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EDITOR’S NOTE: Despite forbidding weather, turnout was excellent for last Saturday’s special Labor Spring/LHF/Kalmanovitz Initiative-sponsored performances of The Garbologists last Saturday. “And what a great discussion after!” reports KI Associate Director Lane Windham. “I look forward to future collaborations.” So do we, Lane, so do we!
- Chris
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First Avenue Workers Ratify Collective Bargaining Agreement
UNITE HERE Local 17 members who work at Minneapolis’ legendary music venue First Avenue and its six Twin Cities sister clubs have unanimously ratified their first-ever contract. “I’ve watched a lot of my best friends leave the club because the job wasn’t sustainable or they didn’t feel respected, but this contract makes a lot of steps to change that,” said First Avenue event staffer Kyle Tappe.
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In Review: The Garbologists
By Kimmon “MacGyver” Williams
The Garbologists is another name for the people who pick up and help manage our waste, and who are not themselves garbage. It’s a name coined by playwright Lindsay Joelle and it’s the crux of this play now on stage at the Theatre Alliance. As the play begins, we’re dropped into the first day for a new hire on a truck driven by a longtime New York City sanitation worker, as the newbie learns the ropes and navigates her new workplace. There's depth, emotion, and laughter I did not expect, but was captivated by. There’s not a wasted scene or moment…CLICK HERE to read the rest of the review. The Garbologists runs Thu-Sun through Feb 23; tickets/details here.
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At the AFGE rally on Tuesday. | |
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On this week's Labor Heritage Power Hour: Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives? You Betcha! First we go to St Paul, Minnesota, where producer Lisa Raye Garlock caught up with sculptor Gita Ghei, to talk about Gita’s new show You Betcha! Farmer-Labor Solidarity Is Possible.
Then we hop over to Elise’s old stomping grounds, East Lansing, Michigan, where Chris talks with John Beck about “Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives” an ongoing series which for more than 30 years now has focused on the artistic traditions of workers and on workplaces as contexts for the expression of workers culture.
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We Are the Rank and File – Mike Stout
The first-ever music video produced by UE, just posted yesterday. Lines include “We’re puttin’ all the corporate dictators in trial, gonna organize and walk the line to the last mile, because we are the union rank and file!”
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“The first thing is to raise hell...That’s always the first thing to do when you’re faced with an injustice and you feel powerless. That’s what I do in my fight for the working class.”
Mary Harris "Mother Jones"
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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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WEEKEND LABOR ARTS CALENDAR
Fri/Sat/Sun, 2/14-16: The Garbologists
Sat, 2/15: Tote that Barge! Black Music and Labor Concert
Mon, 2/17: Film: Finally Got the News
COMING UP: 2025 MLK "Gonna Take Us All" Ball (NEW DATE!); Sunday, February 23, 2025, 6:30 PM, McGinty's Public House, 911 Ellsworth Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20910. Solidarity, inspiration, dancing, food and drink!
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February 14, 1996
Striking workers at Detroit’s newspapers, out since the previous July, offer to return to work. The offer is accepted five days later but the newspapers vow to retain some 1,200 scabs. A court ruling the following year ordered as many as 1,100 former strikers reinstated.
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On Labor History Today: Grit and Working-Class Solidarity: B.C. Workers Respond to the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. The On the Line: Stories of BC Workers podcast reports on “A time of unsurpassed working-class consciousness and resistance, the likes of which Canada had not seen before, nor since.” On this week’s Labor History in Two: Moral Mondays. | |
| Susan B. Anthony was which of these? | | | |
LAST WEEK’S QUIZ: On February 9, 1950, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy falsely charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists. It seems that just about everyone else the Wisconsin senator didn’t like was a Communist as well, including scores of unionists. This was the beginning of "McCarthyism." He ultimately was officially condemned by the senate and died of alcoholism. | |
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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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