Historians Eileen Boris and Jill Jensen on the complicated legacy of the International Labour Organization, ranging from its early challenge to the Bolshevik revolution to its role in the Cold War and as a countervailing force to the World Bank's model for international development. Plus, remembering Adolph Strasser, co-founder of the AFL.

On today’s special holiday show, professor Kathy Newman argues that it was the working class that invented Christmas and many of the traditions that are associated with the holiday season. A year ago, nearly a million government workers were locked out or working without pay; we talk to Gregory Guthrie, president of National Federation of Federal Employees Local 1627, about last year’s historic government shutdown. And Saul Schneiderman – with some help from Woody Guthrie – remembers the 1913 Massacre.

Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez on Invisible Agricultural Child Labor in the American Southwest and the Limits of Citizenship, from the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast. Plus Lane Windham on the Willmar 8, who organized the first strike against a bank in U.S. history.

Working-class heroes organize Pecket Well College in England, and Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farms Cooperative in the Mississippi Delta. Plus this week’s labor history highlights!