In 1958, an Indianapolis woman named Patricia Bolen wrote a letter to the Indianapolis Star about how Indiana’s right-to-work law affected her husband:
“I pooh-poohed when the right-to-work was first called a mankiller. But it is. The man I love is being killed by it.
Read more →No, this isn’t another commentary on Mitt Romney’s denunciations of the so-called “47 percent” of Americans who, according to him, freeload off the government. Suffice it to say that his remarks – which he shared at a private campaign fundraiser and reiterated during a post-election conference call with top donors – exposed his class politics and those of mainstream American conservatism.
Read more →Often, academics research and teach about problems that need fixing without engaging with activists on the proverbial front lines. Often, younger activists remain unaware that previous generations have fought similar struggles. So it was with great pleasure last week that I went to a small office in a corner of Queens rarely visited by New Yorkers, let alone tourists, to speak to dozens of workers.
Read more →Alfred F. Young, a pioneer of the “new labor history,” noted social historian of the early American nation, and a founding editor of Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, died on November 6, 2012 at age 87. Many know him from his passionate and original investigation of the lives of working people,
Read more →As you can see in the right-hand column, LaborOnline now has an active twitter account, LaborOnline. We will be using it to tweet recent articles and keep folks informed of up-to-the-minute updates in labor and working-class history. Thanks to committee member Erik Loomis for volunteering for the effort.
Read more →Driving across western Pennsylvania recently, I was struck by the number of yard signs decrying President Obama’s “War on Coal.” The Appalachian coal country has swung hard to the right in recent years; whereas not long ago West Virginia was a reliably Democratic state, last week Mitt Romney carried it with 62% of the vote.
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As a regular feature of this blog, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas will be opening public access and dialogue about one article in its current issue. Given that November 11 (1887) was known as “Black Friday” across the globe because four Chicago anarchist labor activists were hung by the state on that date, it is supremely fitting that we feature the current Labor roundtable on Timothy Messer Kruse’s book The Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists: Terrorism and Justice in the Gilded Age.
Read more →The U.S. voting public faced a stark decision on November 6, 2012. On the one hand, they weighed the benefits of a program of tax cuts for the 1%, social welfare spending cuts for the broad majority, a disingenuous obsession with deficits, racial and cultural demagoguery, and a pandering to the interests of corporate and finance capital.
Read more →In the heat of a presidential election, I can’t help but be one of those people. You know, the ones who forward on Samuel Jackson’s “Wake the f**k Up” video, who belly laugh at the Simpson’s parody of Romney, and who tear up at the sight of Barack Obama and Chris Christie walking through Sandy’s devastation (places friends and family call home).
Read more →I write with exciting news of the takeoff of LaborOnline, a new blog that will deepen and extend the content of LAWCHA’s flagship journal, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas. As piloted by new Associate Editor Rosemary Feurer–and assisted by an all-star cast of designated blog contributors–LaborOnline will feature commentary on a host of issues, contemporary and historical, as well as “instant” dialogue and debate among readers and authors about the contents of the print journal.
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