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Labor Media

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Contents:

News and Announcents

Mother Jones

Workers Independent News

Labor Links

News and Announcements:

Upcoming:

November, 2007       Washington, DC      USA
Photo Exhibit: "Unembedded"

Labor, Peace, and Public Health

The American Public Health Association (APHA), Labor Caucus and Peace Caucus are working together to bring a nationally touring photo exhibit called "Unembedded" to the AFL-CIO in November. This extraordinary exhibit of 60 images tells the story of the impact of war on Iraq - on the lives of its people "on the ground" where the war is being waged. The exhibit also includes interpretive panels about the war's effect on human health and the environment in Iraq, as well as its impact on returning American veterans, their families, and communities.

"Unembedded" is a book and photo exhibition project that brings together four photojournalists who have worked extensively in Iraq outside the confines of the U.S. military's official "embedding" program. The book and exhibit give audiences a nuanced view of the violence in Iraq that followed the US-led invasion of 2003.

The exhibition will be held in November 2007, in conjunction with the APHA Annual Meeting and Public Health Exposition in Washington, DC.

Location: AFL-CIO Headquarters, 815 16th Street, NW, Washington DC 20006.
Hours: Sunday, Nov 4: 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Monday, Nov 5: 7:00 am to 10:00 pm (including opening reception)
Tuesday - Thursday, Nov 6-8: 7:00 am to 7:00 pm

Opening reception: Monday Nov 5, from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm, will feature leaders from APHA, the Labor and Peace movements, and a special presentation byphotojournalist Kael Alford, who will discuss her experiences while “unembedded” in Iraq.

For further information, please contact:

Alan Baker
APHA
202-777-2441
alan.baker@apha.org

Pamela Wilson
Labor Caucus/DPE, AFL-CIO
202-638-0320, Ext 12
pwilson@dpeaflcio.org

Patrice Sutton
Peace Caucus
415-407-8806
psutton2000@yahoo.com

For more information about the book and photojournalists: http://www.unembedded.net/main.php

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Excellent Labor Book Available

Michael Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign, (W.W. Norton & Company, NY, 2007)

As Cornell West, Princeton University, says of the book: "A magisterial treatment of this neglected period, Michael Honey is to be saluted!"

This account is a riveting, thorough, fascinating story that weaves history, politics, and social justice issues together seamlessly. It is the story of Memphis in 1968 when the civil rights struggle was focused on Dr. Martin Luther King and the sanitation workers who undertook a courageous strike due to dire conditions. It tells of those who worked hard to improve conditions and bring about justice, and those whose lives were affected. It is not the usual history of the top down. A refreshing account that seeks to bring hope and light to the events and conditions facing workers in Memphis, the over 500 pages keeps you pulled in. This is the way history should be told.

Michael Honey's earlier books include Black Workers Remember, An Oral History of Segregation, Unionism, and the Freedom Struggle, (University of California Press, 1999) and Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights, Organizing Memphis Workers, (University of Illinois Press, 1993).

Michael Honey is Professor of African-American, Ethnic and Labor Studies and American History at the University of Washington, Tacoma, Washington.

For details on Michael Honey and his most recent book, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign (W.W. Norton, 2007): http://faculty.washington.edu/mhoney/

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Going Down Jericho Road

Review by Ellie Blalock, WIFP

Dr. Michael Honey, a professor at the University of Washington, Tacoma, recently published a new book, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign, recounting the 1968 sanitation worker riots in Memphis, Tennessee. Amid the “plantation mentality” that defined southern politics at the time, black workers were kept in poverty by white supervisors and trade brotherhoods that were able to force them into the lowest-paying positions, with few options for social mobility. Anger reached a crescendo on February 1, 1968, when two sanitation workers were killed by a trash compacter after seeking shelter inside of a truck during a downpour. This horrendous event, on top of years of meager pay and no benefits, led to a strike, beginning on February 12, of almost 1,300 workers. The strikers faced great obstacles, one of which was the inherent danger in arguing for workers’ rights and organized labor amid the anti-communist sentiment of the 1960s and 70s. The reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., working on his Poor People’s Campaign throughout the American south, adopted the Memphis conflict as his own, eventually giving his life for the cause, which would prove instrumental in turning the tide of white supremacy.

Honey’s work is extremely engaging, addressing the sequence of events while seamlessly incorporating the histories of key players in the struggle as well as the social and cultural environment of the time. Honey’s fluid prose will not disappoint those seeking an eloquently-written piece of non-fiction, but the book’s greatest strength is its ability to draw attention to the lesser-known actors who truly fueled the Memphis strike and who brought the cause into the national spotlight. Going Down Jericho Road is an important book for anyone who wishes to understand more fully the complexity of the civil rights movement and how it affected all levels of American society.

Michael Honey, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign (W.W. Norton, NY, 2007)

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Mother Jones (1837 - 1930)

Born Mary Harris in 1837 in Cork, Ireland, the woman who would become Mother Jones immigrated to North America with her family as a child to escape the Irish famine. She spent her early years in Canada and trained to be a dressmaker and teacher.

In her early 20's, she moved to Chicago, where she worked as a dressmaker, and then to Memphis, Tenn., where she met and married George Jones, a skilled iron molder and staunch unionist. With four children, Mary was well on her way to an unremarkable life when tragedy struck. A yellow fever epidemic in 1867, which killed hundreds of people, also took the lives of Mary's husband and all four of her children.

Mary moved back to Chicago and returned to commercial dressmaking. She opened her own shop, patronized by some of the wealthiest women in town. According to one account of her life, Mary's interest in the labor movement grew when she sewed for wealthy Chicago families. "I would look out of the plate glass windows and see the poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry, walking alongside the frozen lake front," she said. "The tropical contrast of their condition with that of the tropical comfort of the people for whom I sewed was painful to me. My employers seemed neither to notice nor to care."

Tragedy struck Mary again when she lost everything in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. After the fire, Mary began to travel across the country. The nation was undergoing dramatic change at this time, and industrialization was changing the nature of work. She moved from town to town in support of workers' struggles. In Kansas City, she did advance work for a group of unemployed men who marched on Washington, D.C. to demand jobs. In Birmingham, Ala., she helped black and white miners during a nationwide coal strike. Mary organized a massive show of support for Eugene Debs, the leader of the American Railway Union, after he served a six-month prison sentence for defying a court order not to disrupt railroad traffic in support of striking Pullman workers.

In June 1897, after Mary addressed the railway union convention, she began to be referred to as "Mother" by the men of the union. The name stuck. That summer, when the 9,000-member United Mine Workers called a nationwide strike of bituminous (soft coal) miners and tens of thousands of miners laid down their tools, Mary arrived in Pittsburgh to assist them. She became "Mother Jones" to millions of working men and women across the country for her efforts on behalf of the miners.

Mother Jones was so effective that the United Mine Workers sent her into the coalfields to sign miners up with the union. She agitated in the anthracite fields of eastern Pennsylvania, the company towns of West Virginia and the harsh coal camps of Colorado. Almost anywhere coal miners, textile workers or steelworkers were fighting to organize a union, Mother Jones was there.

She was banished from more towns and was held incommunicado in more jails in more states than any other union leader of the time. In 1912, she was even charged with a capital offense by a military tribunal in West Virginia and held under house arrest for weeks until popular outrage and national attention forced the governor to release her.

Mother Jones was deeply affected by the "machine-gun massacre" in Ludlow, Colo., when National Guardsmen raided a tent colony of striking miners and their families, killing 20 people-mostly women and children. She traveled across the country, telling the story, and testified before the U.S. Congress.

In addition to miners, Mother Jones was also very concerned about child workers. During a silk strike in Philadelphia, 100,000 workers-including 16,000 children-left their jobs over a demand that their workweek be cut from sixty to fifty-five hours. To attract attention to the cause of abolishing child labor, in 1903, she led a children's march of 100 children from the textile mills of Philadelphia to New York City "to show the New York millionaires our grievances." She led the children all the way to President Theodore Roosevelt's Long Island home.

In her eighties, Mother Jones settled down near Washington, D.C. in 1921 but continued to travel across the country. Unable even to hold a pen in her fingers, in 1924, she made her last strike appearance in Chicago in support of striking dressmakers, hundreds of whom were arrested and black-listed during their ill-fated four month-long struggle. She died at the age of 94 in Silver Spring, Md. and was buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Ill.

Sources:

AFL-CIO, "Mother Jones", www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/history/history/jones.cfm; Collins, Gail, America's Women, 2003, p. 287-289; The Illinois Labor History Society, www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/majones.htm; photo from George Meany Memorial Archives.

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Workers Independent News Service

WIN -The Workers Independent News Service is a daily radio news service which focuses on the issues and concerns of working families and their labor unions. WIN is broadcast on radio stations across America. The primary objective of WIN is to raise the media profile of working people by having our headline news broadcast on commercial radio in every major market on every business day. (Go to http://www.laborradio.org to hear WIN news.)

Prior to the creation of WIN, no single nationwide news service focused on issues affecting the daily lives of working people, their unions and their communities. Today WIN is broadcast daily on over 45 commercial radio stations.

What issues does WIN cover?

Examples include union/community living wage victories, changes in labor rights legislation, job outsourcing trends, community alliances in support of sweatshop workers, union organizing in third-world countries and analyses of pension abuses. WIN covers our concerns that tend to be overlooked by mainstream media or presented with a biased view.

Why does WIN use radio? There are other ways of delivering news.
Radio is a powerful force, with some 12,000 AM and FM stations broadcasting to millions of listeners every day. Studies of radio listeners reveal that high numbers of working people listen to radio during drive time (5:30 to 9:00 AM and 3:30 to 7:00 PM.) Radio is a convenient way of learning about news developments. We listen to radio while getting ready for work, driving to work or having a beer after work. Radio is a way of easily reaching millions of working people.

What products does WIN offer?
WIN currently offers three products: a daily two and a half minute headline newscast (Monday through Friday), a daily 30-second "Dow Bob" report on economic issues, three 2 minute feature stories each week, plus two Mike Konopacki labor cartoons formatted for print and the web. WIN offers all of our stories in print form to subscribers. Other products are being developed.

Where are WIN's offices?
WIN is headquartered in Madison Wisconsin but also has staff in New York City and Washington D.C. We hire reporters as necessary throughout America and other parts of the world.

What is WIN attempting to accomplish?
WIN wants to make our issues part of the public dialogue. Working people's stories, issues and interests are often overlooked by media organizations. The emphasis on dramatic incidents, warfare and the lives of the wealthy and famous tend to drown out everyday issues important to working people. WIN is about changing the face of news so that working people's lives and interests are reflected in the news. WIN takes a working person's perspective and examines the actions and statements of our political leaders and candidates.

Why does WIN focus on news?
WIN produces news rather than commentary because a news format reaches more listeners. Most working people listen to commercial radio news. WIN chose a format appropriate to commercial radioa brief headline newscast, a 30 second economic report (Dow Bob) and periodic longer feature reports. Our objective is to be broadcast on 300 stations each day and to be heard in every major market.

How does WIN get on the air?
Although several options are available, the best alternative involves our reaching out to cooperative labor unions who help us find stations or talk show hosts willing to run WIN products.
Alternatively, WIN can be sponsored by Local unions which pay for the WIN radio segment and receive advertising time for their Local in return. We recognize that local unions are key to our breaking into local radio markets by helping us make contact with talk show hosts, by sponsoring our news (buying advertising time) and by giving us tips that lead to news stories and feature stories.

How does WIN pay its expenses?

Radio stations or talk show hosts either pay us directly for our services or allow us a percentage of the advertising related to the WIN segment. We receive direct contributions from Internationals and Local unions, other organizations and individuals. Unions who contribute to WIN receive text, cartoons and streaming audio.

When is WIN typically on the air?
WIN's headline news service and economic report is made available to subscribing radio stations by 11:00 PM each day. Typically, but not always, WIN news is run during the next early morning drive time. Some radio stations run WIN's news later in the day or run feature stories or the Dow Bob at various times throughout the day.

How can Local unions help besides contributing to WIN?

· WIN always needs news tips. If you are aware of a developing news story or have an idea for a feature story, please contact us at 608-251-0185.
· Place the WIN logo on your web site. The logo service allows web site visitors to listen to the news without leaving your site!

Listen to WIN! Go to www.laborradio.org

For more information call Frank Emspak, Executive Producer 608-262-0680 or e-mail frank.emspak@uwex.edu

WIN thanks The Newspaper Guild for its support! Your contribution helped keep labor radio on the air at a crucial time.

Frank Emspak
Executive Producer-WIN
608-262-0680

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Labor links:

Labor Radio

Workers Independent News Service (WINS)
WINS is a unique service devoted to providing news about the issues and activities of working families and their unions to media outlets across America.

 

U.S. Labor Against the War

USLAW (US Labor Against the War) Formed January 11, 2003
Six National Unions, 2 State Federations, 20 Central Labor Councils and 150 Local Unions and Labor Coalitions Oppose Bush's War Against Iraq

 

Labor Notes

Putting the Movement Back in the Labor Movement

 

Labor Research Association - News and Analysis

Labor Research Association is a New York City-based non-profit research and advocacy organization that provides research and educational services to trade unions.

Labourstart - Labor News from Around the World

Where trade unionists start their day on the net.

Working TV

Working TV is operated by the Slim Evans Society, a registered non-profit society in the province of
British Columbia. The society is named after Arthur "Slim" Evans, an early BC labour leader and activist.
He is most well known as leader of the 1935 On to Ottawa Trek of single unemployed men demanding
work and wages from the federal government during the depression of the 1930s.

AFL-CIO Website

America's Union Movement

United Farm Workers

with audio

  

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions - Gender Equality

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), was set up in 1949 and has 231 affiliated organisations in 150 countries and territories on all five continents, with a membership of 158 million. It has three major regional organisations, APRO for Asia and the Pacific, AFRO for Africa, and ORIT for the Americas. It also maintains close links with the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) (which includes all ICFTU European affiliates) and Global Union Federations, which link together national unions from a particular trade or industry at international level.

 

Industrial Workers of the World

This is the official website of the Industrial Workers of the World. Here you'll find just about everything you'll need to join the IWW and begin organizing your workplace and building the One Big Union in your community. Most of the information here deals with the United States and Canada, but we also have links to other IWW sites.  

 

Association for Union Democracy

The Association for Union Democracy (AUD) is the only national, pro-labor, non-profit organization dedicated solely to advancing the principles and practices of democratic trade unionism in the North American labor movement. It is the premise of AUD that internal democracy makes unions stronger and better able to fight for the rights and interests of working people. We provide organizing, educational, and legal assistance to those fighting for greater membership control of their unions.

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo

¿Qué es la CNT?

Fundada en 1910 en Barcelona, a partir de la unión de las sociedades obreras no vinculadas a las corrientes socialdemócratas, la CNT sigue fiel a los principios anarcosindicalistas que la infundaron desde siempre, y es la única heredera en el Estado español del espíritu de la Primera Internacional.

La CNT es, hoy por hoy, el único sindicato en el Estado español totalmente independiente de directrices políticas, en el que los que deciden son los trabajadores afiliados y no un comité de profesionales del sindicalismo, que renuncia a la financiación del Estado y la Patronal para mantener su independencia económica, y que no deja las negociaciones en manos de intermediarios.

 

Center for Labor Education & Research

The Center for Labor Education and Research was established in 1976 by State Law, HRS 304-34 (Act 202). Now part of the University of Hawai'i at West O'ahu, the Center is designed to provide labor education, research and labor-related programs to workers, their organizations and the general public through a variety of methods including classroom instruction, seminars, workshops, publications, the internet and other public media. By statute, the Center is guided and advised a Labor Education and Advisory Council, appointed by the President of the University.

 

Jobs With Justice

"Jobs with Justice (JwJ) is a national campaign for workers' rights. Working through coalitions of labor, community, religious and constituency organizations, Jobs with Justice is fighting for workers' rights and economic justice."

Sweatshop Watch

Sweatshop Watch is a coalition of labor, community, civil rights, immigrant rights, women's, religious & student organizations, and individuals committed to eliminating sweatshop conditions in the global garment industry. We believe that workers should be earning a living wage in a safe and decent working environment, and that those who benefit the most from the exploitation of sweatshop workers must be held accountable.

International Labor Rights Fund

ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. ILRF serves a unique role among human rights organizations as advocates for and with working poor around the world. We believe that all workers have the right to a safe working environment where they are treated with dignity and respect, and where they can organize freely to defend and promote their rights and interests. We are committed to
overcoming the problems of child labor, forced labor, and other abusive labor practices. We promote enforcement of labor rights internationally through public education and mobilization, research, litigation, legislation, and collaboration with labor, government and business groups.

 

China Labor Watch

China Labor Watch (CLW) is devoted to improving Chinese workers' working and living conditions, defending their rights, upholding international labor and human rights standards, and preparing for the future of independent labor union organizations that are truly representational of the workers they represent. CLW stems from a labor activist network formed in China in 1997. At present, CLW has more than 100 activists among many provinces in China. In year 2000, this network organized and participated in more than 200 strike and demonstrations to fight for labor rights in China. In this respect, China Labor Watch has been the most effective labor organization in Mainland China.

Maquila Solidarity Network

The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) is a Canadian network promoting solidarity with groups in Mexico, Central America, and Asia organizing in maquiladora factories and export processing zones to improve conditions and win a living wage. In a global economy it is essential that groups in the North and South work together for employment with dignity, fair wages and working conditions, and healthy workplaces and communities.

 

Behind the Label

BehindTheLabel.org is a multimedia news magazine and on-line community covering the stories and people of the global clothing industry - the hidden stories of the millions of workers around the world who make our clothes, the people who care how their clothes are made and the multinational corporations behind the labels.

BehindTheLabel.org represents the efforts of a global alliance of clothing workers, religious leaders, and students standing up to demand human rights for sweatshop workers. From workers demanding respect and dignity in the Dominican Republic or Thailand, to students protesting on their behalf at university campuses, to religious leaders speaking out against labor exploitation in their congregations, BehindTheLabel.org will tell the stories of the fight to end sweatshops around the world. Tune in to BehindTheLabel.org to watch video, see photos, and read stories about clothing workers and the people who care how their clothes are made. Join scheduled chats with workers, experts, and activists. Follow breaking news stories as they happen. Join the discussions on BehindTheLabel.org's message boards. Check out related stories from major media outlets around the world.

BehindThe Label.org is a campaign project of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), a union representing more than 250,000 apparel, textile and other industry workers in the U.S. and Canada.

 

Women Working Worldwide

"Women Working Worldwide is a small UK voluntary organisation working with a global network of women worker organisations. It was started in 1983 when a group of researchers and activists came together to organise a conference on women and the international division of labour. Women Working Worldwide's aim is to support the rights of women workers in an increasingly globalised economy in which women are used as a source of cheap and flexible labour. The focus has been on industries which have relocated to the developing world, particularly the textile and garment and electronics industries." 

 

Labor Heritage Foundation

"The Labor Heritage Foundation works to strengthen the labor movement through the use of music and the arts.

"THE GREAT LABOR ARTS EXCHANGE (GLAE) A gathering of union members, union staff, union officials, artists, labor educators and youth who use songs, art, poetry, theater, skits, posters, cartoons, and film to strengthen the labor movement."

 

Songs of the Labor Movement

Labor Movement Songs

Our Times

Canada's Independent Labour Magazine

 

The Labor Educator

Doing any job properly requires the right tools. And when the job is building and strengthening your union, you can rely on Labor Educator publications for the greatest impact at the lowest possible cost.

Lost Labor

Images of Vanished American Workers 1900-1980 is a selection of 160 photographs.  

 

Labor Radio

Workers Independent News Service

WINS accesses and assembles news from unions, labor and social justice activists, and community groups from across the country.

WINS ' staff includes bi-lingual producers enabling us to reach most sections of the working population. WINS then packages and the material for distribution to and airing on radio stations.

Our producers and reporters come from a diverse background that encompasses journalism in all fields of media, from print to radio, video to the Web. We share one common goal: to create media that puts people over profits and empowers citizens to become journalists in their own right.



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