News & Updates

EDITOR’S NOTE: When we launched the Labor Heritage Power Hour last year we knew we needed a theme song to open and close the show but honestly, there are just so many great labor songs out there that we couldn’t pick one. We're trying again and are turning to you for suggestions. It can be an existing song or a new original, and the only criteria is that suggestions must be "laborific", that is, evocative of the labor movement. Elise and I are really looking forward to seeing what you suggest! CLICK HERE to submit your suggestion(s). 

Chris Garlock

LABOR ARTS NEWS BRIEFS

Workers at National Sawdust Successfully Vote to Join Union: Ushers at Brooklyn’s nonprofit music venue National Sawdust in New York voted overwhelmingly last week to join Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 306.

Glenstone Museum Workers Join Teamsters: 89 workers at the Glenstone Museum, a private contemporary art museum in Maryland, have joined Teamsters Local 639.

Public Theater Workers Vote to Join IATSE: Crew members at off-Broadway’s Public Theater have officially voted to join the Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), becoming the fifth off-Broadway group to do so since IATSE launched its organizing efforts earlier this year.

Staff at the American Folk Art Museum Vote Unanimously to Form Union: Staff at the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) voted unanimously last week to form a union with International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) Local 2110, just a month after cultural workers at the museum announced their intent to organize.

Photo: Public Theatre workers. Sources: AFL-CIO Daily Brief, Teamsters 639 X feed

AFA United MEC: “The time is NOW! We will not back down! We will not be silent!” 

GOT PICKET SIGN? Email us at info@laborheritage.org 

Brief History of Juneteenth

From the Union of Southern Service Workers: ” On this day in Southern labor history: The liberation of all enslaved people in the United States was achieved, finally, on June 19th, 1865, when 2,000 Union soldiers marched into Galveston Bay, Texas, and issued General Order No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

There is no racial justice without the abolition of lasting remnants of US slavery, and on Juneteenth, we remember and recommit to that struggle.

GOT LABOR VIDEO? Email us at info@laborheritage.org 

For Pride Month this year, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various LGBTQ+ workers who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights in the United States. Check out their profiles here and/or stop by the AFL-CIO building to see the exhibit.

GOT LABOR ART? Email us at info@laborheritage.org 

“LGBTQ+ musicians often tell me that my simply existing in this role has helped them to see that their own aspirations are possible. If you don’t see yourself out there, you begin to doubt you can do it.”

Local 802 member Sasha Romero, principal trombone of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, is the first transgender person to hold a principal brass seat in a major U.S. orchestra. Read Sasha's Pride Month profile here.

GOT A LABOR QUOTE? Email us at info@laborheritage.org 

I believe in the Union

I believe in the union…

Because I believe in the strength of the worker

Whether it’s building a mine or making a burger

If we walk off we get labeled deserters

But we are not sheep and that boss ain’t a herder

We are mothers and brothers and nieces and sons

We’ve had it, can’t hack it, best believe that we’re done

With the pitiful wage and the miserable pay

With the lay-offs and cutbacks and the “It’s just business, okay?”

by Jessen Fox, a union organizer in San Jose, California; hear Jessen read the entire poem on this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour.

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

FRIDAY, JUNE 14

Commemorate the 1849 Lehigh Canal Strike (Bethlehem, PA)

SATURDAY, JUNE 15

DC Labor Chorus performs at Sharing Voices Concert

Commemorate the 1849 Lehigh Canal Strike (Easton, PA)

1934 & Now, Connections of the Minneapolis Truckers’ Strike of 1934 (Exhibit tour with the artists)

1934 & Now, Connections of the Minneapolis Truckers’ Strike of 1934 (Panel discussion w/artists)

Union (Film)

Joe Jencks (House Concert)

SUNDAY, JUNE 16

Pullman Labor History Tour

ONGOING

1934 & Now, Connections of the Minneapolis Truckers’ Strike of 1934: ART EXHIBITION

We Are One – Honoring Immigrant Garment Workers

Remember 1934: "Voters in Revolt" art exhibit

June 15, 1990

Battle of Century City, as police in Los Angeles attack some 500 janitors and their supporters during a peaceful Service Employees International Union demonstration against cleaning contractor ISS. The event generated public outrage that resulted in recognition of the workers' union and spurred the creation of an annual June 15 Justice for Janitors Day – 1990

On this week’s Labor History Today podcast: The house where Kate lived. Chris visits the restored home of Kate Mullany, one of the least-known – and most interesting -- labor leaders in American history.

LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: On June 8, 1971, New York City drawbridge tenders, in a dispute with the state over pension issues, left a dozen bridges open, snarling traffic in what the Daily News described as "the biggest traffic snafu in the city's history"

Taylor Swift’s labor song (6/7)

1934 and Now: The Minneapolis Teamsters’ Strikes (5/31)

“Dreams come true,” as Disneyland

character workers unionize (5/24)

1934 Minneapolis Truckers’ Strike Commemorated (5/17) 

“Finding the Money” sleeper hit at DC Labor

FilmFest (5/10)

“Art uplifts us”: Redmond and Bryant honored (5/3)

MSNBC features DC Labor Chorus at SCOTUS (4/26)

Al Bradbury: Art is "how we sustain

ourselves" (4/23)