Labor History Today

Argentina plays France today in the 2022 World Cup final. The U.S. team bowed out on December 3 when they went down 3-1 to the Netherlands. But soccer, it turns out, has a long history in the United States, thanks to its popularity among immigrant workers from European countries.
From 1927 to 1935, the United States Communist Party (CPUSA) established the Labor Sport Union, a coalition of worker athletic clubs, primarily located in the urban Northeast and Midwest. The CPUSA’s 1925 sport manifesto emphasized that sports should be used as a medium for class struggle and even to create “proletarian fighting units against militarism and fascism.”
One of their successful sporting accomplishments was the Workers’ Soccer Association, or WSA, which organized leagues in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. This communist soccer league played two seasons per year and competed for city, regional, and national championships.
On today’s show, history professor Gabe Logan recounts the history of the Workers’ Soccer Association and explains an overlooked aspect of U.S. soccer that intersected political ideology, labor, and athletics.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: No Justice, No Bagels!

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

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Today’s show comes to us from Labor’s Untold Stories, hosted by Marty Horning. As Women’s History Month continues, Marty honors some of the women, both past and present, who have helped build – and who are now leading – the American labor movement. And there’s plenty of good music, too.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: Remembering Susan B. Anthony.
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Produced by Chris Garlock.

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Music: The Rebel Girl (Janne Lærkedahl); Which Side are You On? (The Freedom Singers); Fannie Sellins (Anne Feeney); Emma Goldman (Adam East & Kris Deelane); The Rebel Girl Joe Glazer.

On today’s show, we remember the March 25, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history.
From Union Strong, the podcast from the New York State AFL-CIO, “A Day in History that Changed Workplace Safety”; a look back at the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire through an interview with Edgar Romney, the Secretary-Treasurer of Workers United.
Then, from Labor History in 2:00, “Industrial Murder at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory”.
Next, historian Annelise Orleck discusses the labor-rights activism of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers on Democracy Now.
And we wrap up with Ai-Jen Poo, Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance,
discussing the importance of protecting -- and not marginalizing -- our domestic workers today.
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Produced by Chris Garlock.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory

Music: Ballad of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (Bev Grant); The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Song (Mike Stout).
Special thanks to Friday's Labor Folklore; subscribe here: [email protected]

On today’s show, a conversation with Martin Luther King Jr. scholar Dr. Michael Honey. The online talk, “All Labor Has Dignity”, took place last year on April 5, 53 years after Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis and on the precipice of yet another “right to work” vote in New Hampshire. This was at least the 30th attempt to pass a right-to-work bill in New Hampshire in the last 40 years, and Dr. Honey’s talk was organized to remind folks in New Hampshire that not only did Dr. King die while supporting a labor strike, but that he was a strong opponent of Right to Work, which as he pointed out, “provides no rights and no work.”
The talk was organized by the American Friends Service Committee-New Hampshire Program and the New Hampshire United Church of Christ Economic Justice Ministry Team and with the support of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO.
On today’s Labor History in 2:00: The First Woman in Congress.

Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Produced by Chris Garlock.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @NHAFLCIO @afsc_org @UnitedChurch

On this week’s show, which originally aired April 22, 2018, Joe Uehlein reveals the longstanding connections between labor and the environmental movement; Patrick Dixon interviews Peter Cole on the IWW’s 1923 West Coast strike, Damon Silvers on the arrest of Montgomery Ward Chairman Sewell Avery in 1944, and Saul Schniderman on Ida Mae Stull, the country’s first woman coal miner. Today’s music features Joe Uehlein and the U-Liners singing “You Can't Giddy Up By Sayin' Whoa” and “Power.”

Earth Day 2022: Labor is participating in the Fight For Our Future Rally For Climate, Care, Jobs, And Justice, Saturday, April 23 at 1PM in Lafayette Park in front of the White House.

Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Hosted and produced by Chris Garlock.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory #FightForOurFuture #EarthDay