In 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. died in Memphis while supporting the city’s sanitation workers and their struggle for economic justice. Fifty-two years later, not that much has changed and the
On January 21, 1941, workers at the Allis-Chalmers engine and turbine company plant in West Allis, Wisconsin, outside of Milwaukee, walked off the job in protest over the employers firing six unionize
On January 13, 1966, the New York City transit strike ended. This strike was notable both for the public sector unions putting newly elected New York Mayor John Lindsay in his place and in being the e
On January 9, 1973, 2,000 workers employed by the Coronation Brick & Tile Factory, outside of Durban, South African, went on strike. This was the first major resistance to the South African aparth
I have the lead article in the new issue of New Labor Forum, with the title I used for this post. It is now online and at least for the moment seems to be available freely, though it’s possible
I’ve spent some time lately consulting with NPR’s Planet Money for an episode on the 1981 PATCO strike, when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and changed the history of American la
On December 12, 1957, the AFL-CIO evicted four unions from the federation for corruption, most notably the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. This moment to fight the corruption that gave organiz
On December 6, 1907 the Monongah Mining Disaster in West Virginia killed at least 362 workers but probably over 500. This remains the most deadly mining disaster in American history. Coal mining was a