Mark Maynard | labor history

Walking the secret passageways of Harry Bennett’s heavily-fortified Ypsilanti castle

By Mark | February 21, 2012

I just received a note from Nathan Ayers, the guy who won the first $1,000 grant from A2Awesome. He wanted to let me know that, back in 1984, the television program PM Magazine ran a feature on Harry Bennett’s fortress on the banks of the Huron River, in Ypsilanti. Bennett, for those of you don’t […]

Posted in A2Awesome, History, Ypsilanti | Also tagged anti-Semitic, automotive industry, Battle of the Overpass, castles, Charles Coughlin, Communism, exotic animals, FDR, fear of Communism, Flint, Ford Hunger March, Ford Motor Company, Ford Service Department, Ford's Service Department, General Motors, Great Depression, Greenfield Village, Harry Bennett, Harry Bennett's Castle, Henry Ford, Hilter, Huron River, industrial revolution, lions, mansions, manufacturing, middle class, murder, Nathan Ayers, New Deal, PM Magazine, private armies, race baiting, River Rouge, safe house, secret passageways, strike breaking, threats to the middle class, tigers, turrets, union busting, Walter Reuther | 36 Comments

So, what’s the Washtenaw Community Action Team?

By Mark | October 17, 2011

I’d heard mention of the Washtenaw Community Action Team over the past several months or so, but I never really took the time to figure out how they fit into the local ecosystem of left-leaning political organizations, or what their objectives were. Fortunately, however, I had the occasion this past weekend to exchange a few […]

Posted in Ann Arbor, Corporate Crime, History, Michigan, Politics, Ypsilanti | Also tagged 40 hour work week, AAUP, Adam Warner, AFL-CIO, America Votes Labor Unity Fund, astroturf, banks, bridges, child labor, civil disobedience, collective bargaining, commencement, corporatocracy, Flint, Graduate Employees Organization, Great Flint Sit Down Strike, Gregg Barak, Howard Bunsis, Ian Robinson, infrastructure, Inside Job, Jane Slaughter, Koch brothers, labor, Martin Luther King, Maureen Taylor, Mehmet Yaya, Occupy Ann Arbor, Occupy Detroit, Occupy Wall Street, OWS, protests, Public Act 4, Right to Teach, right-to-work, Solidarity Forever, Stadium Bridge, Stand Against Snyder, Tom Weisskopf, UM Graduate Research Assistants, UMHS nurses, unions, Wall Street, Washtenaw Community Action Team, WCAT, We Are One, We Are The People, Wisconsin, With Babies and Banners: A Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade | 10 Comments

Threats to American workers demand a President like FDR

By Mark | April 4, 2011

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has a great column about Maine Governor Paul LePage up on the Christian Science Monitor website this evening. LePage, as you’ll recall from our conversation a few days ago, is the man who recently made headlines for ordering murals depicting the advances of organized labor to be painted […]

Posted in Corporate Crime, History, Politics | Also tagged 1936, 40 hour work week, collective bargaining, Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, deregulation, FDR, Frances Perkins, Franklin D. Roosevelt, GE, Jeffrey Immelt, labor, minimum wage, monopoly, New Deal, Obama, open for business, Paul LePage, privatization, Robert Reich, rolling back the New Deal, unions, Wall Street | 11 Comments

Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire

By Mark | March 27, 2011

As I didn’t see it anywhere in the corporate media over the past few days, I thought that I should at least mention that March 25th marked the 100th anniversary of New York’s Triangle Factory Fire. The tragic event claimed the lives of 146 people, most of them young immigrant women, and galvanized the American […]

Posted in History, Other, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged 1911, Asch Building, Clara Lemlich, cloakmakers, collective bargaining, Frances Perkins, garment trade, International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, Maine, murals, Paul LePage, Pinkertons, revisionist history, rewriting history, sweatshop, Triangle Factory Fire, Triangle Waist Company, union busting, unions, William Looney, Women's Trade Union League, worker safety, workers rights | 13 Comments

On the ground in Madison, fighting for the American middle class

By Mark | February 26, 2011

All over the nation today, at noon, people held rallies in support of the men and women of Wisconsin’s public unions. The folks at MoveOn, who were helping with the logistics, where calling it “The Rally to Save the American Dream.” The photo accompanying this post comes from my friend Murph, who spent the afternoon […]

Posted in Observations, Other, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged "kill the bill", Aaron Stark, collective bargaining, Doug Henwood, Frank Zeidler, Harley-Davidson, Joe McCarthy, Joel Rogers, Madison, Medicaid, Murph, Oscar Meyer, outside agitators, protests, public employee unions, Rally to Save the American Dream, Robert "FIghting Bob" LaFollette, Russ Feingold, Scott Walker, Solidarity Forever, the growing gap between rich and poor, threats to the middle class, union busting, University of WIsconsin Madison, Wisconsin, WORT | 45 Comments

Tag Archives: labor history

Walking the secret passageways of Harry Bennett’s heavily-fortified Ypsilanti castle

So, what’s the Washtenaw Community Action Team?

Threats to American workers demand a President like FDR

Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire

On the ground in Madison, fighting for the American middle class

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