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The Legacy of Clinton Jencks

Michael Myerson Monthly Review
In the postwar-Cold War period U.S. corporations used anti-communist hysteria to attack the labor movement. Salt of the Earth - tells the story of heroic Mexican American mineworkers, and the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers.

Revolutionary Mexico in Chicago

Justin Akers Chacón Monthly Review
In Chicago, Mexican workers formed the ranks of a proletariat that drew from these historical experiences and contemporary events in Mexico, moving into left politics and communist-led U.S. labor unions during the years of the Great Depression.

poetry

Mexican American Disambiguation

José Olivarez Hyperallergic
The son of Mexican immigrants, the poet José Olivarez explores the ambiguities (and realities) that determine who labels whom in the discourse of ethnic identity.

This Day in Labor History: September 16, 2004

Erik Loomis Lawyers, Guns and Money
On September 16, 2004, Mt. Olive Pickles finally came to an agreement with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, ending a lengthy boycott of the company. This groundbreaking farm workers union launched one of the most successful organizing campaigns of the last 25 years in the South and demonstrate the continued vitality of farmworker unions in the present. FLOC was successful with these workers because they became a way for workers to express their own power.

These Things Can Change

David Bacon & Rosario Ventura; Photos by David Bacon Dolars & Sense, March/April 2015 issue
Hiring migrant farm labor is very profitable for big agribusiness. Last year workers walked out of the fields at Sakuma Brothers Farms in Washington - one of the largest berry growers in the state. Berries are big business, with annual sales of $6.1 million, and big corporate customers like Häagen Dazs ice cream. Here is their story.
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