Ludlow Massacre Forges Mine Workers’ Struggle
Life was not easy a century ago for coal miners in Southern Colorado, where heavily industrialized mines produced high-grade coal needed by the steel and railway industries.
The largest mining operation in the region, the Colorado Fuel and Iron...
Black Women Raise Their Voices in the Tobacco Industry
By 1938, Louise "Mamma" Harris had worked at the I.N. Vaughan Export stemmery in Richmond VA for nearly six years. The women who worked at Export were among the poorest in Richmond; they had to wrap themselves in tobacco burlap to stay warm in the...
APWU Helps Usher in the End of Apartheid
Twenty years ago South Africa held its first free and fair election. Amid violent attacks by groups seeking to disrupt the historic vote, a delegation of APWU representatives traveled to South Africa to act as election observers.
Photographer Honored Workers, Helped End Child Labor
In August, the Postal Service released a series of stamps honoring American workers. Many of the stamps’ images were captured in the 1930s by photographer Lewis Hine, whose pictures celebrate the skills, daring and dignity of the industrial workers...
1934: Southern Workers Spark Massive Textile Strike
In 1934, thousands of workers in Southern textile mills walked off the job seeking better pay and working conditions. The job actions they launched spread to New England and the Mid-Atlantic states and became one of the biggest industrial strikes in...