Labor Arts News & Updates

WEEKEND LABOR ARTS CALENDAR

SAT: Join Mother Jones In Chicago For St. Patrick's Day

SAT: Singing For Justice

SAT: America 250 Democracy Dialogs (Virtual)

Ongoing:

Work in Progress (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)

I Don’t Want Your Millions (Billions), Mister (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)

Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne (New York City, NY)  

Ting Tong Chang The Hidden Shift (Pittsburgh, PA) 

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

THIS WEEK'S LABOR HERITAGE POWER HOUR RADIO SHOW


Union Women Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour we share highlights from a special edition of the program hosted by Elise Bryant and celebrating Women’s History Month and the powerful role of women in the labor movement. Read more.

LABOR ARTS NEWS BRIEFS

Submit Your Song to the Second General Strike Song Contest: Songwriters, musicians, and activists are invited to submit entries to the project to create new songs and chants for rallies, picket lines, and demos. Read more.

Labor Oscars Voting Closes March 15th at Midnight: It’s your last chance to vote in LHF’s Labor Oscars! Get those votes in and listen to the Labor Heritage Power Hour next week to hear the results! Read more.

APWU Launches Online History Center: The union has launched an interactive website designed to expand access to the APWU History Center. Read more.

PLUS: 95% Strike Pledge At CBS; Motion Capture Workers Ratify Historic First Union Contract; Current Affairs Union Voluntarily Recognized; Bookmans Workers in Flagstaff, Tucson Ratify First Union Contract; Fort Worth Report Staff Win Election to Form Union.

LABOR LANDMARK OF THE WEEK: UAW Local 174 Mural

Painted by Detroit artists Walter Speck and Barbara Wilson through the WPA for the UAW Local 174 hall, the mural depicts key events in UAW history—including the Flint Sit-Down Strike, the Battle of the Overpass, and the Ford Hunger March—and has been housed in the Reuther Library Reading Room since 2016. Details on the LHF Labor Landmarks Map.

LABOR VIDEO OF THE WEEK: We Were There (Bev Grant)

Women's Labor History in Song & Narration: Fifteen first-person stories of women who struggled throughout history and those who are struggling today for a better world for all.
Got labor video? email us at info@laborheritage.org

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PICKET SIGN OF THE WEEK
Labor Heritage Foundation staffer Harold Phillips was on the ground in Seattle, where IATSE Local 15 bannered at the Seattle Convention Center to call attention to Encore Global's refusal to offer living wages to Audio Visual workers.
Got picket sign? email us at info@laborheritage.org

LABOR SONG Of The Week: Labor History - Pat Wynne 
"They never taught us any labor history, it's a mystery how we survived." Pat is accompanied by Jon Fromer on guitar.

From Videos to celebrate Women's History Month in Friday's Labor Folklore, Saul Schniderman, editor.

Women Workers Carry Forward the Fight for Justice

On this week’s Labor History Today,

SEIU President April Verrett reflects on the legacy of A. Philip Randolph and

the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, connecting their historic struggle to

today’s fights for worker power, immigration justice, and democracy. Posted on

International Women’s Day, the episode highlights the leadership of women

workers—especially in care and service jobs. Plus: Lucy Parsons on Labor History in 2:00 and We Were There from Bev Grant and the Brooklyn Women’s Chorus.

LABOR POEM OF THE WEEK: A Woman’s Labor

I have shopped and cooked,

wandered long dazzling aisles

for shiny apples, plump golden

peaches, cloves to spice the chicken.

I have chopped and sliced, grated

and peeled. Here at the counter

I mixed and stirred,

great chunks of my life falling

into stews like raw meat,

great pillows of morning and rafts

of afternoon floating into the sea

as I repaired and mended,

dug and weeded, falling

on my knees to clip mint and basil.

Excerpted from A Woman’s Labor (page 30), by Geraldine Connolly, in The Book of Jobs: Poems About Work, edited by Erin Murphy

LABOR ART OF THE WEEK: Rights Are Power

Great photo from the “Know Your Rights” and union peacekeeper training last weekend for more than 100 local activists put on by the AFL-CIO and the New Jersey State AFL-CIO. AFL-CIO Daily Brief

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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
1830: The term “rat,” referring to a worker who betrays fellow workers, first appears in print in the New York Daily Sentinel. The newspaper was quoting a typesetter while reporting on replacement workers who had agreed to work for two-thirds of the going rate.

photo: Scabby protesting with members of Construction & General Building Laborers’ Local 79 at a construction site on the West Side of Manhattan in 1998. Image credit: Ángel Franco/The New York Times.

LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: Hollywood writers represented by the Writers Guild of America went on strike on March 7, 1988 against 200 television and movie studios over residuals payments and creative rights. The successful strike lasted 150 days, one of the longest in industry history.

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Workers Celebrate Int’l Women’s Day (3/6)
Solidarity Rising: Strikes, Murals, and World Heritage (2/27)
Songs of Revolution and Protest (2/20)
Striking At Kings (2/13)

Songs for Minneapolis (2/6)