Labor Heritage Power Hour

Work is a real-life Squid Game

What is a life worth? Kathy Newman talks class, work and horror in Squid Game, the dystopian South Korean hit TV show in which desperate players risk their lives for a chance at financial security. Interview by Lisa Raye Garlock. PLUS: TWU Local 100’s Official Union Anthem, and two helpings of Labor History in 2:00: Fighting for Opportunity & Johnny Cash Plays Folsom PrisonBroadcast on January 16, 2025 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC.Hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella & Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.@_kathymnewman @LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

The king of labor song parodies

On this week's Labor Heritage Power Hour: A chat with Paul McKenna, who’s written more than 400 labor song parodies; today’s songs include We Just Come to Work Here 2020, and My Nursing Heart (both sung by Ben Grosscup); Labor Notes’ editor Al Bradbury with Union Conga; Plus, on Labor History in 2:00, Taking Care of Our Own. Broadcast on January 9, 2025 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC.Hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella & Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.@SEIU @SEIULocal503 @BenGrosscup @labornotes @al_bradbury @LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

Joe Jencks’ Christmas in Mansfield; 2025 Labor Grammys; Lillian Roberts speaks!

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: veteran singer/songwriter Joe Jencks tells us the story behind his song “Christmas in Mansfield,” where Armco locked out 620 steel workers on September 1, 1999. Then, in our second segment, we’ll hear about Power At Work’s 2025 Labor Grammys, which you’ll be able to vote on, starting January 6. In our final segment, archival audio of union and civil rights organizer Lillian Roberts, who was jailed in December 1968 for organizing an illegal strike by New York state employees.
Broadcast on January 2, 2025 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC.Hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella & Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.@JoeJencksMusic @PowerAtWorkBlog @AFSCME  @LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

SFMT’s “A Red Carol”

On today's Labor Heritage Power Hour: SFMT’s “A Red Carol”"People always think this story is about you,” Bob Crachit tells Scrooge in the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s “A Red Carol” on today’s show. “But it ain’t about you, it’s about us - and how we let ourselves get infected with your ideas, your greed, your lies, it’s you steppin’ over the hungry and homeless and us following your lead, it’s us lettin’ you turn our government into a casino, listenin’ while you say day after day that profit is the new god, and us not standin’ up and shouting "NO!"'
“It ain’t about you," Cratchit says. "It’s about us.”
Click here to support the San Francisco Mime Troupe and here to support WPFW’s jazz and justice in the New Year! Produced by the San Francisco Mime Troupe; Broadcast on December 26, 2024; WPFW broadcast engineered by Kahlia Chapman. @SFTroupers @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

Hilary Peach’s Thick Skin (Encore)

On today’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: Writer and recording artist Hilary Peach worked for twenty years as a transient welder, travelling across Canada and the United States, working in pulp mills, chemical plants, refineries, and generating stations. In 2022 she released a memoir about this time, Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood; our interviewer is Susan Eisenberg, a poet, visual artist, oral historian and former electrician. On today’s installment of our “Story Behind the Song” series, Joe Jencks tells us how he came to write his labor classic “Rise As One”. Joe is a 25-year veteran of the international folk circuit, an award-winning songwriter and celebrated vocalist, and a member of A.F.M. Local 1000, the North American Traveling Musicians Union.On Labor History in 2:00: the year was 1915; on this date, the most popular labor song in the United States was completed in Chicago.Broadcast on December 19, 2024; original broadcast January 18, 2024Hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella & Kahlia Chapman. @AnvilPress @JoeJencksMusic @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

Incredible Finds, Inc.

On this week's Labor Heritage Power Hour: A reading from Incredible Finds, Inc., a new play about an exploited factory worker who leads her colleagues in a strike against their company’s brutal and dehumanizing practices; followed by a discussion with playwright Casey J. Adler, actors Regina Fernandez and Amir Levy, and director Dana Schwartz. There’s a free reading of the play at 1p on Sunday, December 15 at the Beverly Hills Library.In our second segment we tour the American Labor Museum’s Faces From An American Dream exhibit of photographs by Martin Desht with Education Director Evelyn Hershey, who reads Philip Levine’s poem What Work Is.In our final segment, singer/songwriter Si Kahn, with Were You There, the latest installment of our Story Behind the Song series. Broadcast on December 12, 2024 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC.Hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella & Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.@LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

Work Songs

This week's show: Workers have been singing while working and singing about working since antiquity; the Heartland Labor Forum’s Mark Galus plays classics from Billy Bragg, Joe Glazer and Anne Feeney as well as some more obscure folk and punk tracks. Broadcast on December 5, 2024 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC.Hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; original source The Heartland Labor Forum (KKFI in Kansas City); this version produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella & Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.@Heartland_Labor @LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

Liz Shuler’s favorite labor song (Encore)

Originally broadcast on November 30, 2023Hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant
On today’s show, AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler joins us to launch the “My Favorite Labor Song” feature, and then we’ve got a preview of the DC Labor Chorus’ upcoming holiday concert (this year on November 7; get your free tix here), and in our final segment, Radical Songbook host Michael Funke’s “Making Cars Medley” of songs in honor of the UAW’s historic Stand Up Strike. Plus, Labor History in 2:00 on Louisa May Alcott’s “Work: A Story of Experience”. Produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella & Kahlia Chapman. @wpfwdc @aflcio @LizShuler @tmorello @UAW #1u #unions #laborradiopod

The Green New Deal From Below

This week's show: Special correspondent Joe Uehlein talks with labor historian and activist Jeremy Brecher about his new book, The Green New Deal From Below: How Ordinary People Are Building a Just and Climate-Safe Economy.And in our Story Behind the Song series, Joe Uehlein tells us about You Can't Giddy Up By Sayin' Whoa.In Labor History in 2:00: The year was 1888; that was the day that William Le Grand Bundy is credited with inventing something that has become a daily part of life for millions of workers.Broadcast on November 21 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC.Hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella & Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.@LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

The lost labor artist

This week's show: Kathy M. Newman talks with art historian Patricia Hills and Brooklyn College professor Joseph Entin about Philip Tipperman’s labor paintings, archaeologist Dean Anderson on the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and Rick Smith remembers Karen Silkwood. NOTES: Philip Tipperman’s paintings will be installed at Brooklyn College at 2p on November 22; the event is open to the public and includes a reception; details here. The Dean Anderson segment is from Michigan State University’s Our Daily Work, Our Daily Lives brown bag series; 2024-25 schedule here. Triangle is by the R.J. Phillips Band; check them out here.Broadcast on November 14, 2024 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC.Hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella & Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.
@BklynCollege411 @LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod