Labor History Today

This week on Labor History Today: The 66th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins — a turning point that helped ignite the modern Civil Rights Movement and reshaped American politics. We feature an in-depth conversation from The Green and Red Podcast, tracing the origins of the sit-in movement, from Greensboro and Nashville to the rise of SNCC, and exploring how militant nonviolence, media exposure, and youth-led organizing forced a national reckoning — with powerful parallels to today’s struggles against state violence. Then, on Labor History in 2:00, we revisit another watershed moment in collective action: the 1919 Seattle General Strike, when tens of thousands of workers shut down a city and demonstrated the power of solidarity. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

This week on Labor History Today, we remember Pete Seeger and how his songs helped build movements—from union halls to civil rights and environmental campaigns. Then we turn to the 1933 Funsten Nut Strike in St. Louis, led by Black women who organized more than 2,000 workers, and talk with the creators of the new play A Brick and a Bible. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

This episode of Labor History Today features historian Marcella Bencivenni on Arturo Giovannitti—Italian immigrant, poet, socialist, and labor organizer—whose role in the 1912 Lawrence textile strike made him a target of state repression and a powerful voice of labor resistance. Arrested for his words, Giovannitti turned imprisonment into poetry that helped define an era of immigrant-led radical organizing. The episode explores free speech struggles, anti-immigrant repression, and labor solidarity—lessons from more than a century ago that still resonate in 2026 America. We close with the Labor Song of the Month, featuring “Joe Hill’s Ashes,” performed by Otis Gibbs. Today’s show comes to us from the always fabulous Heartland Labor Forum on KKFI in Kansas City.

This week on Labor History Today, we explore how the 1892 Homestead Strike continues to live on—not just in books and archives, but in film, music, and living memory. We begin with labor scholar and cultural critic Kathleen Newman, who takes us inside Ting Tong Chang’s The Hidden Shift, a two-screen film installation at Pittsburgh’s Mattress Factory. Inspired by the Homestead Strike, the piece layers a fictionalized labor drama with behind-the-scenes footage of museum workers making the work itself—blurring the lines between labor and culture, past and present. Kathleen reflects on Homestead as both a proud moment in worker history and a shameful chapter in corporate history, and connects the strike’s legacy to today’s service-sector workers—from museum staff to baristas—whose labor too often goes unseen. We close with music that has carried the story for more than a century. “Homestead Strike Song” turns the events of 1892 into a communal act of remembrance. In this 1980 recording, Pete Seeger sings the song, invites a singalong, and shares the story of how the song survived—passed down in halls and bars long after the strike itself was crushed. Together, these segments remind us that labor history isn’t just remembered—it’s made, performed, and sung. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

This week on Labor History Today, Simon Sapper talks with historian Martin Wright, co-author of Made by Labour: A Material and Visual History of British Labor, 1780–1924. The book traces the rise of the world’s first modern labor movement through banners, boxes, coins, tools, and images created by working people during the Industrial Revolution and beyond—right up to the moment labor stood on the brink of political power in the 1920s. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

This week on Labor History Today, we move from repression to resistance—and from history to possibility. We begin with Labor History in Two and the 1917 trial of labor leader Tom Mooney, a stark reminder of how the justice system has been used to silence working-class dissent. Then we turn to the present with a report from the Working Class History podcast, bringing us to the 2025 Working Class Literature Festival at the occupied former GKN factory outside Florence, Italy—where workers are fighting not only to save their jobs, but to transform their workplace into a cooperative and tell their own stories. We close with another Labor History in Two—the 2006 Sago Mine disaster—underscoring the deadly consequences of corporate negligence and regulatory failure. History doesn’t just explain the world we’re in. It helps us imagine the one we’re trying to build. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On this week’s Labor History Today: From Camp Solidarity in Matewan, West Virginia—the heart of the legendary Mine Wars—UMWA President Cecil Roberts reflects on the long struggle of coal miners to claim America’s promise that “this land belongs to all of us.” On the eve of his retirement, Roberts’ words connect today’s fights for justice with a century of labor history rooted in the hollers of Appalachia. (Originally broadcast 9/21/25; updated with today’s Labor History in 2:00) 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

In this episode of Labor History Today, labor organizer and researcher Eric Dirnbach talks with Dave Kamper, author of Who’s Got the Power: Hope for Troubled Times, about the post-pandemic union upsurge. From graduate student organizing and teachers’ strikes to the UAW’s stand-up strike and bargaining for the common good, Kamper reflects on what history can teach us about moments of possibility, and why solidarity is re-emerging as a force for change. Labor History in 2:00: Red Scare Hysteria Deportations Begin Music: Little Flame, by Carsie Blanton. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory 

This week on Labor History Today, we head to Philadelphia with an excerpt from the Labor Jawn podcast. Hosts Sam and Gabe talk with labor historian Dr. Francis Ryan about Philly’s central role in U.S. labor history, why working-class stories are often erased, and what today’s movement can learn from the city’s past. Plus, on Labor History in 2:00: the birth of civil rights organizer Ella Baker in 1903. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

This week on Labor History Today, we revisit the 1946 Oakland General Strike through the eyes of labor educator and activist Stan Weir — and uncover the surprising role a chart-topping “country” hit played on the picket line. After we hear the day’s events from Labor History in 2:00, host Chris Garlock digs into Weir’s vivid account of the strike’s carnival-like atmosphere, where bars rolled jukeboxes into the streets and “Pistol Packin’ Mama” — the first country song ever to top the Billboard pop chart — echoed off downtown buildings for 54 hours. We trace how an American Federation of Musicians strike helped turn the tune into a national sensation, and why its defiant energy resonated with the mostly women department-store strikers who ignited the Oakland uprising. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

This week on Labor History Today, we’re marking the 50th anniversary of the Walter P. Reuther Library building at Wayne State University with a special episode from our friends at Tales from the Reuther Library. Hosts Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English revisit the origins of one of the nation’s premier labor archives, sharing stories from its early days and reflecting on why preserving labor history remains vital in a moment of renewed attacks on worker rights. As part of the celebration, they sit down with Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, whose union recently placed its records with the Reuther. Nelson discusses the history and evolution of the flight attendant profession, the fights that shaped it, and why knowing our past is essential to winning today’s battles. Plus, on Labor History in 2:00: the 2012 walkout by more than 100 New York City fast food workers that helped spark a movement. A NOTE TO OUR LISTENERS: Recently we passed the 100,000-download mark here at Labor History Today. Now, we don’t pay a whole lot of attention to metrics and all that sort of stuff; we don’t have sponsors and we’ve been putting the show together every week since 2017 because – like Sara Nelson – we believe that the key to the future of working people and their unions lies in knowing about our past struggles. Still, it’s nice to know that so many of you are listening out there; so here’s a promise: you keep listening and we’ll keep putting out the show. And if you get a chance, share the show with a colleague, friend or family and what the hell, let’s rack up another hundred thousand downloads even quicker! 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. @ReutherLibrary @FlyingWithSara #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On this week’s Labor History Today: We turn up the “today” in Labor History Today with a special edition focused on the historic, open-ended strike now underway at Starbucks. Nearly 2,000 union baristas at 95 stores in more than 65 cities have walked out — the boldest action yet in the Red Cup Rebellion — and we bring you the Labor Radio Podcast Weekly’s roundup of how shows across the network are covering this fast-moving struggle. Hear frontline voices from Working People, Work Stoppage, We Rise Fighting, Labor Notes, and WBAI’s What’s Going On as baristas, organizers, and labor reporters break down understaffing, impossible time standards, corporate cup-writing mandates, community solidarity, and why workers are calling for a nationwide Starbucks boycott. Plus: a brand-new strike song from veteran labor troubadour David Rovics, and — at the end — a little bonus from the Labor Radio Podcast Weekly crew. No contract, no coffee. Tune in. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. @WorkingPod @WorkStoppagePod @LaborNotes @stucknation#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

Historian and former UAW organizer Rudi Batzell joins America’s Workforce Union Podcast to explain how the failure of land reform after slavery — and employers’ use of racial division and strikebreaking — shaped the early U.S. labor movement. From “40 acres and a mule” to the CIO, Batzell shows how race and class remain inseparable in American labor history. And on Labor History in 2:00: Justice for Janitors. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On today’s Labor Radio Podcast Daily: Organising for a Change digs into the reform vote and the real fight ahead for labor. In labor history, on this date in 1919, a deadly clash between American Legionnaires and Wobblies erupted during the Armistice Day Parade in Centralia, Washington. Quote of the day: Eugene Victor Debs. @wpfwdc @AFLCIO #1u #UnionStrong #LaborRadioPod Proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network

On this week’s Labor History Today: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders accepts the 60th annual Eugene V. Debs Award from the Eugene V. Debs Foundation in Terre Haute, Indiana — and pays tribute to the labor legend not as a figure of the past, but as an inspiration for the struggles of today. From the Pullman Strike to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, from Debs’ call for human kinship — “while there is a soul in prison, I am not free” — to Sanders’ warning about today’s billionaire class, this episode connects the struggles of the past to the movements of the present. Plus, music by The Local Honeys, who performed at the Debs dinner, and Labor History in 2:00 remembers Debs. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On this week’s Labor History Today: Our friends at America’s Workforce mark Halloween with a chillingly real tale — the untold story of John Henry and his lasting legacy on labor. Host Ed “Flash” Ferenc talks with historian Scott Nelson of the University of Georgia, author of Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend. Nelson uncovers the truth behind the legend of John Henry — a 19-year-old Black convict laborer who died driving steel in a Virginia railroad tunnel — and how his story still echoes through labor history. Plus: Labor History in Two! on the 1835 Philadelphia general strike for the ten-hour day. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory

On Labor History Today: In 2005 the Guinness Brewery at Park Royal, West London closed after seven decades of production. Tim Strangleman spent the last six months of the Brewery’s life working with a photographer to record in words and picture the site before it closed. Subsequent research revealed an incredibly rich story of corporate cultural change and the transformation of work and the workplace. Drawing on material from his 2019 book, Voices of Guinness: An Oral History of the Park Royal Brewery, Strangleman, Professor of Sociology, in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, reflects on what that story tells us about work meaning, identity and organizational life in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Our show – which originally aired on October 24, 2021 -- is excerpted from Strangleman’s Zoom presentation at the October 5, 2021 edition of Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives, the lecture series sponsored by the Michigan Traditional Arts Program and the Labor Education Program at Michigan State University. To get on the ODW/ODL email list email John Beck at mailto:beckj@msu.edu Click here for photos of the Park Royal Guinness Brewery.   And, on Labor History in 2:00, the year was 1940; that was the day that the federally mandated 40-hour work week went into effect for U.S. workers. Produced by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @MichiganTradArts @MSUSHRLR @DIndustrialKent @SSPSSR @OxUniPress

On this week’s Labor History Today: Justice Denied: David Gariff on “Ben Shahn and the Case of Sacco and Vanzetti.” Saul Schniderman remembers musician activist Elaine Purkey. From the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast, “When It Happened Here: Michigan and the Transnational Development of American Fascism.” And, on Labor History in 2: Paul Robeson, “The Voice of an Era.” Originally aired October 18, 2020; produced and edited by Chris Garlock and Evan Papp. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network; #LaborRadioPod

On this week’s Labor History Today: A visit to the Donora Smog Museum, where a six-day inversion in 1948 trapped toxic fumes over a Pennsylvania mill town and changed how the U.S. thinks about work, health, and accountability. And, on Labor History in 2:00: The Mother Jones Monument is Dedicated. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On this week's Labor History Today: Mary Kenney O’Sullivan, first AFL woman organizer; novelist Jack London’s classic definition of a scab; Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union leads Missouri Highway sit-down; Roosevelt creates National War Labor Board to mediate labor disputes during World War II. Today’s show is an encore of our January 7-13, 2018 and features labor historians Joe McCartin and Leon Fink. 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.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory