Breaking Chains from Memphis to Baseball

Breaking Chains from Memphis to Baseball

Author: laborradiopodcastweekly April 5, 2026 Duration: 29:22
On this week’s Labor History Today: In April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. stood with striking sanitation workers in Memphis—members of AFSCME Local 1733—delivering his powerful “Mountaintop” speech just one day before his assassination. We reflect on King’s labor legacy and what it means for organizing today. With the 2026 baseball season underway, we also take a look at the business of the game, featuring a segment from the Heartland Labor Forum on how players organized to break free from a system that bound them to their teams—and built one of the most powerful unions in the country. Along the way, Conor Casey, Labor Archivist and Head of the Labor Archives at the University of Washington, brings us the story of the Seattle Union Record, a pioneering labor newspaper that showed the power of workers telling their own stories. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

Tune in to Labor Radio-Podcast Weekly for a curated soundscape of voices often missing from mainstream headlines. This program acts as your direct line to the stories, struggles, and victories of working people across the nation, stitching together the most compelling segments from a diverse network of worker-focused shows. Each episode is a digest of on-the-ground perspectives, featuring conversations about workplace organizing, economic justice, policy debates, and the cultural issues that shape daily life for millions. You’ll hear from organizers, journalists, and workers themselves, offering analysis and personal narratives that go beyond simple news summaries. While the podcast compiles these highlights for on-demand listening, it also originates as a radio feature, airing weekday mornings on WPFW 89.3 FM in Washington, D.C. This dual identity ensures the content is both timely and deeply rooted in community broadcasting traditions. For anyone looking to understand the real conversations happening within the labor movement, this podcast provides an essential, unfiltered compilation. It’s more than a review; it’s a weekly immersion into the ongoing fight for fairness and dignity on the job, delivered with the urgency and authenticity that these topics demand.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Labor Radio-Podcast Weekly
Podcast Episodes
Labor Day Around the Working World [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:00
On this special Labor Day edition of the Labor Radio Podcast Weekly, working people share stories of skill, struggle and power—from an Asbury Park beach to a nuclear-waste facility more than 2,000 feet underground. Proje…
Surveillance Won’t Stop Solidarity [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:44
On this week’s Labor Radio/Podcast Weekly: Labor Force and Labor Notes report on federal surveillance and investigations targeting Minnesota union members resisting immigration raids—and the workers refusing to be intimi…
Your Weekly Shot of Hope: Labor Media from the Streets [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:00
On this week’s Labor Radio Podcast Weekly, Chris Garlock, Patrick Dixon and Harold Phillips bring you another grassroots antidote to corporate media, featuring selections from across the Labor Radio Podcast Network’s mor…
Red Scares and Union Fights [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:01
On this week’s Labor Radio Podcast Weekly: Next Gen Carriers on The Valley Labor Report reports on challenges to letter-carrier union leadership;Maryland Labor History explains a Baltimore museum’s new name; Apple Box Ta…
From Riot Dogs to Radio Waves [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:08
This week on Labor Radio/Podcast Weekly: Filipino migrant workers fight back against union busting in Taiwan, protesters and their canine comrades take to the streets in Chile and Greece, and labor activists revisit the…
Worker Power From Cincinnati to Chennai [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:25
This week on Labor Radio/Podcast Weekly, Boiling Point explores hospitality-worker organizing in Cincinnati and celebrates its 100th episode; Blue Collar News launches a new series on Native workers in Montana's skilled…
On Strike, On Stage, On TikTok [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:31
On the Labor Radio Podcast Weekly: Work Week Radio: ILWU Local 6 members take on C&H Sugar in a strike over jobs, safety and respect.Blue Collar News: Terrie Trettenback examines the case of a worker at Hometown Harvest…
From Heat Waves to Toy Story: Workers Organize the Future [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:00
On the Labor Radio Podcast Weekly: Roswell Hub — Teamsters discuss surviving extreme heat on the job and the contract rights that can save workers' lives.Labor Force — AI, gig work, engineering, ports, and video games al…
First Contracts, Strike Data & Starbucks Organizing [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:59
This week on the Labor Radio Podcast Weekly: Work Stoppage examines the Faster Labor Contracts Act and whether it could finally speed first-contract negotiations. Reinventing Solidarity digs into the Labor Action Tracker…