On August 3, 1913, the Wheatland Riot took place in California, leading to four deaths, including two workers and two law enforcement agents. A burst of violence caused by the police busting up a hopworkers strike, the event led to reforms for farmworkers and calls...
California
Once again, we see illegal marijuana farmers in California causing a huge toll on the local ecology, including the death of threatened species. The only way to deal with this.
In Carson, California, Shell Oil used to have an oil tank farm. Then, thanks to America's lax environmental regulatory state, a housing development was built on top of it when.
The true victims of police violence against protestors are always the cops. The former police officer who pepper-sprayed students during an Occupy protest at the University of California, Davis is appealing for worker’s compensation, claiming he suffered psychiatric injury from the 2011 confrontation. John Pike...
Last week, BART workers went on strike, shutting down the region's major mass transit service for a few days. The strike has ended with what will ultimately be a victory.
I've talked about this issue before a couple of times, so I'm really glad to see the New York Times report on the awful environmental impact of unregulated marijuana production.
On May 6, 1882, President Chester Alan Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Although not often seen by the general public as part of our labor history, the Chinese Exclusion Act was the first legislative victory for organized labor in this country. It generated out...
This is a fascinating piece on Ken Gonzales-Day, the artist and author who explores the history of lynching in the American West. We usually think of lynching as something that.
Exhibit A: The rise of 8-legged frogs. These happen at the end of a long ecological chain that begins with farm runoff from our heavily fertilized agricultural landscapes. Exhibit B:.
This story about the siphoning of water from the Sacramento River to the big corporate farms and cities of southern California says a lot about the future of water resources in the West, and the nation more broadly. Water is the #1 issue in western...
For this week's Forestry Friday post I want to follow up on last week's discussion of drug cartels destroying the forests of Mexico by bringing this story into the forests.
On this date in 1970, the United Farm Workers achieved its greatest victory, ending its five-year grape boycott after growers agreed to a contract, the first in the history of.