Wednesday, May 27, 2009

MAY 27: LaborTeamstersHistory

Download this episode (58 min)
LABOR ISSUES and THE TEAMSTERS STRIKE 1934
Seventy-five years after the big Teamsters blow-out, labor is back struggling for its survival. Will the times allow a resurgence of unified collective bargaining and worker protections, wages and benefits? Meanwhile, even in the best of times, labor's internal conflicts reflect the all-too-human temptation to forget our parents' and grandparents' struggles to secure middle class status for workers of all skills. Many rank and file union members have changed their political stripes as they settled into suburban isolation from the unity once required to maintain power.

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN talk with historians and activists to assess the labor landscape even as many are planning a July celebration of the trucker's strike of 1934 in this recessionary period. We recall the nasty events of July, 1934, when deputized thugs ambushed union pickets, killing two and seriously wounding dozens of others and we assess the political climate that allowed it to happen.

GUESTS: • JIM MCGUIRE – Chair, One Day in July: A Street Festival for the Working Class – The 1934 Teamsters Strike Remembrance 75 Years Later; Steward, OPEIU Local 12 • TOM O'CONNELL – Metro State Political Science Professor/Labor Historian. Author, TOWARD THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH: AN INTRODUCTORY HISTORY OF THE FARMER-LABOR MOVEMENT IN MINNESOTA (1917-1948) • DAVID RIEHLE – Minnesota Labor Historian, 1934 Strike chronicler; Chair, Local 650, UTU for Union Pacific trainmen; "One Day in July" organizing committee member. • ERIC FORMAN – IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) with a STARBUCKS ORGANIZING UPDATE

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