United States Labor History
999 Lessons of the auto struggle
23 December 2019
“When the Declaration says that all men are created equal, that is no myth”
An interview with historian Gordon Wood on the New York Times’ 1619 Project
By Tom Mackaman, 28 November 2019
Gordon Wood is professor emeritus at Brown University and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Radicalism of the American Revolution, as well as Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815.
An interview with historian James Oakes on the New York Times’ 1619 Project
By Tom Mackaman, 18 November 2019
The World Socialist Web Site recently spoke to James Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, on the New York Times’ 1619 Project.
From the archive of the WSWS
What is the UAW?
By Shannon Jones, 12 November 2019
The article, first published in 2015, details the corporatist degeneration of the UAW and its transformation into a bribed tool of management.
230 Interview with Victoria Bynum
28 October 2019
From the archive of the World Socialist Web Site
Eighty-two years since the victory of the Flint sit-down strike
By Jerry White, 1 October 2019
With 48,000 GM workers engaged in the longest nationwide auto strike in nearly a half century, it is valuable to study the heroic struggle by GM workers during the 1936-37 sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan.
One hundred years since the Great Steel Strike
By Tom Mackaman, 25 September 2019
The Great Steel Strike of 1919 and its defeat hold crucial strategic lessons for workers as they enter into struggle.
From the archive of the World Socialist Web Site
Walter Reuther and the rise and fall of the UAW
By Tom Mackaman, 24 September 2019
Walter Reuther’s biography has much to teach workers about the transformation of the trade unions into reactionary adjuncts of the corporations and the government.
The New York Times’s 1619 Project: A racialist falsification of American and world history
By Niles Niemuth, Tom Mackaman and David North, 6 September 2019
The 1619 Project, launched by the New York Times, presents racism and racial conflict as the essential feature and driving force of American history.
The New York Times’ 1619 Project: A racialist falsification of American and world history
By Niles Niemuth, Tom Mackaman and David North, 3 September 2019
PART ONE | PART TWO | COMBINED
The 1619 Project, launched by the New York Times, presents racism and racial conflict as the essential feature and driving force of American history.
Eighty-two years since the victory of the Flint sit-down strike
By Jerry White, 11 February 2019
With General Motors threatening to shut five factories in the US and Canada, it is valuable for autoworkers to study the heroic 1936-37 sit down strike against GM’s operations in Flint, Michigan.
American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs—A fatally flawed documentary
By Fred Mazelis, 5 March 2018
The movie, directed by Yale Strom, seeks to turn Debs’ revolutionary message into its opposite.
PBS’s The Gilded Age: Removing the working class from the stage of history
By Tom Mackaman, 15 February 2018
PBS aired the documentary as part of its American Experience series on February 6.
Fifty years since the Detroit rebellion
Part three: Liberal promises and capitalist reality in “New Detroit”
By Barry Grey, 24 July 2017
The WSWS is posting a three-part series originally published in July of 1987 under the title “Twenty years since the Detroit rebellion.” This is the third and final part. Part one was published on July 21, part two on July 22.
Fifty years since the Detroit rebellion
Part two: The explosion
By Barry Grey, 22 July 2017
The WSWS is posting a three-part series originally published in July of 1987 under the title “Twenty years since the Detroit rebellion.” This is the second part. Part one was published on July 21.
Fifty years since the Detroit rebellion
Part one: An uprising of the oppressed
By Barry Grey, 21 July 2017
The WSWS is posting a three-part series originally published in July of 1987 under the title “Twenty years since the Detroit rebellion.”
Eighty years since the victory of the Flint sit-down strike—Part two
By Jerry White, 16 February 2017
This is the conclusion of a two-part series on the 44-day battle by US autoworkers in 1936-37 that forced General Motors, the world’s largest industrial enterprise, to recognize the recently founded United Auto Workers union.
Book review
Lessons from the 1937 Little Steel strike in the US
The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America, by Ahmed White
By Tom Mackaman, 23 January 2017
If the Little Steel Strike has been ignored by historians, it is perhaps because it does not fit the standard narrative of American labor history.
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The US Standard of Living Since the Civil War
By Eric London, 23 February 2016
According to a recent book by Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon, there is no objective foundation for an end to economic stagnation in the United States.
Walter Reuther and the rise and fall of the UAW
By Tom Mackaman, 23 December 2015
Walter Reuther’s biography has much to teach workers about the transformation of the trade unions into reactionary adjuncts of the corporations and the government.
Trotskyism and the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934
Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers’ Strike of 1934, by Bryan Palmer
By Tom Mackaman and Jerry White, 24 June 2015
A recent book by historian Bryan Palmer chronicles the role of American Trotskyists in leading one of the most important strikes in US history.
Thirty-five years since the nationwide US refinery strike
By David Brown and Charles Abelard, 14 February 2015
Thirty-five years ago, US oil refinery workers carried out a nationwide strike, breaking through wage guidelines set by the Carter administration.
Fifty years since the Civil Rights Act
By Tom Mackaman, 2 July 2014
The Civil Rights Act came in response to the mass protests known as the Civil Rights movement that swept the American South beginning in the 1950s.
100 years since Ford’s five dollar day
By Tom Mackaman, 5 March 2014
Ford’s profit-sharing scheme was billed as the key to social harmony. Yet socialism and the Russian Revolution, coming just four years later, breathed a new spirit into the American class struggle.
The working class and the Detroit Industry murals at the DIA
Diego Rivera’s “Battle of Detroit”
By Tom Mackaman and Jerry White, 3 October 2013
The production of Rivera’s murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts, begun just months after the massacre of protesting workers near Ford’s River Rouge industrial complex, was a major political event.
American Federation of Teachers’ journal slanders historian Howard Zinn
By Charles Bogle and Fred Mazelis, 18 February 2013
A review article on A People’s History of the US in the current issue of American Educator lays bare the union leadership’s slavish support for American capitalism.
Thirty years since the murder of Vincent Chin
By Shannon Jones, 23 June 2012
Thirty years ago this week, on June 19, 1982, Vincent Chin, an Asian-American draftsman, was beaten to death by a Chrysler foreman and his son in a racially motivated killing.
Remembering the Ludlow Massacre
Part 4: The Ludlow memorial
By Jack Hood, 1 June 2012
The World Socialist Web Site publishes the concluding installment in a series on the Colorado miners’ strike of 1913-1914.
Remembering the Ludlow Massacre
Part 3: The Massacre and the Ten Days War
By Jack Hood, 31 May 2012
The World Socialist Web Site publishes the third installment in a four-part series on the Colorado miners’ strike of 1913-1914.
Remembering the Ludlow Massacre
Part 2: The strike of 1913-14
By Jack Hood, 30 May 2012
The World Socialist Web Site publishes the second installment in a four-part series on the Colorado miners’ strike of 1913-1914.
Seventy-five years since the Memorial Day Massacre
By Tom Eley, 29 May 2012
Wednesday marks the 75th anniversary of the Memorial Day Massacre, when Chicago police opened fire on unarmed striking steelworkers, killing 10 and wounding 30.
Forty years since the Attica uprising
Nixon-Rockefeller tapes praise bloodbath—“A beautiful operation”
By Nancy Hanover, 26 September 2011
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the 1971 uprising by prisoners at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York and its bloody suppression by state police called in by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
Thirty years since the PATCO strike
Part five
By Tom Mackaman, 13 August 2011
This is the fifth and final installment in a series of articles marking the 30th anniversary of the PATCO air traffic controllers’ strike in the US.
Thirty years since the PATCO strike
Part four
By Tom Mackaman, 6 August 2011
This fourth installment in a series marking the 30th anniversary of the PATCO strike examines the role of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy in isolating the strike, and the role of the Workers League in attempting to broaden it into a general strike and a political struggle against the two-party system.
Thirty years since the PATCO strike
Part three
By Tom Mackaman, 5 August 2011
This third installment in a series marking the 30th anniversary of the PATCO strike explores the determined stand air traffic controllers took, the support they received in the broader working class, and the union-busting operation carried out by the Reagan administration.
Thirty years since the PATCO strike
Part two
By Tom Mackaman, 4 August 2011
This is the second in a series of articles marking the 30th anniversary of the PATCO air traffic controllers’ strike in the US. It examines the period leading up to the strike.
Thirty years since the PATCO strike
Part one
By Tom Mackaman, 3 August 2011
This is the first installment of a series of articles marking the 30th anniversary of the PATCO air traffic controllers’ strike in the US.
100 years since the historic workplace tragedy in New York City
HBO’s Triangle: Remember the Fire
By Charles Bogle, 25 March 2011
The excellent production values of Triangle: Remember the Fire leave an indelible visual memory of one of the greatest tragedies in American workplace. Sadly, the documentary’s limited perspective dishonors the legacy of the tragedy.
US: Forty years since the national postal strike
By Hector Cordon, 24 April 2010
Forty years ago postal workers defied their unions, anti-strike laws, and the Nixon administration’s deployment of the military in New York City to carry out the first national strike against the US government in history.
75 years since the San Francisco general strike
By Marge Holland and Robert Louis, 18 September 2009
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the San Francisco general strike, which began as a strike of longshoremen.
Revolutionary leadership and the struggle of 1934
75th anniversary of the Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike
By Ron Jorgenson, 31 August 2009
We are posting here an article on the 1934 Minneapolis general truck drivers’ strike, originally published in four parts. It is also available in PDF.
Revolutionary leadership and the struggle of 1934
75th anniversary of the Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike—Part four
By Ron Jorgenson, 29 August 2009
The final part of a four-part series on the 1934 Minneapolis general truck drivers’ strike.
Revolutionary leadership and the struggle of 1934
75th anniversary of the Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike—Part three
By Ron Jorgenson, 28 August 2009
The third part of a four-part series on the 1934 Minneapolis general truck drivers’ strike.
Revolutionary leadership and the struggle of 1934
75th anniversary of the Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike–Part one
By Ron Jorgenson, 26 August 2009
The first part of a four-part series on the 1934 Minneapolis general truck drivers’ strike.
75th anniversary of the Toledo Auto-Lite strike
Historic 1934 struggle
By Charles Bogle, 27 May 2009
In 1934 workers in Toledo, Ohio, carried to victory one of the most important strikes in US history. Led by socialists, the Auto-Lite strike won broad support from the unemployed.
Book review: Death in the Haymarket
The eight-hour-day movement and the birth of American labor
By James Brewer, 19 May 2009
Death in the Haymarket by James Green is an important contribution to the early history of the American labor movement.
The Haymarket frame-up and the origins of May Day
Part two
By Walter Gilberti, 12 May 2009
We are republishing a series of articles that originally appeared in April 1986 under the title “One hundred years since the Haymarket frame-up.” The articles were published in the Bulletin, the newspaper of the Workers League, forerunner of the Socialist Equality Party in the US.
The Haymarket frame-up and the origins of May Day
Part one
By Walter Gilberti, 11 May 2009
We are republishing here a series of articles that originally appeared in April 1986 under the title “One hundred years since the Haymarket frameup.” The articles were published in the Bulletin, the newspaper of the Workers League, forerunner of the Socialist Equality Party in the US.
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