Only two states pay their teachers less than West Virginia.
One of them is Oklahoma, which is about to see a statewide teachers strike.

Today is International Women's Day, but how many know its origins that Socialists and Communists in NYC started it as a Labor Rights movement?(I didn't)/Conflagrant Teachers Strikes across the country are waking people up/"Strike!" - The Great Upheaval of 1877

This is from the Socialist Workerand has their slant if any: Huge strikes shut France down—and could bring government to its knees

"Terrors Reign, The Streets of Chicago Given Over to Howling Mobs of Thieves and Cutthroats."
-Chicago Times headline, 1877

On August 3, 1986, Florence Reece passed away at the age of 86. She was one of the greatest poets, songwriters, and social activists to ever come out of the Kentucky hills. Her signature song was "Which Side Are You On?"

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features slide guitarist, cousin of Elmore James, Homesick James. Enjoy!

[The 1946 coal strike] is the most momentous event in the country's peacetime history."
- Evansville Courier, 1946

When most people think of labor unrest in America they think of the 1930's, or the various major strikes of the 19th Century. The fact is that no year, before or since, saw so many strikes, and such a large percentage of people on strike, or so many industries effected by strikes, as 1946.
Never before had labor unions flexed so much muscle.

On a Dreary Morning in May of 1920 Seven Men Carrying Winchesters and pistols boarded the Norfolk and Western's No. 29 at Bluefield, West Virginia, bound for the little mining town of Matewan on the Kentucky border.
- Robert Shogan

Most people who know something about union history are familiar with the Ludlow Massacre in 1914, where the Baldwin Felts Detective Agency and the Colorado National Guard killed 18 people, mostly women and children.
What most people aren't familiar with is that the Ludlow Massacre was just one event in more than 30 years of bloody labor struggle in the mountains of Colorado.

On November 22, 1909, thousands of New York shirtwaist textile workers met at the Cooper Union building to meet with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union’s Local 25 leaders to discuss working conditions and wages. Like most organizations in those days, the ILGWU was led by men.