On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: Senator Bernie Sanders accepts the Eugene V. Debs Award in Terre Haute, celebrating Debs’ legacy of solidarity and social justice — and reminding us that Debs’ vision still guides the labor movement today.

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: three stories of strikes and solidarity in the arts. Casa Bonita performers in Denver walk out for fair pay and safety; journalist Pete Tucker revisits the 1975 Washington Post pressmen’s strike; and historian Sarah Bond’s book Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire uncovers how Roman workers used collective action thousands of years ago.

On this week's Labor Heritage Power Hour: how labor art and history illuminate both the dignity and danger of work.

In our first segment, photojournalist and union organizer David Bacon talks with photographer Jim Brozek about his exhibit Honest Work at the Museum of Wisconsin Art. Brozek captured working life from the inside — as a crew member, ranch hand, and farm worker — documenting labor’s rhythm, camaraderie, and physical toll from 1976 to 1985.

Then, we turn to Deadly Deception: The Asbestos Tragedy in McLean County, an award-winning exhibit at the McLean County Museum of History in Bloomington, Illinois. David LeGrande, former Occupational Safety and Health Director for the Communications Workers of America, interviews Mike Matejka about the hidden cost of corporate greed and the community’s ongoing fight for justice.

From ships and fields to factory floors, these are stories of workers’ courage, creativity, and solidarity.

Broadcast on October 30 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC and stations across the country.

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: We dig into how culture fuels courage on the shop floor and the strike line. First, legendary organizer–songwriter Si Kahn breaks down the organizer’s “secret weapon”: parody. From Joe Hill’s “new words to old tunes” to the brand-new “Solidarity at Starbucks,” we explore why familiar melodies can turn a crowd into a chorus—fast.

Then we head to Camp Solidarity in Matewan, West Virginia for “Lessons from the Massey Strike.” UMWA veterans Charles “Hawkeye” Dixon, Howard Phillips, and Eddie Burke take us inside the 1984–85 fight with Massey: the tactics, the unity, the losses, and what it took to stop production and keep a union alive.

All hour long, it’s WPFW’s Fall Fund Drive. If the music, history, and first-person voices you hear here matter to you, help keep Jazz & Justice strong and independent: wpfwfm.org or 1-800-222-9739; $12.50/month makes you a sustainer; any amount makes you family.

Broadcast on October 23, 2025 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC and Pacifica stations and affiliates across America.

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: We dedicate this week's show to Laurel Blaydes (1952–2022) — singer, organizer, and former director of the Labor Heritage Foundation—on the week she would have turned 73. Co-host Elise Bryant shares reflections on Laurel’s artistry and why labor culture sustains us in hard times, before we hear Laurel’s 1981 Labor Solidarity Day performance of “Hold the Fort” with Joe Uehlein, Tommy Moran, and John Gower.

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: From a Buffalo coffee shop to a national movement, this week’s show pours a strong cup of worker power. Chris talks with Oscar-nominated director and former steelworker Mark Mori about “Baristas vs. Billionaires,” his new film on the Starbucks union drive. Then we head to Matewan for UMWA President Cecil Roberts’ barnburner on courage, history, and who this land belongs to. We close with street-level memories of former Steelworkers president Leo Gerard and his mic-grabbing solidarity. Plus Labor History in 2.00 and a brand-new version of Woody Guthrie’s classic “Deportee” from Colleen Kattau.

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: A visit to the Donora Smog Museum, where a six-day inversion in 1948 trapped toxic fumes over a mill town and changed how the U.S. thinks about work, health, and accountability. Then educator and Mine Wars Museum co-founder Wilma Steele unpacks how a simple red bandana—rooted in centuries-old paisley—became a living symbol of union solidarity.  

This week on the Labor Heritage Power Hour, host Chris Garlock is joined by guest co-host Kimmon “MacGyver” Williams. In our first segment, MacGyver talks with Matt Olson from the New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice about Don’t Stand Alone, a striking traveling exhibit that recovers the hidden histories of Black labor organizing in New Orleans and brings them to life through art, storytelling, and solidarity.

Then Dan Golodner, co-host of the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast, talks with Dr. Kendra Boyd, author of “Freedom Enterprise: Black Entrepreneurship and Racial Capitalism in Detroit”, which explores the history of Detroit’s Black migration, entrepreneurship, and the struggle against so-called “Negro removal” as urban renewal projects dismantled thriving Black business districts.

Plus: the latest labor arts news, including new unions at the San Diego Zoo, Broadway contract fights, Writers Guild recognition at children’s TV producers, and a remembrance of former United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard, honored for his deep support of labor art and culture.

Broadcast on September 25, 2025 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC. and other Pacifica stations. 

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: historian Joe McCartin unpacks Congress’s “Unmasking Union Antisemitism,” showing how employers have long weaponized antisemitic tropes against unions while Jewish workers helped build a pluralistic, democratic labor movement—and why the latest push is really about weakening unions and chilling speech. Then producer Patrick Dixon talks with artist-anthropologist Aubrey Edwards about High Iron, a traveling boxcar-turned-community museum honoring the immigrant and Indigenous workers who built the West’s railroads, towns, and economy. Two stories, one thread: who tells America’s story—the power brokers, or the people who built it?

On this week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour: former circus hand Chris Bricker talks with historian Andrea Ringer about her new book, Circus World: Roustabouts, Animals, and the Work of Putting on The Big Show—a deep dive into the hidden labor that built 14-acre tent cities, from riggers and animal trainers to strikes that shaped the spectacle. Then organizer and cultural strategist Ken Grossinger returns with updates on Art Works: How organizers and artists are creating a better world together and how artists and organizers are joining forces, why authoritarians target culture first, and what it takes to scale creative power across unions and communities.

Broadcast on September 11, 2025 on WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC.

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