Labor Arts News & Updates

TODAY’S LABOR HERITAGE POWER HOUR RADIO SHOW

Songs that Organize, Strikes that Endure

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour – listen today at 1p on WPFW 89.3FM or online -- First, legendary organizer–songwriter Si Kahn breaks down the organizer’s “secret weapon”: parody! Then we head to Camp Solidarity in Matewan, West Virginia for “Lessons from the Massey Strike.” It’s the final week of WPFW’s Fall Fund Drive; please consider supporting the home of the Labor Heritage Power Hour! Pledge online or call 1-800-222-9739; $12.50/month makes you a sustainer; any amount makes you family. Thank you!

NOTE: If you miss the 1p show catch the podcast here!

IN THIS ISSUE

📅 WEEKEND LABOR ARTS CALENDAR — WUFF screenings, American Agitators, Creek Don’t Rise Duo, Rochester series, Off Our Walls, plus ongoing exhibits.

📰 LABOR ART NEWS BRIEFS — Equity–Broadway tentative deal; Kennedy Center cuts blasted; D.C. venue workers organize; SAG-AFTRA Verticals pact; four Fasanellas at auction.

🎧 THIS WEEK’S LABOR HERITAGE POWER HOUR — Si Kahn on parody as an organizer’s tool + lessons from the 1984–85 Massey strike.

🎥 LABOR VIDEO OF THE WEEK — Ralph Fasanella: A Painter of Working Class People.

📣 PICKET SIGN OF THE WEEK — Judge blocks mass firings of federal workers during shutdown.

🎵 LABOR SONG OF THE WEEK — “Down with the Police”.

🖼️ LABOR ART OF THE WEEK — Ralph Fasanella’s Subway Riders.

🗨️ LABOR QUOTE OF THE WEEK —Ralph Fasanella.

📜 TODAY’S LABOR HISTORY — 1989 Phillips refinery disaster; 2001 Brentwood anthrax deaths.

🎙️ LABOR HISTORY TODAY PODCAST — Ben Shahn on Sacco & Vanzetti; remembering Elaine Purkey; U.S. fascism’s roots; Robeson in Labor History in 2.

❓ LABOR HISTORY QUIZ — What did the 1938 FLSA establish?

✅ LAST WEEK’S QUIZ ANSWERED

WEEKEND LABOR ARTS CALENDAR

THU: American Agitators (CA)

THU: Shorts Replay - Home From Work, Heirloom, NOVA, The Arrivals (WUFF, NY)

THU: 'Sex Work - It's Just A Job' - Q&A with Tami Gold (WUFF, NY)

THU: 'Heart and Soul - A Love Story' Kenny Vance Doo-Wop Music Doc (WUFF, NY)

THU/FRI: Art of Labor: Off Our Walls (PA)

FRI: Creek Don't Rise Duo (WV)

FRI: Rochester Labor Film Series: Anywhere Anytime (NY)

ONGOING:

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

American Labor in Print (MA)

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

Jim Brozek: Honest Work (WI)

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

LABOR ART NEWS BRIEFS

Equity and Broadway League Reach Tentative Agreement: Actors’ Equity Association (Equity) announced on Saturday that the union has reached a tentative agreement on a new production contract with The Broadway League. Read more.

"This isn't stewardship. This is sabotage.": Since Trump appointed him in February, Kennedy Center President Ric Grenell has fired staff of social impact programming, international programming, dance and jazz programming, the Millennium stage, strategic partnerships, and more. "Grenell isn't 'saving' the Kennedy Center. He's tearing it apart, piece by piece — all while taking credit for events curated, cultivated, and produced by skilled arts workers who were fired without cause," said KCUAW workers. 

Workers at Major D.C. Concert Venues Launch Organizing Campaign: Front-of-house and production staffers at four major event venues in Washington, D.C., delivered a petition on Monday calling on management to not interfere with their organizing efforts to join unions. Read more.

SAG-AFTRA Announces New Verticals Agreement for Mobile Content: SAG-AFTRA on October 13 announced the launch of its new Verticals Agreement, covering productions with budgets under $300,000 and tailored to address the fast pace and tight budgets of vertical storytelling, while maintaining strong protections for SAG-AFTRA members. Read more.

- reports from the AFL-CIO Daily Brief, SAG-AFTRA, Metro Washington Council newsletter

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PICKET SIGN OF THE WEEK: A federal judge issued a temporary block last week on the Trump administration’s efforts to fire federal workers en masse during the government shutdown, siding with AFGE and AFSCME who challenged the illegal action in a Sept. 30 lawsuit.

LABOR VIDEO OF THE WEEK: Ralph Fasanella: A Painter of Working Class People

GoIAM.org - Whether it's a strike or factory floor, former union organizer Ralph Fasanella devoted his life to painting working men and women. The man who is considered America's best self taught artist would eventually complete hundreds of pieces of work dedicated to jobs and justice. 

LABOR SONG OF THE WEEK: Yiddish-Anarchist song "In ale gasn/Hey, hey, daloy politsey!"("Down with the Police")

LABOR ART OF THE WEEK: Ralph Fasanella-Subway Riders

“Encouraging workers to hang art in their homes and union halls was as important to Ralph as making paintings that honored labor history and working-class heritage.” Ron Carver, in his essay America’s Labor Heritage Posters. Read it here, where you can also order Fasanella posters. 

LABOR QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Without struggle, there is no reason to live. If you’re not struggling, you don’t deserve to be alive.

—Ralph Fasanella

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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

1989: Explosion and fire at Phillips Petroleum refinery in Pasadena, Texas, kills 23 and injures 314.

2001: Postal workers Joseph Cursseen and Thomas Morris die after inhaling anthrax at the Brentwood mail sorting center in Washington, D.C., which has since been re-named after them. Other postal workers are made ill. Letters containing the deadly spores had been addressed to U.S. Senate offices and media outlets.

On this week’s Labor History Today podcast 
Justice Denied: David Gariff on “Ben Shahn and the Case of Sacco and Vanzetti.”

Saul Schniderman remembers musician activist Elaine Purkey.

From the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast, “When It Happened Here: Michigan and the Transnational Development of American Fascism.”

And, on Labor History in 2: Paul Robeson, “The Voice of an Era.” 

LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: The 1950 “Salt of the Earth” strike by the mostly Mexican-American members of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union Local 890 in Bayard, N.M. was against the New Jersey Zinc Company. 

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