|
Editor’s Note: Here in Matewan, labor history is literally embedded in the town’s walls in the form of bullet-holes from the 1920 Battle of Matewan. But if the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum didn’t exist, you’d walk right past, missing the rich – and yes, often dramatic – history of the hard-fought struggles by this area’s workers. Every two years the museum – which just turned 10 -- celebrates that history by connecting it to current battles at Camp Solidarity and LHF is here this year to record many of the sessions, which will be featured in upcoming editions of our Labor Heritage Power Hour radio show/podcast and Labor History Today podcast. Stay tuned!
- Chris
| | |
IN THIS ISSUE
-
WEEKEND LABOR ARTS CALENDAR — UW–Madison centennial; Rochester film “Good Night, and Good Luck”; fire work (DC); ongoing exhibits in PA, WI, IL, LA & DC
-
LABOR ARTS NEWS BRIEFS — Free-speech fight over Kimmel; 1,300 Equity signers; WGAE wins; TAG organizing; AGMA–Washington Ballet pact
- UMWA’s Cecil Roberts Announces $50,000 Gift to WV Mine Wars Museum
-
THIS WEEK’S LABOR HERITAGE POWER HOUR — McCartin on antisemitism myths; Aubrey Edwards’ High Iron boxcar museum
-
LABOR VIDEO OF THE WEEK — James Earl Jones in Matewan
-
PICKET SIGN OF THE WEEK — Air Canada flight attendants say no
-
LABOR SONG OF THE WEEK — “Fire in the Hole” - Hazel Dickens
-
LABOR ART OF THE WEEK — An unidentified artifact at Camp Solidarity “Show & Tell”
- “Forgotten: The Murder at the Ford Rouge Plant” Returns to Detroit
-
LABOR QUOTE OF THE WEEK — On “The Scourged Back” and historical memory; NPS display removal controversy
-
TODAY’S LABOR HISTORY — Chinese miners forced out; Solidarity Day
-
LABOR HISTORY TODAY PODCAST — Joe McCartin on unions, antisemitism, and solidarity’s past & present
-
LABOR HISTORY QUIZ — Where did John Henry beat the steam hammer?
| | |
LABOR ARTS NEWS BRIEFS
‘Direct Attack on Free Speech’: Labor Movement Responds to Suspension of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’: “The right to speak our minds and to disagree with each other—to disturb, even—is at the very heart of what it means to be a free people. It is not to be denied.” In response to ABC‘s decision to indefinitely pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, entertainment industry unions earlier this week issued statements calling it an attack on free speech. Read more here.
Over 1,300 Equity Members Sign Letter to Broadway League: The Actors’ Equity Association (Equity) released a letter this week signed by more than 1,300 members who work on Broadway urging The Broadway League to settle a fair production contract. Read more here.
Children’s Animation Workers Secure Voluntary Union Recognition: Writers at Fred Rogers Productions and Spiffy Pictures, who make possible multiple beloved public access children's animation programs, have won voluntary recognition for their union with the Writers Guild of America East (WGAE).
Artists at Netflix Animation, SpindleHorse and ‘Ted’ Move to Join Animation Guild: The Animation Guild (TAG)—Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 839—is celebrating multiple powerful organizing wins this week as three new different groups of animation workers have formally announced their efforts to join the union. Read more.
AGMA members win new contract at Washington Ballet: Members of the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) won a new three-year agreement with The Washington Ballet.
Reports from AFL-CIO Daily Brief & Metro Washington CLC newsletter
| | |
UMWA’s Cecil Roberts Announces $50,000 Gift to WV Mine Wars Museum
At Camp Solidarity in Matewan, West Virginia, UMWA President Cecil E. Roberts presented a $50,000 check—the first from his new Legacy Fund—to power the museum’s next phase and push its 10th-anniversary $110,000 goal forward. The museum now employs five union staff (UMWA Local 1440) and continues to expand public history programs. ”The thing of it is sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose," said Roberts. "But this is America and ‘this land is my land, this land is your land, and this land is our land.’ It don't belong to the rich and the rich alone.” Read more.
report/photo by Chris Garlock
| | Enjoying this newsletter? Forward it to a friend and help us reach our goal of 10,000 readers! 👉 Subscribe for free | | Air Canada Flight Attendants overwhelmingly reject wage proposal; read more. | | James Earl Jones in Matewan (1987) - "I got business with the union" | | |
Fire in the Hole - Hazel Dickens
From the Matewan soundtrack, with Mason Daring.
| | West Virginia Mine Wars Museum Artistic Director Shaun Slifer shows off one of the many artifacts at the museum. “We’re not quite sure what this is,” he said at Friday’s Camp Solidarity Show & Tell session; if you think you know, send us a note at info@laborheritage.org and we’ll pass it along. | | |
Forgotten: The Murder at the Ford Rouge Plant Returns to Detroit
Twenty-one years after its premiere in Detroit, the labor jazz/blues opera Forgotten is returning to Marygrove Theater, the same stage on which it was first performed. Composed by singer/songwriter Steve Jones, Forgotten tells the stories of workers in 1930s Michigan who helped organize and build the labor movement and portrays events like the Ford Hunger March, the Battle of the Overpass, the Flint sit-down strike, and more. The Michigan Labor History Society will present Forgotten October 10-12, 2025, directed by playwright, labor educator, and social justice activist Elise Bryant, with music director Detroit jazz musician Bill Meyer. Click here for details/tickets.
| | |
High Iron and Higher Stakes — Unions, Antisemitism Myths, and a Boxcar for Labor
On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: historian Joe McCartin unpacks Congress’s “Unmasking Union Antisemitism,” showing how employers have long weaponized antisemitic tropes against unions while Jewish workers helped build a pluralistic, democratic labor movement—and why the latest push is really about weakening unions and chilling speech. Then producer Patrick Dixon talks with artist-anthropologist Aubrey Edwards about High Iron, a traveling boxcar-turned-community museum honoring the immigrant and Indigenous workers who built the West’s railroads, towns, and economy. Two stories, one thread: who tells America’s story—the power brokers, or the people who built it?
| | | Like this newsletter? Help us spread labor art by passing it along! | | CLICK HERE for our complete labor arts calendar; look for our Labor Arts Calendar edition on Monday | | |
1885: Chinese coal miners forced out of Black Diamond, Wash.
1981: 500,000 unionists converge on Washington D.C. for a Solidarity Day march and rally protesting Republican policies.
| | |
“The bodies of enslaved people like Peter Gordon revealed to them realities they had never seen with their own eyes before, and in many cases it altered their political opinions about the need to defeat the Confederacy and preserve the Union.”
Anne Cross, a scholar of 19th century photography at Bowdoin College Museum of Art.
The Washington Post reported Monday that the Trump administration will remove a display of "The Scourged Back" photograph from a Park Service unit that deals with slavery and the Civil War, as part of its campaign against what it deems “corrosive ideology.”
| | |
Unmasking Anti-union Antisemitism
This week on Labor History Today, labor historian Joseph McCartin joins Chris Garlock to unpack his recent congressional testimony on unions, antisemitism, and the long fight for solidarity. From the labor movement’s diverse roots to employers’ historic use of antisemitic attacks to weaken unions, McCartin offers critical perspective on the dangers of rewriting history and why today’s struggles echo the past.
| |
| Where did steel-drivin’ man John Henry outperform a steam hammer? | | | | LAST WEEK'S QUIZ: A striker was shot by a bog owner (and town elected official) during a September 14, 1933 walkout by some 1,500 cranberry pickers, members of the newly-formed Cape Cod Cranberry Pickers Union Local 1. State police were called, more strikers were shot and 64 were arrested. The strike was lost. | | |
We need your support!
Please CLICK HERE NOW to pledge your financial support to our 2025 program, which includes our annual Solidarity Forever Award, the Great Labor Arts Exchange, the DC Labor FilmFest and much more (check out our website for details!).
Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
| | | | |
