Today’s show features a brand-new song from Tom Morello, who teamed up with grandson and wrote the song "Hold the Line" to honor "every working person fighting for their rights on the picket line." The song and the video seamlessly merge labor history past and present, just like we do here on Labor History Today. Click here for the AFL-CIO’s Strike Map.On October 26, Michigan Congressman Andy Levin, member of the House Education and Labor Committee, hosted a Special Order Hour to honor the life and work of the late AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka, who died on August 5. Before getting elected to Congress, Andy worked for Trumka at the AFL-CIO, and he talks here about Trumka’s working-class roots and the historic role he played in the American labor movement.  Electrician and journey wire-woman Kim Spicer is a proud member of The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local #3, in Queens, New York. Kim talked to the America Works podcast about how she tried numerous other, less fulfilling jobs before apprenticing to become an electrician and why she loves it. She touches on her training, some of the tasks and skills involved in her work, her daily on-the-job routines, and the challenges of being a woman in a traditionally male trade.

And, on Labor History in 2:00: The year was 1938; that was the day that the national Federation of telephone workers was founded in new Orleans Louisiana. 

Produced by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University.

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