When “Connecting the Dots: Labor and the Digital Landscape” went to press at LABOR (15:3), the wave of union organizing and activism in the media industry was just gaining ground. The initial foray came in 2015 at Gawker Media Group, where workers joined forces with the Writers’ Guild of America East (WGAE).
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Joseph Walzer recently interviewed Dawson Barrett on his new book, The Defiant: Protest Movements in Post-Liberal America, a book that looks at the period from 1980 to the present through the lens of dissent—through the picket lines, protest marches, and sit-ins that are often overlooked.
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Elections in Brazil are underway. Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro faces leftist Fernando Haddad of the Workers’ Party in the final round of the presidential election. Brian Kelly interviewed historian Sean Purdy for explanations and reflections on the right and left, austerity, and labor issues in Brazil.
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Our series on new books in labor and working-class history continues. This month, Elizabeth Todd-Breland talks about A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago since the 1960s, which is being released today by the University of North Carolina Press.
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The new season of British Sci-Fi show, Doctor Who has created a buzz due to the casting of a woman to play the Doctor for the first time in the show’s fifty-five-year history.
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In a recent unpublished paper, Larry Bartels (author of Unequal Democracy) and Kathrine Cramer (author of The Politics of Resentment), reported a finding sure to surprise many who have been blaming “the white working class” for the election of Trump: “Contrary to much recent speculation regarding the political impact of long-term income stagnation, we find a strong correlation between upward economic mobility and increasingly conservative economic and political views.” Go figure.
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Two years ago, I described the Youngstown area as “crossover ground zero” for Donald Trump and the politics of resentment in working-class and rust belt communities. In local rallies during the 2016 campaign and since he took office, Trump has repeatedly promised an economic renaissance and immigration reform.
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Our series of interviews with authors of new books in labor and working-class history continues. Laura McEnaney’s Postwar: Waging Peace in Chicago, is being released by the University of Pennsylvania Press today. McEnaney, a professor of history at Whittier College, answered questions from Jacob Remes.
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It’s been a long time since a strike in the US directly targeted sexual harassment. But on Tuesday, women workers took direct action against their bosses and brought the #MeToo movement to McDonald’s.
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Over the better part of the last year (July 2017-August 2018), Disney cast members in both Anaheim and Orlando have been negotiating with Disney and have signed what has been called a historic contract. A true David and Goliath story, they and their unions have been going toe to toe with one of the most sophisticated, cut-throat, and best funded legal teams in the world, and they seem to have won at least a partial victory.
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