Jon Melrod on Labor Organizing in the 70’s and 80’s
Update: 2023-06-01
Description
Joining Allen Ruff on this summer pledge drive addition of A Public Affair is Jon Melrod. A life-long activist and organizer, Melrod is the author of the new book Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War.
At its heart, the book is a radical memoir that recounts his thirteen-year 1970s-‘80s journey to organize and advance working-class militancy on the shop floor of American Motors in Milwaukee and Kenosha, WI.
Listeners can use the code: FIGHTING for a 40% discount of the book.
Jonathan Melrod grew up in apartheid-like Washington DC. Active in the student movement that opposed the Vietnam War and a supporter of black liberation, Jon embraced the ideology that the working class held the power to radically transform society. He left the campus for the factory in 1973. For thirteen years, he immersed himself in the day-to-day struggles of Milwaukee’s working class, both on the factory floor and in the political arena. Despite FBI surveillance and interference, Jon organized a militant rank-and-file caucus and rose through union ranks to a top leadership position in UAW Local 72. After a mass workforce cutback imposed by AMC’s joint venture partner Renault, he left to attend Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco in 1985. Graduating cum laude with a JD, he opened a law firm in San Francisco, successfully representing hundreds of political refugees.
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The post Jon Melrod on Labor Organizing in the 70’s and 80’s appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
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