G’day Meteor readers,

Happy belated Earth Day! Or as environmentalists like to call it, the one day a year that everyone collectively considers their impact on the environment even though the Earth tells us she has had enough of our nonsense literally every day.

Like everyone else worried about impeding climate doom, I dream of converting to a minimalist off-the-grid lifestyle every time Earth Day rolls around. But there’s a reason I’m a writer and not a survivalist tilling my own vegetable farm in the mountains like some of my relatives. Anywho! Thank heavens for these folks who are walking the walk and talking the talk for the planet.

In today’s newsletter reporter Esther Wang talks to labor journalist and Teen Vogue columnist Kim Kelly about her new book, Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor. They cover the hope springing from the current labor movement—along with what we can learn from the labor leaders of yore, namely the Black, brown, and Indigenous women who did all the dirty work and never got the Norma Rae treatment.

But first, let’s cruise through some news.

—Shannon Melero

WHAT’S GOING ON

• A small Kentucky victory: Earlier this month Kentucy passed HB3, an anti-abortion bill that forced the only two providers in the entire state to shut down. On Thursday, a federal judge granted one of those providers a temporary restraining order on the law, pointing out that it “took effect immediately with no opportunity for clinics to comply.” The good news is that this ruling means the law cannot be enforced for the next 14 days. The bad news is that the Kentucky courts have yet to rule on what happens after that. This is the Kentucky state legislature’s last chance to be on the right side of history or else we will have to ask them to sashay away.
• Derechos de los discapacidadxs: This week, SCOTUS upheld a ruling that will allow the U.S. to exclude American citizens living in Puerto Rico from a Supplemental Security Income program for disabled people. This decision comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Jose Luis Vaello Madero, a Puerto Rican-born New Yorker who received  SSI payments after becoming disabled. Not long after Madero returned to Puerto Rico the Social Security Administration sued him for the $28,000 he had received over four years. Two lower courts ruled in his favor, but SCOTUS reversed the rulings almost unanimously. The lone dissenter was Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
• Nassar aftermath: Thirteen women who were abused by Michigan State and USAG team doctor Larry Nassar are threatening to sue the FBI for $130 million. The women claim that the Bureau failed to fully investigate claims they were made aware of back in 2015. (Despite several local authorities having the accusations on file, Nassar continued to work as a sports doctor with young gymnasts for another 17 months.) According to ESPN, the women have to give the FBI six months to respond to their claim before they can fully sue. But if you ask me, these women have waited long enough for someone to take responsibility for this atrocity.

• More mask mayhem: The Department of Justice says it’s definitely appealing Monday’s court ruling striking down the mask mandate on public transportation, but the situation remains confusing: The DOJ’s appeal would simply allow the mandate to stay active until May 3, as originally intended; after that, federal courts could still appeal the mask rule. For now, the mandate is (mostly) in effect. What I want to know is who is really in charge here and can I speak to their manager?

AND:

• Et tu, Bill Murray?

• The Obamas are peacing out on their podcast deal with Spotify.

• NeNe Leakes is suing Bravo for encouraging racism. I want to be shocked by this but, as an avid Bravo watcher, it was only a matter of time. I mean, for Christ’s sake nearly all of their big shows are entirely segregated.

• Zendaya talking about Tom Holland’s love and support makes me feel loved and supported.

• Something for my fellow history enthusiasts: there’s a heated ongoing struggle between James Madison’s plantation and the descendants of the people who were enslaved there.

• “Remember when Earth Day used to be cool?”

• Footage reveals that during an unprompted raid on the Al-Aqsa mosque, Israeli Special Forces targeted journalists as well as civilians.

HISTORY LESSON

The Rest of the Story Behind America’s Labor Movement

A new book looks to ensure women’s place in union history is undisputed 

BY ESTHER WANG

KIM KELLY STUNTIN’ ON THESE UNION HATING CORPORATIONS. (PHOTO BY ELIZABETH KRIETSCHMAN)

Labor journalist Kim Kelly’s new book, Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor, comes at the perfect time, as enthusiasm for labor unions is at the highest point in decades, and workers from Amazon warehouses to Starbucks stores are demanding more—better pay, dignity on the job, and a say in their workplace. Her book goes beyond the simplified history we’re exposed to in textbooks (and that’s if we’re lucky) to tell a fuller, and therefore more true, story of the labor movement, as well as our country. Her message? “This is your history, too,” Kelly said. “And it’s also our future.”

Esther Wang: You started off your book by acknowledging the enormous debt the labor movement owes to women—immigrant women from countries all over the world, Black women, and queer and trans women. Why did it feel necessary and important to tell those stories?

Kim Kelly: I wanted to focus specifically on women just because we’re so often left out of the equation when it comes to writing about labor and labor history and the idea of the working class and what a worker looks like in this country. There’s this enduring avatar of the working class in this country that is the straight white guy and a hard hat. And he belongs here, he’s done a lot of great work, too. My dad is that guy. But if you look at the actual composition of the labor movement, the most common face of a union member in this country is a Black woman who probably works in home health care or domestic work. It’s not even a shift—it’s kind of always been like that.

You include the stories of labor activists like Dorothy Bolden, Rosa Flores, and Ella May Wiggins. What would it mean for all of us if we looked to those women as labor leaders from the past? 

I think it would reframe a lot of the perceptions of what organized labor and collective power look like. Dorothy Lee Bolden started working as a domestic worker when she was nine years old. She’s visually impaired. She grew up in the forties and fifties in the South as a Black woman. So she had every possible disadvantage, but she managed to overcome those obstacles that were unfairly thrown her way. She made history in a way that was so incredible, the way that she organized and worked and advocated for domestic workers [as the founder of the National Domestic Workers Union of America].  At its height, it had about 10,000 members. They organized to win fair wages and to professionalize household work. They were people that were seen as unorganizable. And they’re like, well, we’ll just organize ourselves.

Ella May Wiggins, who died on the picket line, who was this balladeer who was the heart and soul of a strike down in Gastonia, she’s another Joe Hill. She’s another Billy Bragg. Rosa Flores was this 18-year-old woman who ended up being the face of an entire massive strike for being this militant presence, for seeing what the world offered her as a young Chicana woman and was like, well, that’s not good enough.

That is the kind of energy that we need to be bringing to the labor movement. That’s the kind of energy that it always had, but it’s been buried under white patriarchal bullshit.

You make it so clear and so apparent that labor issues, workers’ rights, and the fight for a union are intertwined with so many other issues—Black liberation, immigrant rights, feminist battles, disability rights. They’re not silos. 

One of the greatest truths that we have found to be evident over and over and over again throughout the history of labor and work in this country is that solidarity between workers is the greatest weapon that we have. And solidarity means obviously standing up for people that are on your side, but also people that maybe don’t look like you or talk like you or come from the same background, but are also dealing with the ravages of capital, dealing with bad bosses, dealing with mistreatment.

I think every story is a labor story because wherever you’re coming from, wherever you’re going, whoever you are, you’ve probably either had a job or you have a job now, or you’re going to have a job. And that common ground really is a uniting force.

There’s so much momentum and energy in labor right now, stemming from the successful Amazon unionization drive, the workers organizing Starbucks, the mining families on strike that you’ve been following for more than a year in Alabama at Warrior Met Coal. How are you thinking about what’s happening?

History is being made right now, from Amazon to Starbucks, to Appalachian coal mines, and in North Hollywood strip clubs. There’s momentum. And I think it’s just been very inspiring for folks that maybe for a long time thought there wasn’t any hope, or maybe thought that there wasn’t any room for them in the labor movement. To go back to Amazon and Starbucks, those movements have been led predominantly by Black workers and workers of color, young queer workers, a lot of women, nonbinary people—the exact workers that common wisdom or whatever has told us are not organizable. They are organizing, and they’re winning.

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