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IN THIS ISSUE
- Editor’s Note: Halfway to unlocking Phil's $10K match
- Labor Art News Briefs: Rallies, contracts, and library organizing
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Feature: “MacGyver” Williams says Labor Education Is Civil Rights Work
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Weekend Labor Arts Calendar: Cloud, The Organizer, High Iron, Power & Light
- Labor Heritage Power Hour: From Tolpuddle to Texas & Frisco
- Playlists: Labor Videos & Labor Songs of the Week
- Spotlights: Picket Sign, Art, and Quote of the Week
- Labor History & Quiz: Milestones and movement history
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Editor’s Note: I had the pleasure of visiting LHF supporter Phil Straus this week to share the good news: it’s been a banner year for the Labor Heritage Foundation. From Rep. Jamie Raskin bringing down the house at the MLK Gonna Take Us All Ball, to packed houses at the DC Labor FilmFest, to UAW President Shawn Fain’s rousing call to action at the Solidarity Forever Awards, to the music, art, and solidarity at the Great Labor Arts Exchange (photo) — we’ve had a year full of inspiration and impact.
But I couldn’t quite ask Phil to write his big check just yet. He’s promised to match every dollar we raise up to $10,000 — which would mean $20,000 to expand our programs promoting labor arts and history nationwide — but so far, we’re only halfway there.
That means we just need another $5,000 to unlock Phil’s full match. Can you help us get across the finish line? Your generous gift today will go twice as far in keeping labor’s stories, songs, and struggles alive. Click here to give. Thank you!
Chris
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LABOR ART NEWS BRIEFS
AFL-CIO Bus Stops for Historic Rally with Chicago History Museum Workers: AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond joined Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter and Illinois AFL-CIO President Tim Drea on Thursday at a rally supporting AFSCME-represented workers at the Chicago History Museum as they continue their fight against union-busting. Read more.
CWA Members Ratify Contract at Call of Duty Video Game Studio: Workers at Raven Software, a video game studio and subsidiary under Microsoft/Activision Blizzard, unanimously voted on Monday to ratify their first union contract between Game Workers Alliance-CWA (GWA-CWA) members and Microsoft. The contract builds on the recent organizing momentum by Microsoft video game workers organizing with CWA to raise standards across the video game industry, coming on the heels of ZeniMax Workers United-CWA members securing a contract with the tech giant in June. Read more.
Memphis Librarians Fight to Join CWA: On Tuesday, Memphis library workers testified before the city council on why they should be allowed the same worker protections as other civil servants, including first responders and educators. Library workers have been organizing to join CWA for months and already have 60 percent of the workforce signed up in favor of the union.
- reports from AFL-CIO Daily Brief and CWA Newsletter
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Labor Education Is Civil Rights Work
LHF Treasurer Kimmon “MacGyver” Williams makes the case that labor education isn’t just training — it’s liberation. “Labor rights and civil rights are not separate struggles,” she says. “They’ve always been linked — and if we’re serious about organizing across class, rebuilding trust, and preparing for the fights ahead, we must treat education as a core strategy.” Drawing on the history of Reconstruction schools, the Highlander Folk School, and her recent experience at the UALE’s Union Women’s Summer School in Charleston, she shows how teaching labor history, leadership, and movement culture is essential to winning the fights ahead. Read more.
Kimmon “MacGyver” Williams serves as Treasurer for the Labor Heritage Foundation. Photo: Atlanta Labor Council president Sandra Lee Williams; photo by Hetty Scofield.
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WEEKEND LABOR ARTS CALENDAR
FILM: Cloud (2024): This stylish, subversive thriller from suspense maverick Kiyoshi Kurosawa (CURE, PULSE) centers on Yoshii (Masaki Suda), an ambitious, yet directionless, young factory worker from Tokyo who side hustles in the murky realm of black-market reselling, cheating buyers and sellers alike. AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, MD; multiple dates/times beginning Friday, August 8.
FILM: The Organizer [I Compagni] (1963): In turn-of-the-twentieth-century Turin, an accident in a textile factory incites workers to stage a walkout. But it is not until they receive unexpected aid from a traveling professor (Marcello Mastroianni) that they find their voice, unite and stand up for themselves. AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, MD; multiple dates/times beginning Saturday, August 9; details/tickets here.
Saturday: High Iron (WY)
Ongoing: Power & Light: Russell Lee's Coal Survey (DC)
| | @unitehere on Thursday: Sky Chefs workers are standing up today at US airports! They ensure airline passengers & crew are fed but some still must choose between food & healthcare. American, Delta, United, and Alaska airlines: Catering workers deserve 💰 Better wages 🩺 Affordable health care | | All of the weekly Labor Videos of the Week are now collected in one handy playlist! CLICK HERE to check them out and let us know if there are any we should feature/add. | | All of the weekly Labor Songs of the Week are now collected in one handy playlist! CLICK HERE to check them out and let us know if there are any we should feature/add. | | |
From Tolpuddle to Texas & Frisco: Labor’s Long Ride
On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: We kick off with Billy Bragg singing Power in a Union at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and end with his moving anthem Help Save the Youth of America. In between, we explore labor solidarity from the streets of San Francisco’s LaborFest to the windswept plains of Texas, where cowboys once went on strike. Plus: labor poetry, cooperative alternatives, and Rick Smith on Reagan vs. PATCO. Music, memory, and the power of collective action—all in one hour.
| | | “Just wanted to share Ravi Zupa’s art,” writes reader Azul Gurruchaga. “I recently bought his ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’ print and thought I’d share with y’all after I saw this week’s newsletter (featuring the Dropkick Murphys “This Machine Still Kills Fascists”). | | 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 | | |
1902: Delegates to the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly elect 35-year-old Charles James, leader of the Boot and Shoe Workers local union, as their president. He was the first African-American elected to that leadership post in St. Paul, and, many believe, the first anywhere in the nation.
1903: Cripple Creek, Colo. miners strike begins.
2021: Massachusetts marijuana retailer Theory Wellness is ordered by the state’s attorney to pay $300,000 in restitution and penalties to 280 employees it cheated out of legally-required Sunday and holiday premium pay. The company, which grossed $17 million during it’s first six months of operation, blamed “inadvertent payroll errors.”
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"From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.”
Cesar Chavez, posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on this date in 1994 by President Bill Clinton, becoming the first Mexican-American ever to receive the honor.
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| Before actors unionized, which of these was common practice? | | | | LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: Uriah Smith Stephens, born in Cape May, NJ on August 3, 1821, was a tailor by trade, who in 1869 led nine Philadelphia garment workers to found the Knights of Labor. | | |
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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.
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