I started my research on right-to-work laws almost ten years ago, when these decades-old statutes seemed a dead issue with no millennial saliency (no matter how injurious they remained). Rick Snyder just changed all that.
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From November 27 to November 30, 2012, I had the pleasure of attending the Second International “Worlds of Labor” conference—effectively the Brazilian labor historians’ national gathering—sponsored by the host institution, the Getulio Vargas Foundation, in Rio De Janeiro.
Read more →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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This issue’s Contemporary Affairs section is a roundtable discussion of the Occupy Wall Street movement, held in Washington, DC, in December 2011.
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.
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