It’s Labor Day, and I hope y’all are enjoying it, Gentle Readers. It is, per Samuel Gompers, the day “for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed...that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it.” You will be happy to know that, according to the Department of Labor’s site “Labor Day addresses by leading union officials, industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials are given wide coverage in newspapers, radio, and television.” YHB was bound to point out that the press release on the State of the Workforce Report released today doesn’t mention the word ‘union’ at all. But don’t mind me, I’m that way. The proclamation isn’t up on the White House site yet, so y’all are spared that analysis.
But enough. A lighter spirit, perhaps, is in order. My Labor Day movie recommendation is Brassed Off, although of course Norma Rae is a fine movie, and I’m sure The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal will be on tv tonight, as it is every year, right? Right?
For books, well, I like the collected speeches of Debs. Eugene V. Debs Speaks seems to be a good collection, but there are others. I’d also recommend Working, the amazing Studs Terkel book. For a novel, well, I like Hard Times, of course, but I can’t think of any others. I’ve never actually read Seven and a Half Cents.
Music? The Pajama Game original Broadway cast recording, of course. Pete Seeger, yep. Billy Bragg. The Dropkick Murphys, I suppose. Songs to put on your playlist would include Bread and Roses (the Judy Collins version?), Step by Step (the Sweet Honey in the Rock version?), um, the Klezmatics version of In Kampf. Do any of y’all know Fellow Workers, an Ani DiFranco>/Utah Phillips collaboration?
For blogs, the indispensable Nathan Newman has begun a laborblog, which I expect to be high on my list. SEIU has a blog called Fight for the Future, which I read for a while before it dropped off my list, but you may well have more time (or you may read faster).
If you haven’t guessed, this post is essentially a ploy to get your recommendations. Movies, books, music, blogs, whatever. Stuff about the labor movement, about unions, and all. What are your favorites?
,
-Vardibidian.
Recommendations:
Books:
Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
I’ve not read but have heard good things about Which Side Are You On? : Trying to Be for Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back by Thomas Geoghegan
Music:
Dick Gaughan
Si Kahn
The photographs of Sebasti�o Salgado
music: a second vote for Dick Gaughan. Also Ewan MacColl.
Music: John McCutcheon, of course. Kids’ album Bigger Than Yourself; adult albums too numerous to list, though What It’s Like is my favorite. On that latter album, see especially “World Turned Upside Down”; the two most labor-specific songs on that album, “Know When to Move” and “What It’s Like,” are unfortunately my least favorites on the album.
Oh, and for movies: Cradle Will Rock.