Labor Heritage Power Hour

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

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

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

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

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