May Day isn’t just an estimably American holiday, it’s a particularly Rust Belt holiday, forged in the cauldron of Chicago’s streets and factories, born from the experience of workers in the mills and plants of Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland.
A discussion with Theda Skocpol and Lainey Newman about their book "Rust Belt Union Blues: Why Working-Class Voters are Turning Away from the Democratic Party."
Excerpted from How to Become an American: A History of Immigration, Assimilation, and Loneliness, by Daniel Wolff, published December 2022 by University of South Carolina Press.
Hundreds of angry miners crowded around the machine, several attacking it with hammers and axes. Finally, fifteen sticks of dynamite were placed under the motor, and a firing wire and exploders attached. A few minutes later there was a terrific blast and the shovel was reduced to a tangled mass of wreckage.
Gwin combines the story of the challenges facing labor unions in the 21st century and workforce realities with a deeply personal exploration of his own relationship to work and his struggles as a single parent.
Soon, nurses saw the gulf widen between their values and those of an increasingly commodified healthcare system.
Like faculty and staff at other institutions, those at Eastern Illinois University face an administration that continues to operate as if austerity is the only way. Yet upon closer examination, the University finances reveal a different story.
Having two major news sources in the city owned by notoriously anti-worker management can’t be good. For local journalism to be good, local journalism jobs need to be good.
Cooperative games don’t have to be cooperative just amongst players around a table, that cooperation can be the solidarity players feel (and act on) for workers.
Of course, the irony here is that 30 years ago, the Post-Gazette found itself in the midst of a similar strike. And it’s the only reason the Post-Gazette is still around today.
In the 1980s, the Flint, Michigan-based Center for New Work proposed a radically different industrial future.
Georgia-Pacific, a national papermaking giant, plans to close Green Bay’s oldest union paper mill amid a labor revitalization.