News & Updates

Editor’s Note: May Day is just over a month away and we’re putting the finishing touches on this year’s DC Labor FilmFest (opens May 1), DC Labor Chorus Spring Concert (May 3) and LHF’s Solidarity Forever Awards (May 8); mark these dates on your calendar now and stay tuned for more details soon! Also coming soon is the Great Labor Arts Exchange, June 20-22; click here for details and to register.

LABOR ARTS NEWS BRIEFS

Bad faith at Bethesda Game Studios: CWA-Canada files charges against Bethesda Game Studios for bad-faith bargaining in Montreal. Game workers seek a fair first contract. Read more.

Gizmodo workers OK 1^st Contract: WGAE members at Gizmodo have unanimously ratified their first contract under new ownership, securing AI safeguards, raises & more. Read more.

Judge Sends Post-Gazette Back to Table: In a major win for striking journalists, a federal court ordered the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to restore health care & return to the table. Read more.

ICYMI: An American Massacre: In 1885, white rioters – many of them members of the Knights of Labor -- murdered dozens of their Asian neighbors in Rock Springs, Wyoming. A hundred and forty years later, the story of the atrocity is still being unearthed. Read the story in The New Yorker.

@CWAUnion NABET-CWA members fought back this week to defend PBS and NPR; Republican leaders in Congress & the Trump admin are following the Project 2025 playbook & trying to shut down funding for independent public television & radio stations. 

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AFL-CIO: Workers Across the Country Are Speaking Out and Taking Action Against DOGE Cuts

Mar 27, 2025: Across the country last week, in 371 actions and 44 states and DC, working people across the country held rallies, attended town halls, marched, protested, and shared their stories about how the cruel DOGE cuts are affecting them and their communities.

Hold the Line - Linda Allen

Hear the story behind the song on this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour!

"Say Their Names" - R.J. Phillips Band CLICK HERE TO PLAY

Viola Liuzzo, a civil rights activist and the wife of a Teamster organizer, was killed on March 25, 1965 by the Ku Klux Klan while transporting marchers during the Selma to Montgomery March. Viola was shot dead by three members of the KKK while driving activists between Selma and Montgomery (Ala.) during the march for voting rights. photos: Viola Liuzzo (top); Jimmy Hoffa and Martin Luther King Jr at Liuzzo's funeral. Send your Labor Song of the Week suggestions to us! info@laborheritage.org

“Straight out of Project 2025, this executive order is the very definition of union-busting.” Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO

“Trump’s threat to unions and working people across America is clear: fall in line or else.” Everett Kelley, AFGE

“The billionaires running this administration have proven that they are willing to bulldoze anything that stands in their way.” Lee Saunders, AFSCME

“This has nothing to do with security and everything to do with silencing those who disagree with the government.” Randi Weingarten, AFT

“When you come after workers, you’re going to find us standing shoulder to shoulder, ready to fight back.” Shawn Fain, UAW

Excerpts from statements by leaders across the American labor movement responding today to a new executive order from the Trump administration that strips collective bargaining and union rights from workers across the federal government: AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler; AFGE National President Everett Kelley; AFSCME President Lee Saunders; Machinists (IAM) and National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE-IAM); International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE); American Federation of Teachers (AFT); Communications Workers of America (CWA); Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) General President Jimmy Williams Jr.; National Nurses United (NNU); Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA); North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU); Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU); UAW President Shawn Fain; United Steelworkers (USW) International President David McCall; Transportation Trades Department (TTD)President Greg Regan and TTD Secretary-Treasurer Shari Semelsberger

New York City Works: Jobs, Advocacy, Action is a new exhibit created by LaborArts for the New York City Central Labor Council.

Arrange a visit via email to info@NYCCLC.org. See the exhibit online here.

LaborArts newsletter

CLICK HERE for our complete labor arts calendar; look for our Labor Arts Calendar edition on Monday

WEEKEND LABOR ARTS CALENDAR

Saturday:

Grand Opening: Gallup New Deal Art Virtual Museum

American Steel

Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink

Ongoing:

Power & Light: Russell Lee's Coal Survey

Historic photographs of Yakima Valley farmworkers

March 28, 1968

Martin Luther King, Jr., leads a march of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn. Violence during the march persuades him to return the following week to Memphis, where he was assassinated. 

LABOR HISTORY TODAY PODCAST: Sam Walton, Harry Bridges & The Great Cowboy Strike. Joe McCartin, Leon Fink and Patrick Dixson discuss the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that undocumented workers don’t have the same rights as Americans, Sam Walton’s anti-union legacy, and they remember dock union leader Harry Bridges and the Texas cowboys strike. PLUS: Saul Schniderman on Martin Luther King and striking sanitation workers in Memphis. Music this week includes “Glory,” with Common and John Legend, from the motion picture "Selma” and “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke. Originally released March 25, 2018.

LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: Mark Twain was a lifelong member of the International Typographical Union (now part of CWA). On March 22, 1886 he spoke in Hartford, Conn., extolling the Knights of Labor’s commitment to fair treatment of all workers, regardless of race or gender.

Celebrating Mother Jones’ Irish heritage (3/21)

Jeff Bezos has a Rocketship Called: New Shepard (3/14)

The Communist Folk Singers Who Shaped Bob Dylan (3/7)

Contest: Songs and Chants for the Strike Line (2/28)

Free Black History Month Virtual Screenings (2/21)

Cast your vote for 2025 Labor Oscars! (2/14)

Artists fight to save EMF’s “heart and soul” (2/7)