THIS WEEK'S LABOR HERITAGE POWER HOUR RADIO SHOW
Joe Hill walks into a Starbucks… and labor culture takes center stage on this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour. SEIU President April Verrett accepts the Labor Heritage Foundation’s 2026 Solidarity Forever Award and explains why “culture moves people before politics ever will.” Plus, Harold Phillips talks with playwrights Lantz Simpson and Victoria McCallum about The Last Words of Joe Hill, a new theater piece connecting today’s Starbucks organizing drives with the legacy of Joe Hill and working-class storytelling. Also: People’s 250, labor arts news and calendar, and Labor History in 2:00 on Matewan and Blair Mountain. | | |
Great Labor Arts Exchange Heads Back to Labor Notes
For those attending the 2026 Labor Notes Conference, the program is now online, featuring nearly 300 workshops, panels, and events — and once again LHF’s Great Labor Arts Exchange will bring labor songs, stories, poetry, film, and art to the weekend. GLAE activities kick off Thursday night, June 11, with a Pub Quiz at 5 p.m., a screening of Who Moves America at 7 p.m., and a Labor Song Swap and Jam at 9 p.m.; attendees are encouraged to bring instruments, songbooks, poems, and other creative work to share throughout the weekend. The conference also includes labor arts workshops such as Punch Needle Embroidery with Tabitha Arnold and Make a Scabby Mask To Spice Up Your Picket Line, both requiring advance registration due to limited space (registrants check your email for details). Main sessions will be streamed; details to follow.
| | |
LABOR ARTS NEWS BRIEFS
LHF Joins Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives as Co-Sponsor
The long-running lunchtime series Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives returns for 2026-2027, and the Labor Heritage Foundation is excited to join the series as a co-sponsor. Read more
ATU Documentary Wins Telly Gold
The producers of the ATU Local 689 Documentary We Fought For What We Have have been honored with a gold Telly Award in the newly-created “Union or Trade Organization” category. Read more
NYC Council Backs Labor History Month: The New York City Council has passed a resolution urging the Department of Education to designate May as Labor History Month in public schools. Sponsored by Council Member Alexa Aviles, the measure aims to teach students about labor struggles and the history of workers’ rights, including the significance of May Day and the Haymarket uprising. Read more
| | |
LABOR VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Pink Williams - POUR! POUR! POUR! (Starbucks Barista Union Song) MUSIC VIDEO
Starbucks Workers United latest Day of Action is this Saturday; read more here
Got labor video? email us at info@laborheritage.org
| |
PICKET SIGN OF THE WEEK
Courtesy Uncle David in Seattle.
Got labor art? Email us: info@laborheritage.org
| |
LABOR SONG OF THE WEEK: The Red Flag - Billy Bragg
Billy’s touring North America now; details here.
Got a Labor song? Email us: info@laborheritage.org
| |
LABOR ART OF THE WEEK
Just in time for all you labor arts fans heading to Labor Notes, LHF’s brand-new Culture Corps t-shirts are available! Now you can literally wear your support on your sleeve; click here to order.
Got Labor art? Email us: info@laborheritage.org
Want Labor art like this sent to your inbox every week? Sign up for our free newsletter!
| |
LABOR QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Culture is not a substitute for direct political action but it tills the soil and gets people ready."
Boots Riley, Director, I Love Boosters (now in theaters nationwide) and Sorry to Bother You.
Got a labor quote? Email us: info@laborheritage.org
| | |
LABOR CARTOON OF THE WEEK
This cartoon by Randall Enos is provided by our friends at Funny Times, America's Funniest Newspaper. Sign up for their free cartoon-of-the-week newsletter here.
Want Labor cartoons like this one sent to your inbox every week? Sign up for our free newsletter!
| | |
LABOR LANDMARK OF THE WEEK
Eugene V. Debs Plaque At Woodstock’s Sheriff’s House/Old McHenry County Jail
In 1895, following the conclusion of the Pullman Railroad Strike, Eugene Debs served a six month term in the McHenry County Jail located in Woodstock, Illinois. This plaque memorializes the significance of the imprisonment and its impact on the labor movement and the free speech movement in the decades that followed.
Details on the LHF Labor Landmarks Map.
Want Labor landmarks like this one sent to your inbox every week? Sign up for our free newsletter!
| | Forward the LHF newsletter to friends, family, colleagues and help us reach our goal of 10,000 readers! 👉 Subscribe free | | |
Whose History Gets Told?
On this week’s edition of Labor History Today: the People’s 250 campaign asks whose stories belong in America’s history, from the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike to today’s fights for worker dignity and democracy. Then historian Eric Bernardino joins America’s Work Force Radio to discuss the massive 1938 San Antonio pecan shellers strike led largely by Mexican women workers and fiery organizer Emma Tenayuca. Plus: the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum’s “Courage in the Hollers” labor history trail, Birmingham unionists who stopped a Klan church bombing, and this week’s Labor History in Two on the historic 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike.
| | 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
1895: Eugene V. Debs imprisoned in Woodstock, Ill. for role in the Pullman strike.
1909: While white locomotive firemen on the Georgia Railroad strike, black replacement workers are whipped and stoned by white citizens. The Engineers union threatens to stop work because their members are being affected by the violence.
1920: The Civil Service Retirement Act of 1920 gives federal workers a pension.
1964: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces the goals of his Great Society social reforms: to bring “an end to poverty and racial injustice” in America.
| |
| What major 1934 strike saw National Guard troops open fire on striking workers, killing two? | | | | LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: 900 workers for the R. E. Funsten Company, a pecan-processing corporation based in St. Louis, held a strike from May 15 to May 24, 1933. The workers, consisting largely of black women employed at facilities in both St. Louis and nearby East St. Louis, Illinois, were organized by the Food Workers Industrial Union and were demanding union recognition, an increase in pay, and equal pay for both African American and white American workers. The strike ended in success for the strikers, though within a few years, the union had been crushed by the company.
Find more labor history in the LHF Labor Arts & Culture Database. | | |
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.
| | | | |
