Labor Arts News & Updates

TODAY’S LABOR HERITAGE POWER HOUR RADIO SHOW

Honest Work and Deadly Deception

🎧 This Week on the Labor Heritage Power Hour: From the dignity of Honest Work to the tragedy of Deadly Deception, we explore how labor art and history reveal the real cost—and courage—of working life. Photographer Jim Brozek shares stories behind his striking images of work seen from the inside, and Mike Matejka joins David LeGrande to expose the asbestos tragedy that claimed workers’ lives in McLean County. Hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant.

👉 TUNE IN at 1p this afternoon on WPFW 89.3FM, online or via the new WPFW app (download free from the App Store). Podcast posts at 2p on all platforms. 

IN THIS ISSUE

🎧 Labor Heritage Power Hour: Honest Work & Deadly Deception

🎨 Labor Arts Calendar: Quilts, films, and exhibits from Michigan to California — plus Honest Work in Wisconsin and Power & Light in DC
🎥 Labor Video: Jim Brozek’s Lake Boats/Jones Island

🎭 Picket Sign of the Week: Broadway musicians win new deal

🧵 Oklahoma Bombing Quilt Exhibit

💬 Readers Write: A personal memory of Ralph Fasanella

🎵 Labor Song: Shutdown Blues

🖼️ Labor Art: Goya’s The Injured Mason

📅 Labor History: Tennessee miners revolt; Mount Rushmore completed; unions merge.

🎙️ Labor History Today: Voices of Guinness

🧠 Labor Quiz: Which labor leader won a million votes for president from prison?

WEEKEND LABOR ARTS CALENDAR

THU: Oklahoma Bombing Quilt Exhibit (MI)

THU: Labor Heritage Power Hour (radio/online)

THU: Oklahoma Bombing Quilt Exhibit Panel (MI)

FRI: Oklahoma Bombing Quilt Exhibit (MI)

FRI: Rochester Labor Film Series: Sorry to Bother You (NY)

FRI/SAT: Deadly Deception: The Asbestos Tragedy in McLean County (IL)

SAT: Activist Filmmakers Bootcamp featuring Third World Newsreel (WUFF, NY)

ONGOING:

Don't Stand Alone: Black Labor Organizing in New Orleans (LA)

American Labor in Print (MA)

In Camps, Under Trees, and Evicted (CA)

Jim Brozek: Honest Work (WI)

Power & Light: Russell Lee's Coal Survey (DC) (Temporarily Closed)

Oklahoma Bombing Quilt Exhibit and Panel — This Week at MSU

In recognition of the 30th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, the AFGE Memorial Quilt and two companion quilts are on display in the Lake Michigan Room (Room 340) of the MSU Union through October 31. Exhibit hours are Mon–Fri, 12–2 & 4–7 PM.

Join the panel discussion this Thursday, October 30 at 4 PM, exploring how these quilts honor the 89 federal workers and 19 children lost in the 1995 attack—and how quilting connects community, labor, and remembrance.

- John Beck

READERS WRITE: Remembering Ralph

“My Dad & Ralph Fasanella grew up together in Brooklyn organizing as young revolutionary comrades in the early 1930’s!” writes Joni Eisenberg (From the Family Collection: Four Ralph Fasanellas Hit the Block 10/24). “Tho my Dad always talked abt Ralph, it wasn’t until the 90’s at 1am in the morning at a Great Labor Exchange late nite party that Ralph Fasanella immediately recognized my last name & talked with me for a LONG time (maybe an hour!) abt how my Dad & him organized together in the late 192O’s & into the 30’s. I’ll never forget it! (Thankful Ralph was having a great time hanging out at that party!) Thank you LHF & GLAE! Solidarity Forever.”

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PICKET SIGN OF THE WEEK: Powered by an overwhelmingly supportive strike authorization vote, American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Local 802 announced last week that its members have successfully secured a tentative agreement with the Broadway League. Read more.

LABOR VIDEO OF THE WEEK: Jim Brozek: Lake Boats/Jones Island

Brozek is featured on today’s Labor Heritage Power (see above).

“Winter Layup” is a slide movie by Jim Brozek combining photographs he took while working on Great Lakes ore boats during their winter layup (1979–1985) with a soundscape of shipboard recordings and studio-created effects. First exhibited in 1986, Brozek reworked it in 2010 to merge sound and image into one immersive portrait of industrial labor.

LABOR SONG OF THE WEEK: Shutdown Blues

LABOR ART OF THE WEEK: The Injured Mason

“Was surprised and impressed to see this Goya painting at the Prado,” former NYT labor report Steven Greenhouse posted on Facebook last week. “It's called The Injured Mason, and it shows that in the late 1700s, Francisco Goya was already mindful of job safety problems.

In this painting, two fellow workers carry an injured worker who has fallen from the scaffolding visible in the background. The Prado says, ‘The painting has thus been interpreted as an Enlightenment critique of the vulnerability of men at work.’”

LABOR QUOTE OF THE WEEK: A. Philip Randolph

“It's easy to get people's attention, what counts is getting their interest.”

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

TODAY’S LABOR HISTORY

1891: In response to an ongoing attempt by coal mine owners to replace miners with convicts leased by the state, a group of miners burn the Tennessee Coal Mining Company stockade in Briceville and seize the Knoxville Iron Company stockade at Coal Creek, freeing over 300 convicts and supplying them with food and civilian clothes.

1941: After 14 years of labor by 400 stone masons, the Mt. Rushmore sculpture is completed in Keystone, South Dakota.

1949: The Upholsterers International Union merges into the United Steelworkers.

LABOR HISTORY TODAY PODCAST: Voices of Guinness

On this week’s Labor History Today: When the Guinness Brewery at Park Royal, West London closed in 2005 after seven decades of production, sociologist Tim Strangleman spent its final months documenting the plant and its people.

LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: The Fair Labor Standards Act established, for the first time, a minimum wage, as well as the 40-hour work week and banned child labor in factories. 

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