Night Shifts, Mine Strikes and Workers on Stage
On this week's Labor Heritage Power Hour: A mother sorts mail through the night. Miners occupy a coal plant. Baristas turn their organizing struggles into theater. This week’s Labor Heritage Power Hour explores how workers preserve their stories—and find power in telling them.
Artist and writer Clifford Thompson takes us through Ma at the Post Office, his wordless, 25-panel tribute to the mother who supported him and his grandmother by working nights in Washington, DC. Small details reveal exhaustion, workplace camaraderie and the family life her labor made possible. Then producer Anthony Dominiczak takes us along Virginia’s Gravel Lick Road, connecting the Musick family’s devastating losses during the Harlan County Coal War with the 1989 occupation of Pittston’s Moss Number Three plant. Decades later, miners and neighbors joined forces again to oppose a landfill at the historic site. Finally, Bread & Roses Missouri’s Emily Kohring and worker-performers Alex Barge and Iana Rain discuss this year’s Workers’ Opera. Through music, sketches and poetry, workers bring organizing, bad bosses, racial injustice and hope to the stage. The production runs October 9–11 at Jefferson Avenue Mission in St. Louis. Find tickets at breadandrosesmo.org.
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