Menu
Idea

labor movement

Back out to labor
249
View on Map
Filter by:

Filter by published date

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain wears a shirt reading ‘Trump is a Scab’ at the Democratic National Convention.

How Organized Labor Shames Its Traitors − The Story of the ‘Scab’

It’s important to understand why some workers might be motivated to weather scorn, rejection and even violence from their peers.
by Ian Afflerbach via The Conversation on August 23, 2024
Eugene V. Debs giving a speech on an American flag themed stage.

Did ‘Churchianity’ Sink American Socialism?

A new book blames institutional Protestantism for undermining a vibrant strain of Christian radicalism that swirled through the Gilded Age.
by Heath W. Carter via Commonweal on July 26, 2024
San Francisco Communist Party marching in May Day parade, 1935.

California Communism and Its Afterlives

A new book explores the Communist Party's western base and its alliance with the labor movement.
by Matt Ray, Matthew Wranovics via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 27, 2024
Bishop Desmond Tutu speaks at an International Conference Against Apartheid held in Atlanta, Georgia in 1986.

US Worker Movements and Direct Links Against Apartheid

Today's pro-Palestinian activists are utilizing anti-apartheid tactics from thirty years ago.
by Mattie Christine Webb via Black Perspectives on April 26, 2024
Starbucks workers on strike.

The Paradox of the American Labor Movement

It’s a great time to be in a union—but a terrible time to try to start a new one.
by Michael Podhorzer via The Atlantic on April 18, 2024
Joe Biden, with a nervous expression, campaigning in Wisconsin.
partner

How Trump Captured the Rust Belt—And What Democrats Can Do

History not only explains how the industrial Midwest became Trump country, but also how the area's politics may shift again.
by Stephanie Ternullo via Made By History on April 2, 2024
The cover of "Beyond Norma Rae" by Aimee Loiselle

Who Makes the American Working Class: Women Workers and Culture

Female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds fought to tell their own stories.
by Brock Schnoke via UNC Press Blog on March 13, 2024
British trade unionists blockade a weapons factory on November 10th, 2023.

The Problem of the Unionized War Machine

Union workers in the US weapons industry present a paradox for anti-war labor activists, but a history of “conversion” campaigns offers a route.
by Jeff Schuhrke via Jewish Currents on November 22, 2023
Meeting of the Maguire Men outside a coal mine

Making Sense of the Molly Maguires Today

Who were the Molly Maguires, what did they do, and why did they do it?
by Kevin Kenny via OUPblog on October 11, 2023
UAW workers at a strike event.

Revaluing the Strike

Rather than viewing strikes as a last-resort bargaining tactic, the labor movement must embrace them as engines of political transformation.
by Erik Baker via Jewish Currents on September 27, 2023

Eight and Skate

The age of optimism that lasted in the US from the 1940s to the 1970s looked, basically, like a car.
by Gabriel Winant via New York Review of Books on September 23, 2023
Group portrait of attendees of the NAACP-sponsored Amenia Conference in Amenia, New York, in front of tent, August 1933.

The 1933 Conference That Helped Forge Civil Rights Unionism

The radical approach employed by black leftists at the Amenia conference set the stage for the civil rights unionism that would help topple Jim Crow.
by Eben Miller via Jacobin on August 8, 2023
Striking workers at General Motors in 1970.

Nelson Lichtenstein on a Half-Century of American Class Struggle

The esteemed labor historian reflects on his life and career, including Berkeley in the 1960s, Walter Reuther, the early UAW, Walmart, Bill Clinton, and more.
by Nelson Lichtenstein, Micah Uetricht via Jacobin on July 10, 2023
The Works of Mercy illustration by Sarah Fuller, 2019.

The Anarchism of the Catholic Worker

In its 90th year, the radical peace movement is reinvigorating itself by going hyper-local.
by Renée Darline Roden via The Nation on May 8, 2023
Cesar Chavez salutes the crowd on the steps of the California State Capitol. AP Photo.

Pilgrimage and Revolution

How Cesar Chavez married faith and ideology in his landmark farmworkers' march.
by Lloyd Daniel Barba via The Conversation on March 28, 2023
Helen Hall (R, front), chair of the Consumers’ National Federation, with a committee at the White House making demands for a "new deal" for consumers, 1938.

“Ethical Consumption” Used to Mean Something More Than Feeling Smug About Your Purchases

A century ago, it was once motivated by the goal of economic reorganization.
by Nick French via Jacobin on January 31, 2023
A portrait of Joe Hill.

Joe Hill Was Killed for Singing Labor’s Song

The labor troubadour Joe Hill was executed by a Utah firing squad for a crime he almost certainly didn’t commit.
by Cal Winslow via Jacobin on November 19, 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
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
African American mineworkers holding the American flag and a sign reading Join Our Union

Black and White Workers and Communists Built a “Civil Rights Unionism” Under Jim Crow

Today’s activists should look to North Carolina's black and white tobacco workers, who organized a union and went on strike in the teeth of the Jim Crow South.
by Nelson Lichtenstein via Jacobin on October 3, 2022
Group of strawberry pickers in a strawberry field in Bell, California, ca. 1910.

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
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
Fired Starbucks employees in Memphis celebrate the result of a vote to unionize one of the company’s stores.
partner

Women Have Always Been Key To the Labor Movement

Solidarity between men and women workers is crucial to advancing the cause of workers in America.
by Amy Mackin via Made By History on August 24, 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
Curt Flood of the Saint Louis Cardinals, May 1966. Flood challenged Major League Baseball’s “reserve clause” barring players from changing teams.

A People’s History of Baseball

Communists fighting the color line. Baseball players resisting owners. Baseball's untold history of struggles against racial injustice and labor exploitation.
by Peter Dreier, Michael Arria via Jacobin on May 25, 2022
Illustration of T. Thomas Fortune

Abolition Democracy’s Forgotten Founder

While W. E. B. Du Bois praised an expanding penitentiary system, T. Thomas Fortune called for investment in education and a multiracial, working-class movement.
by Robin D. G. Kelley via Boston Review on April 19, 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
Wyatt at podium giving speech

The Indomitable Rev. Addie L. Wyatt

The trailblazing Black labor leader and civil rights activist took her fight for equality from the packinghouse to the pulpit.
by Kim Kelly via The Nation on January 11, 2022

The Five-Day Workweek is Dead

It’s time for something better.
by Anna North via Vox on July 13, 2021
Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, and John Morsell hold a press conference in 1963

A Vision of Racial and Economic Justice

A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin knew the fates of the civil rights and labor movements were intertwined. The same is true today.
by Norman Hill, Velma Murphy Hill via Dissent on May 19, 2021
View More
30 of
249

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History