Labor Heritage Power Hour

Remembering Kent Wong

This week on the Labor Heritage Power Hour, we celebrate the life and legacy of labor educator and immigrant rights champion Kent Wong. Friends, family, and fellow organizers reflect on Kent's lifelong commitment to worker justice, immigrant rights, labor education, and international solidarity.We also continue our People's 250 coverage with a story about whose histories are remembered—and whose are forgotten—as Native leaders and scholars discuss removing a harmful monument and creating a more inclusive public memory. Then we head back to the Labor Archives of Washington, where founding archivist Conor Casey explains why preserving working people's history matters, how labor records are often at risk of being lost, and why archives remain essential to understanding the struggles that shaped our world. Plus Harold Phillips has this week's labor arts news, including new union organizing in gaming, publishing, and bookselling, and upcoming labor arts events around the country.
Broadcast on June 4, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.@LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

Art, Archives and the American Worker

On this week's Labor Heritage Power Hour: As America approaches its 250th anniversary, whose stories get remembered? This week: Jay Youngdahl talks with labor artist Fred Lonidier, we visit the Labor Archives of Washington, plus a People's 250 story from Mary Louise Patterson, “The Mother of All Strikes” from Labor History in 2:00, a favorite labor song, and the latest labor arts news and calendar.Broadcast on May 28, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.@LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

Joe Hill Walks Into a Starbucks

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour, What does labor culture actually do? SEIU President April Verrett accepts the Labor Heritage Foundation’s 2026 Solidarity Forever Award and delivers a powerful reminder that “culture moves people before politics ever will.” We bring you highlights from the evening, featuring music, storytelling, and reflections on why labor arts remain central to organizing, solidarity, and movement-building.
Then Harold Phillips heads to Bellingham, Washington for a conversation with playwrights Lantz Simpson and Victoria McCallum about The Last Words of Joe Hill, a contemporary theater piece imagining legendary labor organizer and singer Joe Hill walking into a modern coffee shop union drive. Through clips from the play and a wide-ranging interview, they explore labor memory, Starbucks organizing, songwriting, storytelling, and why working-class history still matters to young workers today.
Along the way, we hear new stories from the People’s 250 campaign, including the story of Virginia Snow, the rebel educator and organizer who helped defend Joe Hill during his 1915 trial, and a remembrance of the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike that brought Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis. Plus: this week’s labor arts calendar, labor arts news, and Labor History in 2:00 on the Matewan Massacre and the road to Blair Mountain.
Broadcast on May 21, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.@LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

Labor Is Art

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: SEIU President April Verrett declares that “labor is art” at New York’s worker-powered “Ball Without Billionaires,” an alternative to the Met Gala celebrating the people who actually create culture. We also preview the DC Labor FilmFest screening of Late Shift, the acclaimed Swiss drama about an overwhelmed hospital nurse confronting the human cost of understaffing and burnout.
Plus, historian James Benton joins the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss how NAFTA and decades of failed trade policy devastated working-class communities across America, and we hear another organizing story from the People’s 250 campaign, featuring a Georgetown student and restaurant worker fighting for a union in Washington, D.C.
We also mark labor history with stories from the 1968 Paris General Strike and the 1975 La Tolteca strike, where undocumented Mexican women workers in California organized, fought back and won.
Broadcast on May 14, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.@LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

LIVE with Amy Goodman at “Steal This Story, Please!”

This week on the Labor Heritage Power Hour: highlights from last weekend’s sold-out screenings of Steal This Story, Please! at the DC Labor FilmFest, featuring Amy Goodman, Tia Lessin, and voices from WPFW’s powerful post-film Q&A. From the station that helped launch Democracy Now! to today’s fight for independent, audience-funded media, we explore what it means to “never sell out.”
Plus, Labor Arts News on the Ball Without Billionaires, SEIU’s cultural organizing under April Verrett, major union updates from IATSE and SAG-AFTRA, and a new newsroom union in Madison. We head to the University of Maryland’s letterpress studio, where workers can print their own strike signs, and dig into the legacy of the Haymarket Affair with historian Peter Cole—who asks: who controls history?
We also feature the May 5 Bay View Massacre in Labor History in 2:00, and a story from the People’s 250 campaign reminding us that working people’s history is still being written.
Broadcast on May 7, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.@LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

From Union Hall to Art Studio; Building Worker Power

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour, we preview the 2026 DC Labor FilmFest—already drawing packed houses—with classic strike documentaries and sharp new films tackling layoffs, automation, and life in the modern workplace.
We also head to Detroit for a new UNITE HERE arts residency that gives union members paid time to develop their creative voices—an innovative effort to build solidarity and expand the reach of labor storytelling. (Deadline to apply: May 15!)
Plus, we dig into labor history with labor historian Rudy Batzel talking with America’s Workforce Radio Podcast about how race, class, and strikebreaking shaped the movement—and still do today. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, historian Joe McCartin introduces the #Peoples250 campaign, lifting up working-class stories and inviting everyone to help tell a more complete history of the United States.
This week’s Labor Landmark takes us to Birmingham, Alabama, where two Black union leaders stopped a Ku Klux Klan bombing—an extraordinary act of courage rooted in labor and civil rights organizing. And in Labor History in 2, we look at the ongoing fight for workplace safety.
Our music this week is Hope by Carsie Blanton, a reminder that solidarity, courage, and care—put into collective action—are what keep the movement moving forward.
Broadcast on April 30, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Kahlia Chapman.The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.@LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod

Fighting and Dying for Billionaires

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour, we preview the upcoming DC Labor FilmFest, opening May 1, with a look at restored classics American Dream and Harlan County, USA, plus opening night film Steal This Story, Please featuring Amy Goodman.
We also get the latest labor arts news from across the country, including wins for library workers and new union drives in media and entertainment.
In our Labor Landmark of the Week, Sarah Gray takes us to Tacoma, Washington, to honor Solidarity Forever author Ralph Chaplin.
Then we head to Portland, where union musicians are building a “third space” through monthly solidarity socials—bringing together music, conversation, and community.
In the latest instalment in our Story Behind the Song series, Terry Leonino and Greg Artzner of Magpie explore how Eugene V. Debs’ historic anti-war speech inspired their song Canton 1918.
And in Labor History in 2:00, Rick Smith remembers legendary labor singer-songwriter Hazel Dickens, whose powerful voice carried the stories of coal miners and their families.Plus, a preview of a new Labor History Today conversation with Joe McCartin, Stephen Lerner and Jeremy Brecher on how “Resisting Trumpism Can Revive the U.S. Labor Movement.”
Music from Anne Feeney, Magpie, Dave Rovics and Patti Smith.
Broadcast on April 23, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.

Janna Ahrndt Does Not Dream of Labor

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: The 2026 DC Labor FilmFest launches on May Day, with AFI Silver programmers previewing one of the festival’s strongest lineups yet—featuring global stories, labor classics, and a notable surge in women-centered narratives.
Artist Janna Ahrndt joins Kathy Newman to explore the hidden labor behind digital life—from email overload to automation myths—and why “time-saving” tech often creates more work.
On this week’s Labor Landmark, archivist Conor Casey brings us the story of The Seattle Union Record, a pioneering labor-owned newspaper. Plus, labor helps Jackie Robinson break the color barrier on Labor History in 2:00, and the latest labor arts news briefs, including the rescue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by a nonprofit newsroom, a new union contract securing AI protections for CBS News writers, and a successful union drive by ESPN hair and makeup artists.
Music this week includes “Never Surrender” by the R.J. Phillips Band and “Get Organized” by Floorchild.
Broadcast on April 16, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.

Rude Mechanical Orchestra’s sounds of solidarity

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour, we take it to the streets with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, a New York City-based activist marching band that’s been showing up for more than two decades in support of workers, organizers, and movements for justice.
We also get the latest labor arts news, including the announcement of the 2026 DC Labor FilmFest lineup, organizing victories across the cultural sector, and updates from unions representing musicians, writers, performers, and library workers.
Plus: a Labor Landmark of the Week from the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum’s Courage in the Hollers trail, and a special excerpt from What They Could Never Kill, our recent Billie Holiday/Paul Robeson special, featuring Billie Holiday’s haunting “Strange Fruit,” followed by Paul Robeson’s “Joe Hill.”Broadcast on April 9, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Kahlia Chapman.The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.

Escape Room Workers Solve the Challenge

This week on the Labor Heritage Power Hour: Performers at a horror-themed escape room in Los Angeles organize the first union shop in the industry, a powerful labor landmark in Victor, Colorado reminds us of the violent roots of the labor movement, and the Coalition of Labor Union Women marks 50 years of labor, art, and organizing. Plus, Bette Midler takes on a Woody Guthrie classic, a new song from Mike Stout honors the Women of Steel, and the latest labor arts news from around the world.Broadcast on April 2, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Kahlia Chapman. The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.@LaborHeritage1 @wpfwdc @aflcio #1u #unions #laborradiopod