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."
As union halls closed and membership numbers dwindled, other networks and community group influences, often propelling more conservative values and messages, have become more central to the daily lives of workers and residents.
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.
Soon, nurses saw the gulf widen between their values and those of an increasingly commodified healthcare system.
Amid declining union power and attacks on organized labor, some Rust Belt workers are turning to worker-owned cooperatives.
In the Ohio 4th, as in gerrymandered districts all over the country, democracy is at stake.
(Or, let's stop with the economic anxiety.)
Photos from the Chicago Teachers Union strike.
As recent strikes by unions across the region demonstrate, collective action remains as vital as ever.