Labor Heritage Foundation
There was a time when a column like this...devoted to folk and roots music...was the only place you might find any mention of what people commonly called "labor music." You know what I mean: "Union Maid" or "Joe Hill" or "Solidarity Forever." It was acoustic, esoteric, almost entirely male, and certainly entirely white. The 30's to the 50's defined what was to perceived from that time forward as the "union song." Despite the fact that millions of immigrants flocked to the union movement, with the exception of The Internationale, everything was in English. When Joe McCarthy started red-baiting, the labor movement ran in droves from anything that remotely smacked of the S(socialism)-word...including its own history. It's still in a pretty solid sprint and has seldom looked back. A lot of the material that was the bread and butter of labor music was seen as "too hot" and many of the singers who previously issued recordings, sang at benefits, penned songs for strikes, preserved labor culture were, regardless of actual political beliefs or associations, shunned as well. In slightly later days...after the feared and reviled native Reds had faded to a more palatable shade of Pink in the public eye...labor music and musicians began to be recognized as historical curiosities, their songs anachronistic and "safe." Marginalized, nonetheless. Bring a labor singer up from time to time at some union convention...it'll be a chance to give a nod to "labor culture" and catch a quick smoke between sessions. Believe me, I've been there... Worse yet, it was, of course, "performed" by "professionals." Nothing could be worse for real culture than to turn it over solely to professionals.
What we've bought into...even in the AFM...is that labor music is as described above. We're held captive to a small piece of history...a Golden Age for labor music, to be sure...but as romantically outdated as the forty hour week and as out of touch with reality as your local congressperson.
See, what the music industry found out early is that you can't sell a product that no one is buying. When they realized they couldn't turn a profit on union songs they left them for dead. What no one counted on happening was people in the labor movement taking things into their own hands: guitars, pens, paint brushes, scripts, chisels, and cameras. Culture on the sub-industrial level. You don't have to buy something that already belongs to you.
And so it is with many rank-and-file unionists around the world: Christmas carols become anti-company parodies in strike-torn Decatur, IL. Giant puppets roam UMW picket lines in Castelwood, VA. Working people and their concerns find their way to cable channels across the country via the California-originated We Do the Work. Murals sprout on walls in Austin, MN. Teacher's aides write poetry during their lunch breaks in Houston. A Kansas City steelworker writes and performs anti-NAFTA rock and roll songs at rallies coast to coast. An autoworker in Detroit composes rap songs about his job. A Chicana farmworker from Ohio performs music to move both your hips and your heart. And, increasingly, these workers are finding their way to "labor arts gatherings" that are multiplying across America...largely with the support and the example of the Labor Heritage Foundation.
Since 1979 the Washington-based Labor Heritage Foundation has served as both a gathering place, a reference service, and a clearing house for connecting labor arts activists with the labor community at large. Additionally, it's provided a forum for these activists to share their skills and experiences via the Great Labor Arts Exchange, held each June at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in Silver Spring, MD. 1995's 17th Annual Great Labor Arts Exchange attracted over 100 unionists for a three day blitz of workshops, song and art exchanges, training sessions, and, of course, parties. Our heroes are honored....an annual Joe Hill Award is given to celebrate a lifetime of union activism. Our elders are celebrated...long-time activists like 1930's Southern Tenant Farmers Union organizer and songwriter (Roll the Union On) John Handcox was a regular attendee until his death a few years back. Newcomers are warmly welcomed...the music is now more likely to be rock and roll, rap, gospel, Latino. And, most importantly, the focus is democratized...special recruitment is made in local unions to assure involvement of rank-and-file workers. The result is a sense of vibrancy and depth that is both exciting and hopeful...reordering people's notion of labor culture and its relevance in our society.
Beyond the GLAE, the Labor Heritage Foundation operates a referral service for unions seeking singers, songwriters, dramatists, and other artists. It provides on-going workshops and training for union members on how to use various cultural tools to build their locals and our unions. It produces shows and concerts of various labor artists. And, perhaps most importantly, it aids in the development of regional labor arts gatherings throughout the country. California, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Rhode Island, Washington, and Tennessee have all started on-going labor arts exchanges. These gatherings have multiplied the efforts begun at the GLAE and localized the participation of cultural workers. Groups like North Carolina's Grassroots Leadership have further expanded the idea behind these gatherings and hold an annual conference linking union and community activists for dialogue and strategy sessions.
But, I guess, the question still remains "Why should the Labor Movement care about music, etc. in the first place?" In these union-unfriendly times, with membership in decline, the movement embattled on all sides, and concessionary contracts a starting point rather than an end result doesn't music seem a marginal concern?
Organizing and culture go hand in hand. Organizing makes culture an instrumental, rather than merely an ornamental, part of life. Culture gives organizing perspective and depth. You have to organize hearts as well as heads. Any experienced organizer knows people will often go further on what they feel than on what they know. But without the tools to explore their own experiences, without a history upon which they can call for encouragement and example, without a means of connecting with other people in ways that are profound and universal people end up isolated, frustrated, and disenfranchised. So while culture provides organizing a perspective in which to view itself, organizing provides the necessary pressure that forces culture to adapt and reinvent itself. Culture provides organizing a lens through which to view that which is common and commonly held among groups of individuals. And culture gives us a language to talk about ourselves in ways we can not or will not speak. It allows us to have the tools to disarm the powerful via parody and satire. To sense strength in numbers...past and present. And, perhaps most crucially, it affords us the ability to determine the ways in which we are publicly represented and defined...something government and management has had a corner on for too damn long.
In 1995...when people buy entertainment rather than make it, when specialists provide everything, when people "caught" singing in their cars at stop lights act as if they've done something wrong...few things could be more revolutionary than the notion of a singing union movement. But never could the time be more ripe. Anyone who's ever found themselves on the entreated end of a sing along knows that volume and harmony depend on only two things: our courage and our differences. We've got plenty of both. Luckily, the Labor Heritage Foundation recognizes both the depth of our history and the pressure of the future. By celebrating equally the life-long cultural professional and the day-to-day worker lifting their voice or hand in celebration of our shared culture we can hope that our children will know "Joe Hill" and how to sing their own song, as well.
The 18th Annual Great Labor Arts Exchange will be held July 23-25, 1996. For information contact the Labor Heritage Foundation, 815 16th St. NW, Room 301, Washington, DC 20006.