How “Measured Militancy” Empowered California’s Fieldworkers
When Mexican-American fieldworkers' strikes didn't net results, César Chávez led the Ventura County Community Service Organization in alternate tactics.
The Sharing Economy Was Dead on Arrival
Sharing economy firms like Lyft and Airbnb promised community, but the ideas they promoted as overturning the status quo are the status quo.
The Militant Miners Who Exposed the Horrors of Black Lung
This grassroots movement brought occupational health to American labor, paving the way for the creation of OSHA.
The Bisbee Deportations
According to one scholar, the 1917 deportation in Bisbee, AZ wasn't "about labor relations or race or gender: it was about all of them."
Why Europeans Have Such Long Summer Vacations
In the 1920s, politicians saw workers’ time off as a way to mold society, encouraging workers to engage in politics and patriotism during their time off.
The American Art Style that Idolized the Machine
Precisionism, a modernist art style that emerged in the early 20th century, glorified the machine age, all but erasing the presence of people.
The Campaign for Child Labor
Why did David Clark lead a successful campaign to keep kids working in the early 20th century? For one thing, child labor benefited his interests.
The Teachers’ Union Boomerang
Today's teacher's strikes in places like Oklahoma and West Virginia are the result of labor battles back in 2010, and the declining presence of unions across the economy generally.
How the Memphis Sanitation Strike Changed History
How the Memphis Sanitation Strike, with its iconic “I AM A MAN” signs, helped deepen Martin Luther King, Jr.'s radicalism in the last months of his life.
Fifty Shades of Affective Labor for Capital
Fifty Shades of Grey sells an absurd fantasy version of a romantic relationship—as between man and woman, so between capitalism and female workers.