This week, I read Kim Kelly’s excellent book Fight Like Hell: the untold history of American labor. I’ve been excited to read it for a long time and I hope to interview Kelly for my documentary. I like Kelly’s work because it is thorough and well-researched, yet written accessibly. Accessibility is deeply important to me in my own work – what good is a documentary about labor rights if it doesn’t serve the people who stand to benefit from it the most?
Kelly’s book could best be described as an intersectional survey of American labor history. Covering various labor movements spanning multiple centuries up until the present, Kelly specifically draws attention to the contributions of marginalized organizers and their specific struggles within various labor movements. Furthermore, Kelly explicitly names times organized labor and key figures within movements have left out BIPOC, women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, disabled people, and sex workers, to name some of the people left behind by mass movements. This history celebrates the significant achievements of workers who came together for greater labor protections and reminds readers of the immense work left to be done.
While I deeply enjoyed Kelly’s book and it solidified my desire to interview her, she did not closely cover the Starbucks workers efforts. She references the Pullman workers and George Pullman, the owner of the Pullman company, as being credited with the origination of tipped work. I’m curious to know if she would consider the Pullman workers’ eventual union the first service workers union. Aaliyah had also suggested I find a backup source in case I’m not able to interview Kelly and I plan on doing so.
I’m excited to share that on Monday, I went to my first union meeting! I have been invited to film at next week’s meeting, which is the union preparing for the Red Cup strike planned in November. The Starbucks union has also kindly offered to help with the creation of my facilitation guide. Finally, I plan on eventually holding interviews in the labor office – it provides an interesting background and is a safer place to meet than people’s workplaces.
Works Cited
Kelly, K. (2023). Fight like hell: the untold history of American labor. One Signal Publishers.