This week on Labor History Today, we bring you a special episode from the We Rise Fighting Labor Podcast , exploring the power and potential of today’s mass protests—from the streets of LA to immigrant rights rallies; where is all this energy going, and what vision can turn protest into real, lasting change? Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected] Labor History Today is produced by the ...
Jun 22, 2025•34 min•Ep. 313
On this week’s Labor History Today: We remember legendary union leader Tony Mazzocchi—his fight for worker safety, his role in founding the Labor Party, and his lasting impact on labor arts. Plus, Seth Newton Patel’s song about the untold story of the multiracial cowboy strike of 1883, and a look back at the 1937 miners’ solidarity strike.
Jun 15, 2025•19 min•Ep. 312
This week on Labor History Today: From the Library of Congress’ America Works podcast: Bill Favaro shares the origins of his family’s Louisiana rod & reel shop, and Juan Salcido Sanchez reflects on a lifetime caring for racehorses. Plus, we mark two deadly events in mining labor history—from Butte, Montana (1917) to Cripple Creek, Colorado (1904). Music: “The Miners” by The Elders. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, ...
Jun 09, 2025•25 min•Ep. 311
On this week’s Labor History Today: "This drunk came on and he started showing me a bad time, and I up and popped him and knocked him out. The soldier got one arm, I got the other and we put him beside the telephone pole. We got back in, gave a bell, and away we went. Never knew what happened to the guy. He could still be sitting there—I don’t know." That was Pearl Wattum, one of Vancouver’s legendary “conductorettes”—the women who kept the city’s streetcars running during World War II while the...
Jun 01, 2025•34 min•Ep. 310
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Mongrel Firebugs and Men of Property (Encore) Steve Fraser discusses his book “Mongrel Firebugs and Men of Property: Capitalism and Class Conflict in American History” and political scientist and historian Michael Munk connects 2024 Minneapolis with the general strike that took place there in 1934. Plus, Meany Archivist Ben Blake on how the labor movement has used car caravans, the “En Masse” podcast takes us inside the New England quarries nearly a centu...
May 26, 2025•41 min•Ep. 309
On this week's Labor History Today: Before she turned 20, Emma Tenayuca led thousands of Mexican American pecan shellers into one of the largest strikes of the 1930s. A fearless young organizer from San Antonio, Texas, Tenayuca fought for workers’ rights, racial justice, and dignity—despite arrest, red-baiting, and death threats. Her story, largely left out of mainstream labor history, still resonates in today’s struggles for immigrant and worker justice. This episode features a segment from Sol...
May 19, 2025•23 min•Ep. 308
On this week’s Labor History Today podcast: In a special crossover episode with the Power At Work podcast, historians Joe McCartin and Veronica Martinez-Matsuda join me and Power At Work host Seth Harris to connect the past to labor’s present “perilous moment.” They explore the legacy of the 1981 PATCO strike, today’s threats to federal workers' rights, the farm labor movement’s long exclusion from labor law, and why history doesn’t swing back on its own—people make it. Subscribe to Labor Histor...
May 11, 2025•39 min•Ep. 307
On this episode of Labor History Today, we mark the 40th anniversary of the end of one of the most significant labor struggles of the 20th century: the 1984–85 British Miners’ Strike. Former miner and strike veteran John Dunn shares his harrowing personal account of the violence, repression, and community solidarity that defined the year-long battle between the National Union of Mineworkers and Margaret Thatcher’s government. Dunn’s story, told in conversation with Heartland Labor Forum host Tin...
May 04, 2025•31 min•Ep. 306
Sara Nelson’s inspirational keynote at the April 6, 2021 symposium celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jeremy Brecher’s classic labor history book “Strike!” On today’s Labor History in 2 : Our Thing is DRUM! Originally released May 2, 2021. To contribute a labor history item, email [email protected] Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor . #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @ILLabo...
Apr 27, 2025•32 min•Ep. 305
This week on Labor History Today: The 25th annual DC Labor FilmFest kicks off May Day at the AFI Silver! Host Chris Garlock previews the powerful lineup of films about work and workers with AFI programmers Todd Hitchcock, Abbie Algar, Eli Prysant, and Javier Chavez — including LILLY, The Last Showgirl, and more. Plus: On Labor History in 2:00, we remember the 1914 Ludlow Massacre. And historian Nick Juravich shares a favorite labor song celebrating the radical legacy of the National Maritime Uni...
Apr 20, 2025•26 min•Ep. 304
On Labor History Today: Para Power: AFT president Randi Weingarten talks with Nick Juravich, associate director of the Labor Resource Center at UMass Boston, about class, race and education and his book Para Power: How Paraprofessional Labor Changed Education . PLUS: Nick’s almost-favorite labor song, and, on Labor History in 2:00, Florence Reece is born. Labor History Today is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network . @AFTunion @rweingarten @NickJuravich @AFISilver @LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @...
Apr 13, 2025•46 min•Ep. 303
On Labor History Today: In 1934, as part of an effort to boost morale and encourage citizens to find community in their traditions, the Roosevelt administration sent artists to homesteads throughout the country to lead group activities—including listening to and making folk music. On today’s show, a conversation centered around A Chance to Harmonize: How FDR’s Hidden Music Unit Sought to Save America from the Great Depression—One Song at a Time , a book by award-winning author and music scholar ...
Apr 06, 2025•33 min•Ep. 302
On Labor History Today: Kings and presidents and CEOs like to think that they make history but real history is actually made by thousands of small actions like this: a handful of grounds workers at a local school district refusing to handle South African chicken wire, multiplied around the globe until, eventually, the entire racist system of apartheid collapses. Today’s episode tells the impressive story of international solidarity by union members in British Columbia – B.C. -- who worked tirele...
Mar 30, 2025•22 min•Ep. 301
On Labor History Today: Joe McCartin, Leon Fink and Patrick Dixon 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”...
Mar 23, 2025•55 min•Ep. 300
Labor History Today: During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 800 nurses walked out on strike in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. As concern rises about the return of measles and cuts to healthcare staff and budgets, this edition of the Labor Jawn podcast from February 2022 is especially timely. And, a double-hit of Labor History in Two : The day The Grapes of Wrath opened in movie theaters, and the day Bruce Springsteen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Questions, comments, or sug...
Mar 16, 2025•28 min•Ep. 299
Labor History Today: This week’s edition of the show takes us to Australia, but the history of slavery and the ongoing failure to come to terms with the resulting racism and discrimination there echo uncomfortably loudly here in the United States as Donald Trump ramps up his campaign to stamp out any effort to acknowledge that such things exist, as though by simply abolishing the words diversity, equity and inclusion we can magically erase generations of oppression. It cannot do so, but we clear...
Mar 09, 2025•45 min•Ep. 298
On Labor History Today: A visit to the Northern Ireland city of Derry and a search for the real Factory Girls. On this week’s Labor History in Two : Jefferson Outlaws the Slave Trade; Greyhound Bus Drivers Strike Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected] Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor . Sources...
Mar 02, 2025•20 min•Ep. 297
As Black History Month comes to a close, the On the Line podcast marks the occasion with a fascinating look back at the history of train sleeping car porters, almost all of whom were Black. It's a story that has only recently started to be told, and combines the history of Black employment in Canada, unionization and the fight for dignity and equality. On The Line examines those long-lost days mostly through the voice of Warren Williams, whose Uncle Lee was in the forefront of the drive to organ...
Feb 23, 2025•30 min•Ep. 296
For 150 years, Richmond's place in history has been as "the capital of the Confederacy." But this label hides a much richer and more complex history. On today’s show, originally aired on Feb. 20, 2022, we hear from Peter Rachleff, Co-Executive Director of the East Side Freedom Library , a retired professor of history at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and author of " Black Labor in Richmond, 1865 -1890 ," as he reveals part of that hidden history, that of Black and White workers in th...
Feb 16, 2025•29 min•Ep. 293
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. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail...
Feb 09, 2025•25 min•Ep. 292
On Labor History Today: The 1917 “Bath Riots”. The story of Carmelita Torres, the "Latina Rosa Parks," and the so-called “Bath Riots” on the U.S.-Mexico border in 1917. On Labor History in Two : auto workers sit down and Black students sit in. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected] Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor...
Feb 02, 2025•18 min•Ep. 291
On this week's Labor Heritage Power Hour: MLK in Memphis; “We Will Not Be Turned Around”, Part 3 of AFSCME’s I AM STORY podcast about the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected] Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor . #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStrug...
Jan 26, 2025•41 min•Ep. 290
On this week’s Labor History Today: While historians have written prolifically about the 1914 Ludlow Massacre, there has been a lack of attention to the Columbine Massacre in which police shot and killed six striking coal miners and wounded sixty more protestors during the 1927–1928 Colorado Coal Strike, even though its aftermath exerted far more influence on subsequent national labor policies. In her 2023 book Remembering Ludlow but Forgetting the Columbine: The 1927–1928 Colorado Coal Strike ,...
Jan 19, 2025•33 min•Ep. 288
On this week’s Labor History Today: Battle of the Eureka Stockade. Australia’s history closely tracks American history; the subjugation of indigenous people is the most obvious parallel, and the battles for basic worker rights is another. On today’s show -- which comes to us from Stick Together , Australia's only national radio show focusing on industrial, social and workplace issues -- the Battle of the Eureka Stockade , the first major event of post-colonial Australia, where in 1854, during th...
Jan 12, 2025•35 min•Ep. 287
American labor unions have seen an incredible resurgence in recent years, which, suggests public historian Tom Goldscheider , “begs the question: why were they in decline in the first place?” In "At Sword’s Point", Tom revisits a pivotal moment in American history, when the furious power of Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare found its first true target, and when the dismantling of American organized labor began. But this isn’t a story of workers caving in the face of mass hysteria; this is the story of...
Jan 05, 2025•59 min•Ep. 286
Joe Jencks is a 25-year veteran of the international folk circuit, an award-winning songwriter, and a celebrated vocalist based in Chicago. Merging conservatory training with his Irish roots and working-class upbringing, Joe delivers engaged musical narratives filled with heart, soul, groove and grit. Pete Seeger said “The spirit of Folk music is people working together. Joe is a fantastic singer who carries on the traditions.” Today, Joe tells us the story behind his song “Christmas in Mansfiel...
Dec 29, 2024•30 min•Ep. 285
“This fight isn't just for the teamsters. This is for all American workers.” This weekend, Teamsters struck Amazon in New York City, Atlanta, Skokie, Southern California, San Bernardino and San Francisco. The union represents 10,000 Amazon workers at 10 warehouses and delivery stations. But that quote at the top is not from the Amazon strike; it’s about the Teamsters’ strike against the United Parcel Service in 1997. Today, our colleagues at the Labor Jawn podcast take us back to that pivotal st...
Dec 23, 2024•37 min•Ep. 284
On this week's Labor History Today: 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 immigran...
Dec 15, 2024•35 min•Ep. 283
On this week's Labor History Today: Decades before Miami became Havana USA, a wave of leftist, radical, working-class women and men from prerevolutionary Cuba crossed the Florida Straits, made Ybor City the global capital of the Cuban cigar industry, and established the foundation of latinidad in the Sunshine State. Located on the eastern edge of Tampa, Ybor City was a neighborhood of cigar workers and Caribbean revolutionaries who sought refuge against the shifting tides of international politi...
Dec 08, 2024•49 min•Ep. 282
Dr. Jay Cephas considers two Depression-era murals in Detroit and their contrasting messaging about workers, labor, and power. Diego Rivera’s famed Detroit Industry murals (top), commissioned by Edsel Ford for the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1932, champions industrial and technological progress and the factory workers who fueled it. In contrast, Walter Speck and Barbara Wilson’s 1937 untitled mural (bottom), which originally hung in the UAW Local 174 union hall and now hangs behind the referenc...
Dec 01, 2024•31 min•Ep. 281
