Tag Archives: UAW

Environmental Activism in Deindustrialized Detroit

April 19, 2022Labor History, UAW, Urban AffairsActivism, Detroit, Environmentalism, Racism, UAWWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Brandon Ward explains how Detroit residents, community organizations, and the labor movement, alarmed by the pollution remaining in Detroit’s deindustrialized era that mostly heavily impacted Black Americans and the working class, worked together from the 1970s onward to create a healthier, greener, and more livable city.

Ward is a lecturer at Perimeter College at Georgia State University and author of Living Detroit: Environmental Activism in an Age of Urban Crisis.

Donations to the Walter P. Reuther Library Endowment Fund are gratefully accepted to support this podcast and enhance access to the Reuther Library’s collections.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewee: Brandon Ward
Music: Bart Bealmear

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Bargaining for the Common Good: Milton Tambor Reflects on 50 Years in Labor and Social Activism

January 14, 2022AFSCME, Labor History, UAW, Urban AffairsActivitism, AFSCME, Civil Rights, Detroit, Public Sector Workers, Strikes, UAW, Union OrganizingWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Labor leader and social activist Milton Tambor discusses his life’s work in Detroit since the 1950s as a social worker; AFSCME local union president, staff representative and assistant education director; and teaching faculty in both labor studies and social work at Wayne State University and other institutions. He also discusses the intersection of labor and social political movements through his involvement in organizations such as the Detroit Coalition to End the War Now, the Michigan Labor Committee on Central America, and the Democratic Socialists of America in both Detroit and Atlanta. Tambor recently published a memoir titled A Democratic Socialist’s Fifty Year Adventure.

Related Resources:
A Democratic Socialist’s Fifty Year Adventure

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewee: Milton Tambor
Music: Bart Bealmear

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Brewing a Boycott: Collective Activism and the Decades-Long Coors Beer Boycott

November 18, 2021Civil Rights, Labor HistoryActivitism, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, Anti-Unionism, Boycotts, Civil Rights, UAW, UFWWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Dr. Allyson Brantley explains how large and diverse groups joined together for a decades-long consumer boycott of the Coors Brewing Company to fight against its union busting, discriminatory hiring practices, and politics. Brantley is an assistant professor of history and Director of Honors & Interdisciplinary Initiatives at the University of La Verne and author of Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors and Remade American Consumer Activism.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Allyson Brantley
Music: Bart Bealmear

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Communists and Community in Wartime Detroit

October 29, 2021IWW, Labor History, UAW, Urban AffairsCommunism, Communists, Community Organizing, Detroit, Fair housing, IWW, Quality of Life, UAW, World War IIWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Dr. Ryan Pettengill explains how communist activists in Detroit worked with labor activists during and after the Second World War to enhance the quality of life in the community by advocating for civil rights, affordable housing, protections for the foreign-born, and more. Pettengill is a Professor of History at Collin College and author of Communists and Community: Activism in Detroit’s Labor Movement, 1941-1956.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Ryan Pettengill
Music: Bart Bealmear

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Midnight in Vehicle City: Modern Lessons From the Flint Sit-Down Strike

August 14, 2021Labor History, UAWFlint, Strikes, UAW, Union OrganizingWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Edward McClelland recounts the gripping details of the Flint sit-down strike, and considers what we can learn today from the strikers’ successful fight for shared prosperity in 1936-1937. McClelland is a journalist, historian, and author of Midnight in Vehicle City: General Motors, Flint, and the Strike That Built the Middle Class.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Edward McClelland
Music: Bart Bealmear

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From Bargaining Table to Diplomatic Table: Leonard Woodcock in China (Part 2)

May 27, 2021Labor History, UAW, Urban AffairsArchives, China, Diplomacy, Labor history, UAWWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

After Leonard Woodcock stepped down as president of the UAW in 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter sent him to Beijing as a diplomatic envoy and ultimately as the nation’s first ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. In the second of a two-part interview, his wife Sharon Woodcock talks about Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the United States; Leonard Woodcock’s work after leaving the State Department, including his work on the Board of Governors of Wayne State University; and his support of the Reuther Library. UAW archivist Gavin Strassel discusses Leonard Woodcock’s archival collections at the Reuther Library and the unique, first-hand view they provide into the formation of modern China and U.S / China relations.

Related Resources:
Collection Spotlight: Leonard Woodcock Papers

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Gavin Strassel
Interviewee: Sharon Woodcock
Music: Bart Bealmear

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From Bargaining Table to Diplomatic Table: Leonard Woodcock in China (Part 1)

May 7, 2021Labor History, UAW, Urban AffairsChina, Diplomacy, Foreign relations, Health and safety, Labor history, UAWWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Related Resources:
Collection Spotlight: Leonard Woodcock Papers

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Gavin Strassel
Interviewee: Sharon Woodcock
Music: Bart Bealmear

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The Long Deep Grudge: How the Haymarket “Riot” of 1886 Evolved into a Bitter Battle Between the Farm Equipment Workers Union and International Harvester in the Mid-Twentieth Century

December 18, 2020Labor History, UAW, UncategorizedAnti-Unionism, Labor history, Race Relations, Strikes, UAW, Union OrganizingWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Labor historian Dr. Toni Gilpin explores how the McCormick family’s greed and union-busting in the late 19th century set the stage for a bitter battle between the International Harvester corporation and the radical Farm Equipment Workers union in the 1930s and 1940s. Although the union was absorbed by the United Auto Workers in 1955, Gilpin describes how the militancy bred into generations of International Harvester workers influenced UAW tactics into the 1970s.

Dr. Gilpin’s book, The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland, received a Taft Labor History Award honorable mention award in 2020.

Related Collections:
UAW archival collections

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Toni Gilpin
Music: Bart Bealmear

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This Union Cause: The Queer History of the United Automobile Workers

June 18, 2020Labor History, UAWLGBTQ+, UAWWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Wayne State history PhD candidate James McQuaid discusses his research on the gradual cognizance and acceptance of queer autoworkers in the twentieth century, leading toward the UAW’s rapid embrace of LGBTQ-friendly policies and initiatives in the 1990s. He shares compelling stories of several queer auto workers, including: Billie Hill discovering a lesbian enclave in a Highland Park plant in the 1940s; Gary Kapanowski winning a 1973 union election despite being aggressively outed by a rival the day before; Joni Christian, a transgender woman whose union leadership at the GM Lordstown saved her job after returning to work following sexual reassignment surgery in the 1970s; and Ron Woods and Martha Grevatt, who in speaking out about the harassment they faced successfully led the UAW and Chrysler to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. McQuaid received the 2020 Wayne State History Department’s Joe L. Norris Endowed Award for his essay, “The First Ladies of Labor: How Women Challenged Restrictive Gender Conventions and Established Lesbian Identities on the UAW Shop Floor During World War II.” His dissertation is tentatively titled “This Union Cause: The Queer History of the United Automobile Workers.”

Related Collections:
Ed Liska Papers
Olga Madar Papers
UAW Region 1B Records

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: James McQuaid
Sound: Troy Eller English
With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, Paul Neirink, and Mary Wallace

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Hooked On The Line: Addiction and the North American Workplace, 1965-1995 (Part 1)

July 3, 2019Labor History, UAWAddiction, Health and safety, UAWWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

This is the first of a two-part interview with Dr. Jeremy Milloy about his forthcoming book, “Hooked On The Line: Addiction and the North American Workplace, 1965-95,” which explores the evolution of alcohol and drug addiction interventions in the workplace in the latter half of the 20th century. In this episode, Milloy explores the early days of addiction intervention in the workplace through programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, and then delves into an experimental, grant-funded UAW program in the 1970s called CHIP – Curb Heroin in Plants. An employee-led initiative, CHIP sought to treat heroin dependence in autoworkers through a combination of counseling and methadone maintenance.

Dr. Milloy is a postdoctoral fellow at the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies at Trent University. His work explores work, violence, addiction, and capitalism in Canada and the United States.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewer: Meghan Courtney
Interviewee: Jeremy Milloy
Sound: Troy Eller English

With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, and Paul Neirink

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Tales from the Reuther Library

Stories on labor history, Detroit, and Wayne State University

Tag Archives: UAW

Environmental Activism in Deindustrialized Detroit

Bargaining for the Common Good: Milton Tambor Reflects on 50 Years in Labor and Social Activism

Brewing a Boycott: Collective Activism and the Decades-Long Coors Beer Boycott

Communists and Community in Wartime Detroit

Midnight in Vehicle City: Modern Lessons From the Flint Sit-Down Strike

From Bargaining Table to Diplomatic Table: Leonard Woodcock in China (Part 2)

From Bargaining Table to Diplomatic Table: Leonard Woodcock in China (Part 1)

The Long Deep Grudge: How the Haymarket “Riot” of 1886 Evolved into a Bitter Battle Between the Farm Equipment Workers Union and International Harvester in the Mid-Twentieth Century

This Union Cause: The Queer History of the United Automobile Workers

Hooked On The Line: Addiction and the North American Workplace, 1965-1995 (Part 1)