In the late 1970s, San Jose city employees were frustrated with flat wages and pay inequities for women workers. They believed that job categories dominated by women were undervalued and underpaid, and they proved it through a multi-year campaign for pay equity led by AFSCME Local 101/Municipal Employees Federation, AFSCME Council 57. Their efforts went a long way towards closing pay gaps, but it wouldn’t have happened without a strike in 1981. AFSCME secretary-treasurer Elissa McBride brings us the story of the first pay equity strike in U.S. history.
In December of 1954, Boston meatpackers in CIO Local 11 were just over a month into a strike against the Colonial Provision Company. That strike went on to make history, continuing for 14 months, the longest in Massachusetts history. Interracial cooperation was also a hallmark of the struggle by the Boston meatpackers, who were also redbaited and had their union decertified. The story of how these workers fought back – and won – is still inspiring and has lessons for today’s battles.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1947. That was the day that the United Mine Workers leader, John L. Lewis wrote the AFL stating “We disaffiliate.”
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
Our story of the Boston meatpacker strike came from the film Glory Days: Boston Colonial Packinghouse Workers Recall the Strike of 1954 – 55, produced and directed by Cynthia McKeown, released in 1988; remastered in 2019. Labor history sources include Today in Labor History, compiled by David Prosten.
This week's music: 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton (plus a funk cover by Love Raptor) and Celebration by Kool and the Gang, both top hits in 1981, the year of the pay equity strike.
Painters join Black Lives Matter protests; the history of black police in America; Race and Rebellion
Labor supports DC Black Lives Matter protests; “Debs In Canton” preview; Revisiting The Battle of Homestead; Voices of exiled Iranian workers
The Minneapolis general strike; “Mongrel Firebugs and Men of Property”
“Politics of the Pantry”; “We Just Come to Work Here”
“The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland”
“Strike for Your Life!”; labor history's lessons for the COVID-19 crisis
Jack Kelly’s "The Edge of Anarchy”; “Union Maids” director Julia Reichert (Part 2)
Virtual May Day rally builds on the militancy of the past to inspire workers today
Julia Reichert: ‘We Don’t Just Interview People Once’; Montgomery Ward busted; May Day and Mother Jones
Sacco & Vanzetti at 100; What happened to MLK’s dream?
Organizing during historic crises
Coronavirus essential workers’ rights
Socialists, suffragettes and fear at work
COVID-19: An injury to one is the concern of all
The Great Postal Strike, Watergate and “Casey Jones, the Union Scab”
Neutron Jack, Joker and Parasite
Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote
African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South
Striking Images: Labor on Screen and in the Streets
John Sayles on “Matewan,” “Yellow Earth” and more
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Southern Mysteries Podcast
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
The Rest Is History
American History Tellers