Tales from the Reuther Library

Sociologists Thomas Gepts and Sarah Mason, PhD, discuss the six-week strike in 2022 of 48,000 UAW-represented academic workers across all 10 University of California campuses, explaining how differing strategies and organizing tactics employed at each campus yielded contrary results: at UC Berkeley, academic workers voted largely in favor of the new contract; at UC Santa Cruz they voted largely against. Mason and Gepts share their research demonstrating how differences in power resources at each campus let to divergent worker interpretations of the strike’s limitations and possibilities. They also discuss the archival material collected during the strike and their subsequent interviews of strikers, which have been recently donated to the Reuther Library but have not yet been opened for research. Gepts, Mason, Margaret Eby, PhD, and Elizabeth Emmott-Torres are the authors of “Organizing associational power: A strikers’ inquiry into the 2022 UAW strike against the University of California.” Related Resources: “Organizing associational power: A strikers’ inquiry into the 2022 UAW strike against the University of California” Episode Credits Interviewee: Thomas Gepts and Sarah Mason Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English Music: Bart Bealmear

Dr. Lisa Fine explains how the working class, local unions, and sportsman’s organization collaborated throughout the twentieth century to preserve the ecosystems and waterways located Downriver, a collection of working class industrial, exurban, and rural communities south of Detroit along the Detroit River. Fine is a professor of history at Michigan State University and author of Downriver Detroit: The Working Class, the Environment, and the Bonds of Place. Related Resources: Downriver Detroit: The Working Class, the Environment, and the Bonds of Place Related Collections: UAW Conservation and Recreation Department Records (LR000812) UAW Recreation Department Records (LR000188) UAW President’s Office: Walter P. Reuther Records (LR000261) Episode Credits Interviewee: Lisa M. Fine Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English Music: Bart Bealmear

Dr. Cedric De Leon explains how, from the founding of the African Blood Brotherhood in 1919 through the 1963 March on Washington, Black workers linked racial justice to economic justice, challenging the American labor movement to become more racially inclusive in its fight for workers’ rights. De Leon is Professor of Sociology and Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity. Related Resources: Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity Related Collections: Black Workers in the Labor Movement Oral Histories (LOH002210) Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Records (LR001754) CIO Office of the Secretary-Treasurer Records (LR000185) Erma Henderson Papers (UP001624) Harold Norris Papers (UP000508) Robert “Buddy” Battle III and Marion Battle Papers (LP001801) UAW President’s Office: Walter P. Reuther Records (LR000261) UAW Washington Office Legislative Department: Donald Montgomery Records (LR000036) Episode Credits Interviewee: Cedric De Leon Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English Music: Bart Bealmear

Host Dan Golodner and Katrina Rouan trade quips while reflecting on the progress that has been made during her first 18 months as the director of the Reuther Library as well as the goals and challenges that lie ahead for the archives. Prior to her appointment as the Reuther’s director, Rouan coordinated reference services and graduate student assistants in the Wayne State University Library System, and served as the subject specialist librarian for the departments of psychology, communication sciences and disorders, and nutrition and food science. Related Resources: Walter P. Reuther Library Episode Credits Interviewee: Katrina Rouan Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English Music: Bart Bealmear

Dr. Michael Stauch explains how newly elected Detroit Mayor Coleman Young introduced “community policing” to the city in 1974, an experimental approach to law and order that included affirmative action hiring policies and neighborhood police stations to address community concerns about both police brutality and criminal activity in the neighborhoods. Despite these changes, tensions with the police remained, leading Black youth in the city to embrace labor radicalism from the shopfloors as they built informal economies and decentralized gangs to challenge and achieve political and social power in the 1970s and 1980s. Stauch is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Toledo and author of Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing . Related Resources: Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing Related Collections: James and Grace Lee Boggs Papers (UP001342) Kenneth V. and Sheila M. Cockrel Papers (UP001379) Coleman Young Papers (UP000449) Episode Credits Interviewee: Michael Stauch Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English Music: Bart Bealmear