Joanna's blog
Toots and June Return to Honor Their Co-Workers
Submitted by Joanna on September 5, 2011 - 9:11pm
On Friday, September 2, in
Ottawa, Illinois, on the site of the old Radium Dial plant a life-sized bronze statue of a young woman holding a flower in one hand and a paint brush in the other was unveiled. She is the symbol of the Radium Girls, the women workers in the watch and clock factories that dotted this area in the 1920s through 1940s. Their job was to paint those glow-in-the dark dials so popular in the day. To do this, management told them to shape a sharp point by licking the brushes soaked with deadly radium. Ottawa was a big center for this industry. Surviving employees Toots Fuller and June Menne presided over the unveiling.
By 1925, manufacturers were aware of the toxic effects of radium, but said nothing to their employees and took no precautions. Many of these workers died agonizing deaths from the effects of radium poisoning. They say that if you pass a Geiger counter over their graves in the Catholic cemetery outside Ottawa it will still tick a warning.
Seven of the dying Ottawa women initiated a lawsuit against the company in 1934. They were dubbed the “society of the living dead,” racing the clock against a slow and cumbersome legal system for their justice. The case eventually made it to the Supreme Court, which ruled in the women’s favor.
“The Rich Have Their Own Photographers”
Submitted by Joanna on January 31, 2011 - 11:30pm
That’s how Milton Rogovin explained why the subjects of his acclaimed photographs were the working people in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, in West Virginia, Kentucky and all over the world. He died last week at his home in Buffalo at 101 years of age. Up until the last weeks of his life, he never missed the Women in Black vigils against the war every Saturday.
A member of the Communist Party who was witch-hunted out of his optometry business (he refused to testify to HUAC), Rogovin took up photography “because he couldn’t find a job.” The result: over 11,000 images of working men and women over a 30 year period.
Two days after his death, his son Mark Rogovin shared insights about his father’s passion at the opening of “The Working-Class Eye of Milton Rogovin in Chicago’s Gage Gallery. Rogovin never titled any of his pieces. It was up to the viewer to think about them on their own. He tried to make sure that every subject in Buffalo received a copy of their photo, going back to their homes to deliver them personally. Decades later, he would return to re-shoot his subjects surrounded by generations of their families. Lasting relationships developed. When they memorialize him in Buffalo, many will bring their photos with them.
Enough Is Enough... We’re Human Beings
Submitted by Joanna on July 23, 2010 - 4:09pm
Hundreds of hotel workers, members of UNITE-HERE Local 1, and their supporters confronted the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago today, July 22. In front of this glitzy hotel, some dimwit in management had placed a sign thanking the Hyatt employees for helping them win the Chicago Workplace Excellence Award. Just a few weeks ago, these very same employees walked off the job to protest horrendous working conditions.
Outside in the streets, workers and their supporters were laying their bodies on the line for justice and getting arrested for blocking a major artery. The action was one of 15 across the country today coordinated by Hotel Workers Rising to demand a decent contract with this hotel chain. Today’s demonstrations follow on the heels of coordinated protests in June, when union members and their supporters from other unions, the religious and LGBT communities showed up to shame and denounce the Hyatt chain while its first-ever shareholders meeting was taking place. (Hyatt big-wig Doug Manchester is throwing around big bucks in California to stop gay marriage.)
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