Labor History Links

“Becoming a Force of Workplace Resistance: Call Center Workers after the AT&T Breakup” A Zoom presentation presented by Debbie Goldman, Former Research Director Communication Workers of America. Wednesday, December 7, 2022 12:15 - 1:30 EST. Presented as part of Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives brown bag series, celebrating its 28th year. The complete collection of ODWODL recordings is available at the MSU Library.

Working the Ranch and Range: The Music of the Black CowboyDom Flemons is known as “The American Songster®" since his repertoire covers over one hundred years of American roots music. Flemons is a folk musician, black country artist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music scholar, historian, actor, slam poet, record collector, curator, podcaster, cultural commentator, influencer, and the creator, host, and producer of the American Songster Radio Show on WSM in Nashville, TN. He is the Co-Founder and original member of the groundbreaking Carolina Chocolate Drops, the first ever black string band to win a GRAMMY Award. Over the past 25 years, he has received major awards, gained world-wide media recognition and has become one of the most influential and highly decorated voices in American roots music."

Eshe Sherley from the Department of History at the University of Michigan, presents 'Care in Crisis: Black Women and the Politics of Labor in Atlanta, 1965-1985" on Zoom. Part of Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives brown bag series and co-sponsored by MSU African American and African Studies and MSU Center for Gender in Global Context.

Ethan Veenhuis, from MSU's History department, presents “The First to Merge: The United Teachers of Flint, Racial Parity, and School Integration, 1968-1985” on Zoom and in the MSU Library Green Room on Wednesday January 21th, 2024.

Gabe Logan, from Northern Michigan University's Department of History, presents “Red Jerseys in Detroit: Soccer and Industrial Workers, 1926 - 30” on Zoom. Part of the "Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives" Brown Bag series sponsored by the Michigan Traditional Arts Program (MSU Museum) and the Labor Education Program (MSU School of Human Resources and Labor Relations).

“Working Class Culture in a Middle-Class Society", by Jack Metzgar.Jack Metzgar is a professor at Roosevelt University and the author of Bridging the Divide: Working Class Culture in a Middle-Class Society (ILR Press, November 2021). This is a virtual Zoom presentation from Friday, January 28, 2022.

The UAW and Queer-Labor Solidarity after Stonewall

Jeremy Milloy of Wayne State Universities' History Department delivers the presentation "'superworkers in the Rat Race': Addiction, Neoliberalism, and the Debut of the Workaholic" September 4th, 2024.

Joshua Duchan of Wayne State' Music department and Eric Freedman of MSUs School of Journalism present "'Please Buy My Last Paper, I Want to Go Home': Portrayal of Newsboys and Newsgirls in 19th and 20th Century Music". 11/14/2023

Kyle Mays, from the African American Studies, American Indian Studies, and Department of History at UCLA presents "Black Labor and Indigenous Sovereignty In Detroit". A zoom presentation Co-Sponsored by MSU African American and African Studies. Part of Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives brown bag series and co-sponsored by MSU African American and African Studies and MSU Center for Gender in Global Context.

Lisa Fine of the MSU Department of History presents " 'We are going to save McLouth once again---only this time for ourselves,": Economic nationalism, Environmental blackmail, and workers' ownership at McLouth Steel during the Downriver Disaster of the late 20th Century" in March 20th, 2024.

"A Job Of Work to Do': The Folk Songs and Stories Of Working People" Folk performer Matt Watroba speaks and performs in the MSU Green Room to kick off the 2023/2024 season of "Our Daily Work Our Daily Lives" Brown Bag series.

Melissa Ford from Slippery Rock Universities Department of History, delivers the Zoom presentation "Food, Not Bullets: Race and Gender in Detroit Auto Unions during the Depression" . Presented as part of the Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives brown bag series.

Exhibit curator Paul D'Ambrosio, President and CEO of Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY, presents a virtual tour of the exhibit "Ralph Fasanella: Americans Unseen".

“Forgotten Populists: When Farmers and Workers Transformed American Politics” presented by Steve Babson, Professor Emeritus in Labor Studies at Wayne State University.

Performer and labor troubadour Tom Kastle presents "Joe Hill: Alive as You and Me" in the MSU Library and on Zoom on Tuesday, April 9th.

Historian Tom Klug presents "'Race and Disaster in the American Auto Industry: The Explosion at Briggs Manufacturing in Detroit (April 23rd, 1927)" on Zoom and in the MSU Library Green Room on Wednesday February 7th, 2024.

"Think going to work is a drag today? Come take a deep dive into working conditions and labor organizing efforts in Over-the-Rhine around the turn of the 20th century. Participants will learn about workplaces including breweries, tailor shops, and cigar factories and nationally innovative and influential labor organizing. We explore labor conditions, including labor organizing and strikes, and how race, class and gender shaped opportunities for work. This tour begins at the NW corner of 12th and Elm Street."*

Starting in 1952, the United States Navy and Coast Guard actively recruited Filipino men to serve as stewards--domestic servants for officers. Oral histories and detailed archival research inform P. James Paligutan's story of the critical role played by Filipino sailors in putting an end to race-based military policies. Constrained by systemic exploitation, Filipino stewards responded with direct complaints to flag officers and chaplains, rating transfer requests that flooded the bureaucracy, and refusals to work. Their actions had a decisive impact on seagoing military's elimination of the antiquated steward position. Paligutan looks at these Filipino sailors as agents of change while examining the military system through the lens of white supremacy, racist perceptions of Asian males, and the motives of Filipinos who joined the armed forces of the power that had colonized their nation. Insightful and dramatic, Lured by the American Dream is the untold story of how Filipino servicepersons overcame tradition and hierarchy in their quest for dignity.

The Pacific Northwest Labor History Association (PNLHA) is a non-profit association dedicated to preserving the history and heritage of workers in the Pacific Northwest. We consider the “Pacific Northwest” to be British Columbia, Oregon and Washington.

Our members are trade unionists, students, academics, and others who share an interest in the history and heritage of workers in this region. We believe the labor movement must know where it’s been to know where it’s going. We depend exclusively on memberships to sustain our activities.

The Oil Industry in California collection consists of 383 photographs taken from 1911-1914. The photographer is unknown. Every aspect of the industry is depicted: choosing and clearing the site, hauling the pipes, line, and equipment; drilling water wells; building derricks; constructing offices, camps, housing, and facilities for workers; pumping stations; boilers; sluicing; equipment and tools; men working; and accidents and fires. The collection includes scenes of Casitas, Kettleman Hills, Coyote Creek, and La Belle Oil Company lands and wells. The collection is arranged chronologically. Captions are typewritten on the snapshots, presumably by the photographer.

Students will review and understand local sexual harassment policies and discuss leadership lessons learned from the film North Country. A fictionalized account of events that led to the nation’s first-ever class action lawsuit for sexual harassment. The film follows the trials and tribulations of Josey Aimes, a woman miner in a male-dominated profession, and the hostile work environment that women of the mine endured. Aimes stands up for that she believes in—even if it means she must stand up alone.

Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Ethel (Vivian Vance) take on a job at the chocolate factory in the classic I Love Lucy episode, "Job Switching," but they soon get more than they bargained for when put on the high speed assembly line. This is a great way to discuss how machines are designed to control the worker, the ability of managers to control workers remotely (as when the supervisor has no interest in watching them, because the line and directive controls the worker). The machine enables managers to get more out of the worker through the technology. Marx wrote that machine works on behalf of the capitalist: "not only an automaton but an autocrat." This film is great to think about the ways that machines are social controllers, deployed intentionally not neutrally. In capitalism, the goal of "automation" is to substitute direct control with machine control, but many jobs are not susceptible to this kind of control. This would be great to use with the short clip from Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin) where the manager tries to get a machine to feed the worker.

A film displaying a gunfight between strikers and police containing voiceover.

A film displaying state of San Francisco during strike containing voiceover.