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Editor’s Note: LHF is dedicated to strengthening the labor movement through labor arts and history. We do this by celebrating labor music, film, theater, art and the history of worker struggle, raising awareness in our newsletter, radio show, podcast, website and social media. We hope what we share inspires you; it certainly does us. As this momentous year draws to a close, we’re already planning for 2026, including the annual DC Labor FilmFest, the Great Labor Arts Exchange at Labor Notes, our Solidarity Forever awards and of course more performances by the DC Labor Chorus. You can help by contributing to our matching fund campaign and by sharing this newsletter with friends, family and colleagues. Thank you!
- Chris
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Celebrate, Reconnect, and Take On the New Year—Together
A new year, the same fight—and all of us in it together. The People’s Party returns with our annual MLK “Gonna Take Us All” Ball on Friday, January 16 at McGinty’s in Silver Spring, MD. Come celebrate community, solidarity, and the work ahead as we head into the New Year. Tickets are $15 ($10 for LHF members), with free drink tickets for the first 100 through the door. Click here now to reserve yours!
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LHF to Carry Labor Grammys Forward in 2026—Nominations Now Open
Continuing and expanding the popular labor music celebration launched by our friends at Power at Work, the Labor Heritage Foundation is taking over the Labor Grammys. Building on the strong foundation established by PAW, LHF will now steward the Labor Grammys as a home for songs that lift up worker power, unions, collective action, and solidarity across genres and generations (Watch PAW’s 2025 Labor Grammys Awards here).
Nominations are now open for the 2026 Labor Grammys, and we want to hear from you! We’re not just looking for songs about work; we want to hear songs that put the spotlight on workers organizing, standing together, and fighting for justice—music that belongs on picket lines, in union halls, and in the long tradition of labor culture.
Details on categories and voting will be announced soon. For now, start listening, start sharing, and start nominating. Let’s celebrate the music that moves the movement!
PAW’s 2025 List Of Labor Grammy Contenders Spotify playlist
| | The American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) and Dance Theatre of Harlem announced the ratification of a collective bargaining agreement, marking their first union contract in many years. Read more in the AFL-CIO Daily Brief. | |
WHAT WE’RE READING
At a museum for the art of work, these are its masterpieces: The Workers Arts and Heritage Centre in Hamilton celebrates 30 years of telling working-class stories. Read more.
New Era For DC Arts: Theater Alliance Launches Vibrant Arts Hub In Southwest DC
Theater Alliance, one of DC’s leading theaters known for socially conscious, civic-minded productions – including many labor-themed shows -- has announced it will establish its permanent home at 340 Maple Dr SW, creating a multidisciplinary hub featuring two fully equipped theaters – solidifying and expanding Theater Alliance’s work while providing space for Theater Alliance and other DC arts organizations to thrive. Read more.
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THIS WEEK'S LABOR HERITAGE POWER HOUR RADIO SHOW
On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: Chris Garlock sits down with Strike While the Needle is Hot: A Discography of Workers’ Revolt authors Josh MacPhee and Kennedy Block to spin and unpack strike records from the ’60s–’80s—including the rousing 1978 EP “Ford Workers on Strike.” A fast-moving tour of worker-made music and how vinyl captured picket lines, speeches, and solidarity anthems.
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Time Is Running Out to Make a 2025 Tax-Deductible Gift — and It Still Doubles!
There’s still time to make a tax-deductible 2025 contribution to the Labor Heritage Foundation—and help us close the final few thousand dollars needed to unlock a full $10,000 match. Every gift is still being doubled, so your support goes twice as far for labor arts, culture, and education.
As the year comes to a close, this is your chance to make a meaningful, last-minute gift that counts for 2025 and helps push us over the finish line.
CLICK HERE to contribute.
Thank you!
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Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow.
Forward the LHF newsletter to friends, family, colleagues and help us reach our goal of 10,000 readers! 👉 Subscribe free
| | PICKET SIGNS OF THE WEEK
Keep up with the strike with StarbucksUnited.
Got picket sign? email us at info@laborheritage.org | | LABOR VIDEO OTW: Santa Claus is a union man! | | |
LABOR SONGS OF THE WEEK
Above: Seattle musician sings with Starbucks Workers United on strike; different strike, same issues.
Below: Starbucks Song: Barry P. Foley may have different reasons, but he’s boycotting Starbucks too.
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LABOR ART OF THE WEEK: Kiyo Gutiérrez, Ice and soil/hielo y tierra, 2025
Photo : Pistor Orendain/Courtesy the artist
The day before mass ICE raids swept across LA, and mere weeks before tightening visa restrictions forced her to return home to Mexico, artist Kiyo Gutiérrez staged what she calls a “ritual-performance” on the bank of the LA River. Using ice and soil, she spelled out “No Human Is Illegal” through a sequence of meticulous, physically taxing gestures: breaking ice, arranging the cubes before they dissolved, then covering them with earth. As the ice melted, carrying the sediment into the rushing current, the work enacted the ambiguity of artificial borders and the precarity of those who cross them. The image’s disappearance, even as it was being made, captured the unresolved state in which countless lives still hang today.
See more in How Artists Responded to 2025’s Surging ICE Raids in ArtNews.
Got labor art? Send your suggestions to us: info@laborheritage.org
| | 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 | | |
TODAY’S LABOR HISTORY
1943
President Roosevelt seizes the railroads to avert a nationwide strike. His decision to temporarily place the railroads under the “supervision” of the War Department prompts the five railroad brotherhoods to agree to his offer to arbitrate the wage dispute.
| | On this week’s Labor History Today podcast, labor organizer and researcher Eric Dirnbach talks with Dave Kamper, author of Who’s Got the Power: Hope for Troubled Times, about the post-pandemic union upsurge. From graduate student organizing and teachers’ strikes to the UAW’s stand-up strike and bargaining for the common good, Kamper reflects on what history can teach us about moments of possibility, and why solidarity is re-emerging as a force for change. | |
| Why did auto workers stage a sit-down strike in 1936 at GM’s Fisher Body plant in Cleveland? | | | | LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: On December 20, 1899, delegates to the AFL convention in Salt Lake City endorsed a constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote. | | |
SUPPORT LABOR ARTS!
Please CLICK HERE NOW to pledge your financial support to our 2026 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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