How Hollywood’s Black Friday Strike Changed Labor Across America

A 1945 Union vs. Studios Battle Set Off Broad Right-Wing Hysteria—Its Lessons Should Resonate Today

It was October 5, 1945. The Conference of Studio Unions (CSU), a union representing craft laborers in Los Angeles, including painters, carpenters, set designers, cartoonists, and others, was seven months into a major strike that was causing Hollywood studio moguls to panic. Although major studios, including Columbia, RKO, and Universal, had over 100 unreleased films in the can, ready to be released, the CSU’s strike actions, as well as movie theater boycotts, were an effective blow against the post-war studio system.

Now, the strikers gathered at the Warner Bros. employee entrance …

by Gerald Horne and Anthony Ballas | November 9, 2023

The 1970s Beer Boycott Inspiring Amazon Organizers Today

Over the Course of a Decade, a Diverse Bay Area Coalition Convinced Coors to Change Its Employment Practices

by Allyson P. Brantley | April 21, 2022

In 1973, San Francisco beer delivery drivers were at odds with local beer distributors over low wages, union-busting efforts, and employment discrimination. Distributors of the Colorado-based Coors Brewing Company were …

When Jewish Wives Beefed With Butchers and Changed the World

If You’ve Participated in a Community Protest or Consumer Boycott, You Can Thank the Great Kosher Meat Strike of 1902

by Scott D. Seligman | November 5, 2020

Sarah Edelson had been pushed too far.

The price of the kosher meat that she and most of the half million or so Jewish homemakers on Manhattan’s Lower East Side …

Why California’s Kids Should Go on Strike

As COVID Collapses Budgets, It’s Up to Children to Save Their Schools

by Joe Mathews | June 2, 2020

Dear California Kids,

Don’t let us adults destroy your futures! This time of “distance learning” and COVID-19 chaos is the opportunity of a generation—maybe a century—to fix what’s so very wrong …

The Sleeping Car King Who Brought America to the “Ragged Edge of Anarchy”

George Pullman’s Unbending Business Acumen Made Him a Mogul, But Also Inspired the Greatest Labor Uprising of the 19th Century

by Jack Kelly | January 10, 2019

George M. Pullman literally raised Chicago from the mud. He introduced luxury to the nation’s rail lines. He even created a model company town for his workers—a feat that prompted …

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