News & Updates

LABOR ARTS NEWS BRIEFS

AGMA and Cincinnati Opera Announce New Contract: The American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) and Cincinnati Opera released a joint statement last week announcing the ratification of a new three-year contract.

IATSE Secures Tentative Agreement for Off-Broadway Workers: After a two-month strike, the Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and the Atlantic Theater Company said Monday that they had reached a tentative agreement (TA) covering production workers.

Walt Disney Animation Studios Production Workers Ratify Contract: In a vote taken last week, production workers represented by The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839, officially ratified their first union contract with Walt Disney Animation Studios.

WFMT Content Creators Announce Intent to Organize: The content creators at WFMT—a classical radio station based in Chicago and known around the globe—have gone public with their intent to form a union with SAG-AFTRA.

Barnes & Noble Workers Win Historic Union Contracts: On Thursday, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union-UFCW (RWDSU-UFCW) members announced that they have successfully ratified historic, first-in-the-nation collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) at three New York City Barnes & Noble stores.

-AFL-CIO Daily Brief

Call for Artists: New Jersey Im/migrant Laborers’ Monument Project

The New Jersey Im/migrant Laborers’ Monument Project is seeking artists to create three temporary monument installations that honor the contributions of immigrants and migrants as laborers in the state. Artists interested in applying are invited to attend a virtual Pre-Application Workshop on March 28, from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EDT. The session will provide details and guide applicants through the submission process. Register here. Deadline for submissions is April 28, 2025. Click here for full details on the project and application guidelines. 

Send your Picket Sign OTW suggestion to us! info@laborheritage.org

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March 8, 2025 Detroit 1932 Hunger March commemoration 

Which Side Are You On (1931) – Dawn Landes

“After the rally at the Lincoln Memorial,” writes former LHF Executive Director Peter Jones, “I was driving home from Fort Totten and this song came on WOWD. It is a mashup of "Which Side Are You On" and "I Am a Union Woman" by Dawn Landes with Kanene Pipkin. 

"It is appallingly obvious our technology has exceeded our humanity."

—Albert Einstein

Department of No Comment: Trump’s transportation chief tells Bowser D.C. street murals are unsafe.

Jeff Bezos has a Rocketship Called: New Shepard

The ruling, well-fed, educated, rested white men

benefiting from capitalism claim

Socialism will not work for America.

Sad to report, they're right --

it won't work in their America --

stolen, enslaved, imprisoned and exploited America.

We've given it an unequitable try

playing by their written rules --

and ones made up on the fly.

When will we

wake up, wise up, rise up --

REALIZE we've got the numbers?

Let all voices be heard

the way --

We the People oughta work.

Have a say in the way

things go

in a land prospering off our labor.

Let's say this in a way they may understand,

an expression of their own:

Lead, follow or get out of the way.

It's time for a new day!

Roy N. Mason, 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

Saturday: March with Mother Jones (in Chicago's St Pat's Day Parade)

Sunday: Made In Ethiopia (Film)

Sunday: American Agitators (Film)

March 14, 1954

The Movie "Salt of the Earth" opens. The classic film centers on a long and difficult strike led by Mexican-American and Anglo zinc miners in New Mexico. Real miners perform in the film, in which the miners’ wives – as they did in real life – take to the picket lines after the strikers are enjoined. 

Black Convicts: How Slavery Shaped Australia

Labor History Today: This week’s edition of the show takes us to Australia but the history of slavery and the ongoing failure to come to terms with the resulting racism and discrimination there echo uncomfortably loudly here in the United States as Donald Trump ramps up his campaign to stamp out any effort to acknowledge that such things exist, as though by simply abolishing the words diversity, equity and inclusion we can magically erase generations of oppression.

It cannot do so, but we clearly have a long way to go here at home, and it’s instructive – and a bit inspiring -- to hear how our brothers and sisters Down Under are struggling with the same issues.

Today’s show comes to us from the Melbourne-based radio show Stick Together; host James Brennan talks with author Santilla Chingaipe about her book “Black Convicts: How slavery shaped Australia.”

LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: Thousands of New York needle trades workers demonstrated on March 8, 1908 for higher wages, shorter workday, and end to child labor; the demonstration became the basis for International Women’s Day.

The Communist Folk Singers Who Shaped Bob Dylan (3/7)

Contest: Songs and Chants for the Strike Line (2/28)

Free Black History Month Virtual Screenings (2/21)

Cast your vote for 2025 Labor Oscars! (2/14)

Artists fight to save EMF’s “heart and soul” (2/7)

Power At Work awards first-ever Labor Grammys (1/31)

Is ‘Severance’ a show about unions? (1/24)