Biden Designates Frances Perkins National Monument: President Biden signed a proclamation Monday establishing a new national monument to Frances Perkins, America’s first woman Cabinet secretary and the longest-serving secretary of labor. President Biden was also inducted into the U.S. Department of Labor’s Hall of Honor that day; earlier this year Filipino labor leaders of the Delano Grape Strike were inducted. | |
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LABOR ARTS NEWS BRIEFS
ZeniMax Online Studios Workers Form Latest Video Game Union with Communications Workers of America: An overwhelming majority of video game workers at Microsoft’s ZeniMax Online Studios have indicated that they wish to join ZeniMax Online Studios (ZOS) United-CWA either by signing a union authorization card or voting via an online portal. In accordance with its stated labor principles, Microsoft has recognized the union, signaling a significant victory for workers’ rights in the industry. Read more here. - CWA
San Francisco Symphony and Chorus Reach Tentative Contract Agreement: The American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) announced a tentative contract agreement with the San Francisco Symphony for the 32 union members of the chorus. The agreement comes after months of negotiations, the expiration of the previous contract and a strike. AFL-CIO Daily Brief
Minnesota Timberwolves, Lynx In-House Audio and Video Crew Join IATSE: The in-house audio and video crew for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx at the Target Center in Minneapolis voted to join Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 745. Approximately 50 skilled professionals manage essential technical operations, including in-house cameras, replays, video production, audio and post-production. AFL-CIO Daily Brief
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Workers Unite Film Festival Winners Announced
Fire Department, Inc., The Presidents' Tailor and Gumbo Coalition are among the winners of the 2024 Workers Unite Film Festival, held earlier this Fall. The New York City-based festival maintained a hybrid festival this year for their 13th season, with in-person screenings and talkbacks October 18-24, followed by a virtual festival on WUFF’s Eventive streaming page Oct 25-30. Read more and see the complete list here.
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Hilary Peach’s Thick Skin (Encore): Writer and recording artist Hilary Peach worked for twenty years as a transient welder, travelling across Canada and the United States, working in pulp mills, chemical plants, refineries, and generating stations. In 2022 she released a memoir about this time, Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood; our interviewer is Susan Eisenberg, a poet, visual artist, oral historian and former electrician.
And, on today’s installment of our “Story Behind the Song” series, Joe Jencks tells us how he came to write his labor classic “Rise As One”. Joe is a 25-year veteran of the international folk circuit, an award-winning songwriter and celebrated vocalist, and a member of A.F.M. Local 1000, the North American Traveling Musicians Union.
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Your Voice/Your Vote: Get Ready to Choose the 2025 Labor Grammy Winners!
The time for you to exercise your voice and your vote has almost come. But first, you will need to listen to some great labor songs and, maybe, sing along. Power At Work this week announced the nominees for #2025Labor Grammy awards. Beginning January 6, 2025, you will have a chance to vote for your favorite nominated song in the six categories. ”It’s all for fun and to lift up great songs about worker power, unions, and worker collective action,” says Power At Work’s Seth Harris. “Your collective choices will win the vaunted ‘Guthrie Award,’ which honors labor music pioneer Woody Guthrie.” Read more here.
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“Honoring Frances Perkins with a national monument does more than acknowledge her work to establish Social Security, unemployment insurance, minimum wage and overtime pay—it is a challenge for us. “We must all remember that the gains we enjoy today were not gifts—they were hard-fought victories because Frances Perkins dared to believe that workers should thrive and not just survive.”
Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, in a statement Monday. photo: Perkins with inspectors at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge during its construction, 1935.
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CLICK HERE for our complete labor arts calendar; look for our Labor Arts Calendar edition on Monday | |
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Here are some DC labor exhibits to check out over the holidays:
Gordon Parks Photography: National Gallery of Art, West Building, Ground Floor — Gallery G22, through January 12, 2025
A look at a celebrated American photographer and how he forged a new mode of portraiture after World War II.
William Gropper: Artist of the People, The Phillips Collection; through January 5, 2025
Gropper was a leading social realist artist who used his work to call attention to socio-political issues of the 20th century, contributing thousands of satirical illustrations to radical publications such as the New York Tribune, New Masses, and The Sunday Worker.
UPCOMING: LHF'S MLK GONNA TAKE US ALL BALL: click on the image below for details
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December 20, 2005
Thousands of workers began what was to be a two-day strike of the New York City transit system over retirement, pension and wage issues. The strike violated the state’s Taylor Law; TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint was jailed for ten days and the union was fined $2.5 million.
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Touring the American Labor Museum
The American Labor Museum in Haledon, New Jersey, is also known as The Botto House, and that’s because for generations that’s what it was: the home of the Botto family. This unassuming house, sitting on an ordinary-looking street in a quiet residential neighborhood, played a key role in American labor history when it became the heart of the 1913 Patterson Silk Strike as tens of thousands of silk workers – most of them immigrants and many of them young children – demanded an eight-hour day and improved working conditions. They were supported by the IWW and the strike drew leaders like Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who spoke from that balcony at the Botto House, and recently LHT host Chris Garlock finally had a chance to make his own pilgrimage to this iconic labor landmark, for a personal tour with Education Director Evelyn Hershey.
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| Delegates to the 1899 AFL convention endorsed a constitutional amendment to do what? | | | |
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"The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too."
Please CLICK HERE NOW to pledge your financial support to our 2024 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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