posts categorized asLaborOnline

“Lions Led by Asses”

by on November 30, 2022

While labor historians have organized a letter signing campaign to the Biden administration asking them to grant some concession to rail workers, others have pointed out the continuing tepid response of labor leadership as the cause of this crisis. Is the Democratic Party in charge of the labor movement?

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From Solidarity to Shock Therapy: The AFL-CIO and the Fall of Soviet Communism

by on November 22, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the death of Mikhail Gorbachev this year have sparked renewed interest in the USSR’s 1991 disintegration, a moment that officially brought an end to the Cold War.

Historians have been prominent in the many recent discussions and debates about how the demise of the Soviet Union thirty years ago set the stage for Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the controversial expansion of NATO, and the current war in Ukraine.  

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Staughton Lynd (1929-2022)

by on November 19, 2022

Staughton Lynd, one of labor history’s icons, died on November 17. He was an academic and activist when those combinations were reviled as unbecoming of a professional, and he was blacklisted from the profession for his bold anti-war stance. He became a labor attorney, moved to Niles, Ohio and was a strategic player in the fight against steel-mill shutdowns and the destruction of steel communities in Youngstown, Ohio.

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Standing Up: Tales of Struggle A Novel Resource for Labor Leaders

by on October 10, 2022

Over five decades of organizing, we’ve seen the power of story to move people. We wanted to write about the workers Imbole Mbue calls “the deliberately unheard” – those who clean bloody hospital sheets, forge parts for sewer pipes, arrange flights or process checks, all while caring for kids, holding relationships together and wrestling with multiple forms of oppression.

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