LaborOnline

LaborOnline features commentary on a host of issues, contemporary and historical. Looking for the journal? Visit Labor at Duke University Press. Contact Rosemary Feurer ([email protected]) to propose ideas or stories. Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter, @LaborOnline!

Featured Articles

Rethinking Working-Class Identity in Northwest Timber Country

Steven Beda’s essay, “‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon for the Working Man’: Environmental Conflict and Working-Class Politics in Oregon Timber Country, 1970–Present,” in issue 19:1 (March 2023) of Labor: Studies in Working Class History is available for free until July 30, 2023, courtesy of Duke University Press. In this essay Beda introduces the article with ruminations about working-class identity and images from a recent trip back to Oregon Timber Country. We will post author essays highlighting findings from this issue over the next few weeks. Read more →

May 30th, 2023

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Jane LaTour (1946-2023)

by Bob Bussel  on April 24th,2023
I first met Jane LaTour over forty years ago on a picket line in the northern New Jersey town of Hillside. Jane was working as an organizer for District 65, and I was coordinating the J. P. Stevens boycott in New Jersey for the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. Walking the picket line on that cold, rainy morning created an immediate bond, leading to a warm friendship rooted in a set of shared beliefs, values, and sensibilities. Although our geographic trajectories diverged, with Jane becoming ensconced in New York City and me traversing the northeast before settling in the Pacific Northwest, we remained in frequent contact over the years. Reviewing the “archival record” of our correspondence provides ample evidence of the qualities that made Jane such an influential figure and a valued and loyal friend. Jane’s profound commitments to the working class and the union movement were reflected in her multiple professional identities: journalist; historian; archivist; educator; organizer. She chose important institutional settings–the Association for Union Democracy, the Wagner Archives at New York University, AFSCME District Council 37’s newspaper, the New York Labor History Association–as venues where she could pursue her passions and practice her principles. Immersing herself in New York’s rich history and culture, Jane sought to honor the city’s diverse working class by making sense of its experience and becoming a vital resource for others who shared a similar mission. Oral history became the perfect vehicle for some of Jane’s best work. An astute and empathetic interviewer, she helped workers tell their stories, recount their struggles and successes, and gain recognition for their achievements. Her indispensable collection of oral histories, Sisters in the Brotherhoods, told the stories of women entering traditionally male occupations and “making a way out of no way” as they “organized for equality in New York City.” Sisters ranks among our finest labor oral history publications, one that will set the standard for generations to come. Jane’s deep affection for the union movement led her to speak truth to power throughout her career, repeatedly calling attention to instances where labor fell short of fulfilling its ideals. For Jane, the barometer of the union movement’s legitimacy rested in its willingness to welcome all workers, to amplify their voices, and to create opportunities for democratic engagement. Her final book, which will regrettably appear posthumously, uses oral history to report on the struggle for democracy within New York City’s unions. In an email she sent me several months ago, Jane wryly described the book as her “Pandemic Polemic” and eloquently explained her purpose: “I anticipate lots of blowback for this book, but my feeling is that we need to examine the topic in order to get the labor movement we need and not the one we have… the long history of sweeping it all under the rug is not the answer. So, onward.” Vintage Jane: candid; direct; visionary; and hopeful. Jane’s unflinching honesty and integrity coexisted with a gentle wit, a generous spirit, and a deep sense of humility. She was one of the most gracious people I have ever known, expressing encouragement, appreciation, and solidarity as we shared stories about our personal and public lives. In every email she sent and in each of our personal encounters over the past few decades, Jane displayed these qualities, reminding me, as she put it in inscribing my copy of Sisters in the Brotherhoods, why our four-decades long friendship remained “one that endures.” While perusing a shelf in my university’s library a few years ago, I made an unexpected discovery; Sisters in the Brotherhoods was standing directly next to my book, Fighting for Total Person Unionism. I am so pleased that my friend Jane and I will always be “next-door neighbors,” a fate that seems less like coincidence and more like destiny. Read more →

Harold Washington Rainbow Coalition: Perspectives

by Lilia Fernandez  on April 19th,2023
On March 27, a  week ahead of the 2023 Chicago mayoral race, this webinar offered a historical view on multiracial coalitions in Chicago and their legacy in the city, particularly in relation to the 2023 mayoral contest between Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson. Read more →

What Would You Like to See in the Journal, Labor?

by Rosemary Feurer  on April 18th,2023
Register for this zoom event Join Julie Greene, Shennette Garrett-Scott, Jessie Wilkerson, and Vanessa May for a discussion on April 20 at 7 pm EDT, via Zoom. They’ll be ready to share their vision for the journal, and offer advice on the review process. They are eager to hear your thoughts on the journal! Meet the Editors of Labor: Studies in Working-Class History As Labor: Studies in Working-Class History transitions to a new editorial team, the new editors would like to connect with LAWCHA members and anyone whose work explores themes of class, capitalism, and labor and working-class history:

Register for this zoom event Read more →

Deindustrializing Montreal – A Response

by Steven High  on April 1st,2023
This is the final entry for a symposium on Steven High’s Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence, and Class (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022).  The book tracks what High calls the “structural violence” and “social ruination” involved in the term deindustrialization. It traces the fate of Point Saint-Charles, a historically white working-class neighborhood  and Little Burgundy, a multiracial neighborhood that is home to the city’s English-speaking Black community. We started with Lizabeth Cohen, who wrote an appreciation and posed questions. Next Austin McCoy offered reflections aimed at questions of activism and democracy. Then Ted Rutland probed the theoretical considerations that High deployed.  Now we have a response to these entries from  Stephen High. The symposium was organized by Ian Rocksborough-Smith, assistant professor of history at University of the Fraser Valley. Read more →

Interrogating Planning and Policing in Steven High’s Deindustrializing Montreal

by Ted Rutland  on March 31st,2023
This is the third entry for a symposium on Steven High’s Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence, and Class (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022).  The book tracks what High calls the “structural violence” and “social ruination” involved in the term deindustrialization. It traces the fate of Point Saint-Charles, a historically white working-class neighborhood  and Little Burgundy, a multiracial neighborhood that is home to the city’s English-speaking Black community. We started with Lizabeth Cohen, who wrote an appreciation and posed questions. Then Austin McCoy offered reflections aimed at questions of activism and democracy. Now Ted Rutland weighs in by probing the theoretical considerations that High deploys. Next we’ll have a response by author Steven High. The symposium was organized by Ian Rocksborough-Smith, assistant professor of history at University of the Fraser Valley. Read more →

Questions of Activism and Democracy in Steven High’s Deindustrializing Montreal

by Austin McCoy  on March 30th,2023
This is the second entry for a symposium on Steven High’s Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence, and Class (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022).  The book tracks what High calls the “structural violence” and “social ruination” involved in the term deindustrialization. It traces the fate of Point Saint-Charles, a historically white working-class neighborhood  and Little Burgundy, a multiracial neighborhood that is home to the city’s English-speaking Black community. Yesterday, Lizabeth Cohen wrote an appreciation and posed questions. Today Austin McCoy offers reflections aimed at questions of activism and democracy. We follow up with Ted Rutland, and a response by author Steven High. The symposium was organized by Ian Rocksborough-Smith, assistant professor of history at University of the Fraser Valley. Read more →

Steven High’s Deindustrializing Montreal: Praise and Questions

by Lizabeth Cohen  on March 29th,2023
This is the first entry in a symposium on Steven High’s recently published Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence, and Class (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022).  The book tracks what High calls the “structural violence” and “social ruination” involved in the term deindustrialization. It traces the fate of Point Saint-Charles, a historically white working-class neighborhood  and Little Burgundy, a multiracial neighborhood that is home to the city’s English-speaking Black community. We start with Lizabeth Cohen’s contribution. We will proceed each day with commentary by Austin McCoy and Ted Rutland, followed with a response by author Steven High. The symposium was organized by Ian Rocksborough-Smith, assistant professor of history at University of the Fraser Valley.
Read more →

Ahmed White on Under the Iron Heel

by Randi Storch  on March 15th,2023
Ahmed White recently published Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers. It takes a closer look at the legal and extralegal  repression meted out against the Industrial Workers of the World, organized in 1905 as an industrial union committed to organizing all workers in opposition to the American Federation of Labor. The book is “the first comprehensive account of this campaign.” Randi Storch author interviewed him about his findings. Read more →

Finding Oil Women: Images of Oil’s Clerical Workforce Challenge Industry-Cultivated Myth of Rugged Masculinity

by Sarah Stanford-McIntyre  on February 14th,2023
The new issue of the journal Labor: Studies in Working-Class History is out, and we are pleased to move  Sara Stanford McIntyre’s essay from behind the paywall for three months, thanks to Duke University Press. The essay reveals that women were part of the early oil industry, if in a conflicted position. We asked the author to provide a wrap around introduction with additional photos. –Editor Desk and Derrick was a female-only petroleum industry employees’ club, founded in 1947. Uncovering the club’s hidden history emphasizes the importance of women – white women who largely made up the industry’s clerical and support staff — to the development of the twentieth-century American oil industry. Read more →

Sherwood: The Crimes of Thatcher’s War

by Richard Wells  on January 12th,2023
Is there life after coal, what future for the collier? The scab and the hardliner both, wear the blue scars of the miner Rising up now from the earth, we’re branded and we’re blinded The sunlight and the dole queue boast, the blue scars of the miner Is there anything but drink, drugs and last reminders A single tear drop rolling down, the blue scars of the miner

–Lyrics from the “Blue Scars of the Miner,” The Freakons, 2022.

  As the camera floats over a dense forest at the start of Sherwood, the new BBC crime drama, the voice of Arthur Scargill, president of Great Britain’s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), breaks through the rustling of the treetops. Read more →

Kim Scipes & Jeff Schuhrke An Exchange

Kim Scipes  and Jeff Schuhrke (January 4th, 2023)

We received the following post from Kim Scipes, objecting to Jeff Schuhrke’s essay about the AFL-CIO’s foreign policy, posted November 22.  Schuhrke’s reply to Scipes follows. -ed… Read more →

Two Decades of LABOR History An Interview with Leon Fink

Max Krochmal (January 2nd, 2023)

Editors note: LAWCHA members will be receiving an abbreviated version of this essay in the 2022 newsletter. We are glad to be able to post the entire interview with Leon Fink, retiring editor of  Labor: Studies in Working Class History here. Max Krochmal: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about… Read more →

The Most-Read essays of 2022 from Labor Studies in Working Class History

Rosemary Feurer (December 30th, 2022)

Duke University Press released the top-read essays of 2022 from LAWCHA’s journal,  Labor: Studies in Working-Class History (volume 19). The articles are freely available until January 31, 2023. Pass along this opportunity to sample these essays… Read more →

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Want to contribute to LaborOnline? All LAWCHA members are invited to contribute. Graduate students, non-academics, and teachers are especially invited to share their stories, their ideas, interesting links, or anything else you think LAWCHA members and the general public might find interesting. To submit something, email Rosemary Feurer, LaborOnline editor.

“Lions Led by Asses”

Chris Townsend, November 30th, 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? It… Read more →

Peterloo and Pedagogy

Richard Wells, October 13th, 2022