20,000 Google employees around the world stage a wave of walkouts after the New York Times reported that the company had paid millions of dollars in exit packages to male executives accused of sexual harassment. One of the accused got $90 million. 

LABOR HISTORY TODAY: Remembering the West Virginia Mine Wars: LHT tours the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum with Executive Director Mackenzie New-Walker.

LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: The 1949 Great Hawaiian Dock Strike involved all of these issues: wage parity with mainland dockworkers, unionbusting by Hawaii’s Big 5 employers, and red-baiting and statehood; read more here.

“Solidarity” mural saved in Chicago (10/25)

No Union, No Dancing (10/18)

Chippendales Dancers’ Newest Act – Unionizing! (10/11)

Not Playing Around: World of Warcraft Workers Win Union (10/4)

Bill Lucy: “Change is possible” (9/27)

‘Equal Pay for Equal Paint!’ (9/20)

Dallas Black Dancers Fight for Their Union (9/13)