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American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Back out to organized labor (unions)
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Samuel Gompers giving a speech in front of a crowd with his arms open wide.

A Return to Gompers

Samuel Gompers, the Teamsters at the Republican National Convention, and where unions fit into party politics.
by Dustin Guastella via Jacobin on September 27, 2024
Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist, left, holding up hands with Governor Gretchen Whitmer, right, both smiling.
partner

Michigan Democrats Can Reignite Their State’s Vaunted Labor Tradition

A historic victory in the midterm elections will let Democrats repeal the state’s right-to-work laws and return to its labor roots.
by Ken Wohl via Made By History on November 17, 2022
Photograph of author Mike Davis.

Mike Davis Revisits His 1986 Labor History Classic, Prisoners of the American Dream

The late socialist writer's first book was a deep exploration of how the US labor movement became so weakened.
by Mike Davis, Daniel Denvir via Jacobin on October 31, 2022
Elder Leslie Mathews, an organizer with Michigan United, joins leaders of the Reproductive Freedom for All campaign as they speak to supporters on July 11 in Lansing, Mich., after turning in 753,759 signatures to qualify for Michigan's November ballot.
partner

Abortion Initiatives Expose the Promise and Peril of Direct Democracy

Ballot initiatives, referendums, and other forms of direct democracy have a mixed track record of empowering the people.
by Elisabeth Clemens via Made By History on October 27, 2022
Black and white photo of a waitress serving patrons at a lunch counter.

Once Upon a Time, “Waitress” Was a Union Job. Could History Repeat Itself?

While unionization in the service industry is increasingly in the news today, it is important to recognize that this is not a new development.
by Haley Hamilton via Slate on September 20, 2022
Garment workers selling newspapers

Feminist Trade Unionists Have Long Fought for Universal Health Care

As far back as WWI, militant unions like the International Ladies’ Garment Workers radicalized the campaign for health care and came within an inch of victory.
by Maya Adereth via Jacobin on January 28, 2021
A line of Black men sit and stand in a half circle. They all where Pullman Porter uniforms.

How Black Pullman Porters Waged a Struggle for “Civil Rights Unionism”

Led by A. Philip Randolph, Black Pullman porters secured dignity on the job — and laid the foundation for the modern Civil Rights Movement.
by Eric Arnesen, Arvind Dilawar via Jacobin on July 28, 2020

How the Labor Movement Built New York

A new museum exhibit shows that you cannot understand the city’s history without understanding its workers.  
by Nick Juravich via The Nation on December 10, 2019

America’s Missing Labor Party

The history of labor strikes shows that, in order to achieve lasting success, workers need to capture political power.
by David Sessions via The New Republic on October 2, 2018

How (or How Not) to Build a Labor Movement

Looking at the Pullman Strike and the political forces it stirred.
by Jake Pitre via Lapham’s Quarterly on August 22, 2018
General president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean O'Brien speaks during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15, 2024.

A Return to Gompers

Sean O’Brien’s speech at the RNC may represent a return to nonpartisan realpolitik for unions. But does that reflect labor's strength or its decline?
by Dustin Guastella via Jacobin on July 17, 2024
Spindle boys in Georgia cotton mill.
partner

America Has Been Having the Same Debate About Child Labor for 100 Years

A century ago, debates about the failed Child Labor Amendment turned on larger issues about work, childhood, and the role of government.
by Janet Golden via Made By History on May 23, 2024
A young girl tends the spinning machine at a cotton mill in North Carolina.
partner

The Forgotten History of the Child Labor Amendment

State-level rollbacks to child labor protections show the need for a constitutional amendment introduced 100 years ago.
by Betsy Wood via Made By History on May 13, 2024
Uncle Sam on ladder hanging up Postal Savings Bank sign
partner

A People’s Bank at the Post Office

The Postal Savings System offered depositors a US government-backed guarantee of security, but it was undone by for-profit private banks.
by Matthew Wills, Christopher W. Shaw via JSTOR Daily on April 16, 2024
At center: organized labor leader John L. Lewis surrounded by crowds of male workers of all races.

Fragile Juggernaut

Introducing a project on US labor history, exploring what we can learn from 1930s-1950s industrial struggles.
by Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via n+1 on January 24, 2024
Black and white men, women, and children listening to a speaker at a Southern Tenant Farmers Union meeting.

When Black and White Tenant Farmers Joined Together to Take on the Plantation South

The Southern Tenant Farmers Union was founded on the principle of interracial organizing.
by David Griscom via Jacobin on December 5, 2023
Disney strikers picketing the premiere of The Reluctant Dragon, Los Angeles, July 1941.

Storyboards and Solidarity

The current Hollywood strikes have a precedent in Disney’s golden age, when the company was a hothouse of innovation and punishing expectation.
by E. Tammy Kim via New York Review of Books on September 14, 2023
Ruth Ehrlich and Aileen Hernandez sitting next to each other at a National Organization for Women event.

Labor Union Radicals Built the US Feminist Movement

Labor radicals played a crucial role in organizing the struggles to topple gender hierarchies, and should serve as an inspiration for labor feminists today.
by Katherine Turk via Jacobin on August 9, 2023
20th century American political cartoon depicting the goals of organized employer associations.

Employer Organizing: The Importance of Hobnobbing

The focus of labor history is often—unsurprisingly—workers’ organizations and what has made them thrive or languish. But employers organized, too.
by Vilja Hulden via Process: A Blog for American History on June 13, 2023
Big Bill Haywood, Adolph Lessing, and Carlo Tresca, Paterson, New Jersey, 1913.

The Wobblies and the Dream of One Big Union

A new history examines the lost promise and fierce persecution of the IWW.
by Michael Kazin via The Nation on May 15, 2023
Man at the wheel of a ship.

The Safe Harbor

Harry Bridges may no longer be widely known, but his philosophy of inclusive, democratic unionism imbues much of today’s most ambitious organizing campaigns.
by E. Tammy Kim via New York Review of Books on March 30, 2023

The Fight for the Sabbath

The partnership between rabbis and labor that delivered the two-day weekend.
by Avi Garelick via Jewish Currents on February 21, 2023
Fire truck at scene of California wildfire
partner

What If Environmental Damage Is A Form of Capitalist Sabotage?

Worker sabotage is a weapon of the weak, but capitalist sabotage causes much greater damage.
by R. H. Lossin via Made By History on November 22, 2022
Starbucks Workers United partners celebrate after a store in Mesa, Arizona, became the third Starbucks location in the country to unionize in February 2022.

Labor Rising

Is the working class experiencing a new CIO moment?
by Sarah Jaffe via The Progressive on October 10, 2022
Group of strawberry pickers in a strawberry field in Bell, California, ca. 1910.
partner

Internationalism and Racism in the Labor Movement

A commitment to internationalism helped build multi-ethnic campaigns within the more radical and anti-authoritarian side of the US labor movement.
by Livia Gershon, David Struthers via JSTOR Daily on September 30, 2022
Alexander Berkman speaks in Union Square at a gathering of the Industrial Workers of the World.

The “Wobblies” Documentary Reminds Us Why Bosses Are Still Scared of the IWW

The recently rereleased 1979 film can teach today’s workers how to throw their weight around.
by R. H. Lossin via The Nation on June 16, 2022
People holding union and BLM signs out of their car windows, taking part in the Workers First Caravan for Racial and Economic Justice, June 17, 2020, with the US capitol in the background.
partner

How Conservatives Drove a Wedge Between Economic and Cultural Liberals

Elites understood that a unified left spelled doom for their economic advantages.
by Jonathan Schlefer via Made By History on June 14, 2022
Workers working on ruins after the US Civil War, circa 1865.

The Abolitionist Legacy of the Civil War Belongs to the Left

The US Civil War was a revolutionary upheaval that crushed slavery and stoked hopes of a broader emancipation against the rule of property.
by Dale Kretz via Jacobin on April 6, 2022
Max Scherzer, a member of the MLBPA bargaining committee, throws a pitch on March 21, 2022.

Baseball's Labor Wars

MLB owners’ recent lockout was an effort to reverse the gains that players had won over decades of labor struggle. The owners failed.
by Peter Dreier via Dissent on March 28, 2022
CORE members march down Fort Hamilton Parkway.

CORE’s Struggle for Fair Housing Rights in LA

A brief history of how the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) led organized protests against racially-discriminatory housing in Los Angeles.
by M. Keith Claybrook Jr. via Black Perspectives on March 1, 2022
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