Working Class Heroes

Amy and Robert Masciola, Masciola Campaign Consulting   January 14, 2013 It should come as no surprise to anyone that corporations pit local governments against one another in an effort to secure lucrative financial incentives to bring their business to (or remain in) the competing localities. Executives lobby hard at the city, county, and state levels for tax credits, cash payments, and other inducements. In the past, they might have promised to bring jobs to the [...]

Publisher’s Note: Originally posted last February.  Enjoy!   Anthracite was “discovered” in America by Connecticut settlers in what is today known as the Wyoming Valley of PA. Depending on who is telling the story, it was 1762, or it was not. Some say that a hunter, named Necho Allen in what is now the Coal Region, fell asleep at the base of Broad Mountain and woke to the sight of a large fire because his [...]

  The root of the evil is not money, or the love of money, it is the use of the peoples money to remove love from the world. In economic justice there is Love. In social justice there is Love. Without these there is none. The power the oligarchs and plutocrats wield is in direct proportion to the money that we the people give them by spending our shrinking amounts of income in their corporate monopolies. [...]

WCH Contributor Patrick Murfin’s writing can be found regularly at the blog Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout Times are hard and getting harder.  Few among us sitting here have been untouched by the economic collapse that has turned our safe, secure world upside down.  If we have not lost our jobs, had our wages or hours slashed, lost the value of our homes and investments, we have loved ones who have and we live in gnawing dread [...]

Fern Ghauri is a WCH contributor, and a third generation, East-coast, Liberal, Progressive writer and activist. This article covers certain actions. There are others of note that will be discussed in future articles.   It was the best of years, it was the worst of years – well, neither, actually. But we did avert what could have been one of the biggest catastrophes and threats to democracy, here in the USA and abroad. Yes, I [...]

by Craig Simpson In 1941, a group of predominantly young African American activists organized to take on the challenge of integrating one of the most visible examples of job discrimination in the city:  The Washington, DC Capital Transit public transportation system.The 15-year campaign went through a period of highs and lows as the company, aided at times by the union representing its workers and the federal government, stubbornly clung to its racist practices before finally [...]

The day before Christmas, it has been said, comes but once a year. American Labor History features an event that I want you to know about. An event that I want you to learn about. I don’t want to pretend that it can or should replace the reasons you already have for celebrating the season, but I do want you to go away from this reading a changed person. It happened in Calumet, MI, on [...]

Publisher’s Preface: This is another part of our SALUTE to Fellow Worker Richard who passed on last Thursday morning. Enjoy this ode to western miners and their struggles. R.I.P. Comrade Myers!   Foreward - by Fern Ghauri, @WCHeroes contributor Richard Myers writes here in the finest tradition of labor poems and ballads, one honored by figures as diverse as Oscar Wilde and Morris Rosenfeld. Echoes of George Orwell make their way in, as well. And with this offering, [...]

Publisher’s Preface: This is a book review, not specifically a biography. Joe said, “Don’t mourn; Organize!”  It is also a re-post, our SALUTE to Fellow Worker Richard who passed on last Thursday morning. R.I.P. Comrade Myers! I never met Fellow Worker Richard Myers in person. I saw and was impressed by some of his work as a graphic artist and agitprop master —his updated IWW stickers and the bio-cards on Facebook—before I knew who he was. I finally connected with him [...]