New Labor Forum Archives

When did May Day Turn Into an Immigrants’ Rights Day?

May Day has traditionally focused on labor and working class issues. Immigration and immigrant labor adds a new dimension to the holiday.

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Politics & Government

Scott Walker, The Koch Brothers, and the History of Right to Work Laws

The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 gave states the ability to enact right to work laws, granting opponents of unions the ability to institute open-shop laws.

Interviews

Labor Unions, Public Employees, and Race: And Interview with William P. Jones

An interview with scholar William P. Jones on labor unions, public employees, and race.

Editors' Picks

Education & Society

Teaching Happiness

According to one scholar, we're inundated with ways to pursue pleasure, which we conflate with happiness, to our own detriment.

Politics & History

Grave Robbing, Black Cemeteries, and the American Medical School

In the 19th century, students at American medical schools stole the corpses of recently-buried African Americans to be used for dissection.

Politics & History

Why Yemen Suffers in Silence

Yemen is suffering a major humanitarian crisis. How did the country get to such a precarious state, and why aren't Americans paying more attention?

Arts & Culture

When Harriet Beecher Stowe and George Eliot Were Penpals

These 19th-century novelists might seem to have little in common. But for 11 years they wrote each other letters, forging an unusual literary friendship.

Education & Society

The Activist Students of 1960s East Los Angeles

Over a week and a half starting on March 1st, 1968, more than 10,000 students in mostly Chicano schools took part in what became known as the East Los Angeles School Blowouts.