Songs of Workers Struggles
Before the first words were spoken there was music, humming and tapping and grunts and groans as early humans picked berries, hauled firewood and butchered meat. One can imagine that the first songs were lullabies to complement one of the first human jobs – parenting. The symbiotic relationship between music and work evolved long before agriculture was widespread but undoubtedly flourished in the fields and in the emergent communities where people could sing together. Songs relieve the boredom of tedious work whether hoeing corn or sewing clothes; make group tasks more efficient when hoisting sail or lining track; and celebrate the accomplishments of peoples’ labor.
Increasing industrialization of work brought industrialized exploitation of workers.
Slave Labor
Plantations were the early model for industrialized agriculture predicated on minimizing labor costs through the use of slave labor and later Jim Crow peonage and providing as few benefits as possible – just enough to keep the laborers alive. This model generated enormous profits for the owners through lucrative cash crops like sugar and cotton. The model continues today in fields, factories and warehouses where the poor and immigrants are exploited to benefit the rich.
Industrialization of work
Industrialization of work brought industrialization of resistance with workers banding together for better pay and safer working conditions and songs were a key element of that resistance and struggle. Songs of struggle came from specific industries such as mining, railroads, textiles, whaling and sailing and others. Each generated specific songs among the workers and each also built on an amalgamation of influences from people from around the world who willingly or not formed the American workforce. African slaves generated perhaps the richest array of music including gospel, spirituals, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll through songs of redemption, deliverance, escape and struggle.
Women were subject to not only worker exploitation but also sexual abuse and the added burden of child care overshadowed for enslaved women by the likelihood their children would be sold and be lost to them. Their songs from lullabies to laments reflected the added burden of their lives.
Industrialization added a new element – a management hierarchy where owners and executives were increasing disconnected from their workers. Songs evolved to the new reality of the workers lives with laments about the treatment of workers, songs of protest and anger and as a way to bring workers together and make themselves heard.
Early worker songs were largely created improvisationally in the oral tradition by the people directly involved. Soon some of the songs were written down and often written about a specific event such as a strike, a tragedy such as a mine cave in or a demand. Such was the case with early workers songs like the Billy Pastor’s “Eight Hour Strike” (1872) and “The Worker’s Anvil” by Laura M. Griffing (1878).
Labor protest songs
Labor protest songs really came to the fore in 1909 when a committee of Spokane, Washington, IWW members published the “Little Red Songbook” and gave birth to protest music. The IWW, The Industrial Workers of the World, the most radical, inclusive and feared labor union of the twentieth century, understood the power of song to carry the message and rally their supporters. That first songbook contained iconic labor songs including “The Red Flag,” “The Internationale,” “The Preacher and the Slave,” and “Solidarity Forever” from Wobblies, as IWW members were known, such as Ralph Chaplin, T-Bone Slim and most famously Joe Hill.
Strike songs
But workers songs are more than vehicles to rally the troops, they are an important tool for recording and passing on history. Songs document the struggles and tragedies of the fight for worker rights with songs such as the 1913 Massacre about striking copper miners in Calumet, Michigan; the 1914 Ludlow massacre in Colorado; the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City in 1911; the Harlan County Wars in the 1930’s and the 1912 Bread and Roses Lawrence textile strike.
History is important both to know where we came from and to inform our present circumstance, but is music still important, do songs still have the power to energize workers and movements? Seemingly every college teaches business courses, business leaders are constantly on TV and on social media often with millions of followers but workers, real honest laborers can be hard to find and are seldom heard. But in song, you will hear the stories of people struggling to make a living, dealing with the realities of being excluded from health services, who are homeless, who are immigrants facing not only the daunting task of surviving in a foreign land but who are targets of scorn and exploitation. Their stories are important both so workers are seen and so we may all be reminded of our shared humanity.
Do songs still have the power to energize workers and movements? In November of last year, Scott Hayes wrote a parody about Shawn Fain, the president of United Auto Workers (UAW). The union stood up to the Big Three and won.
Songs still lift the spirits of striking auto workers, of people protesting at Standing Rock and of frontline workers struggling for a living wage. Singing together lifts our spirits and lifts our heads so we can see the way forward.
Ron Cooke is the author of a book of short stories and poems entitled Obituaries and Other Lies (available at Amazon); writes a well-received blog (ASSV4U.com/blog); and hosts a weekly radio show called Music They Don’t Want You to Hear on KTAL-LP in Las Cruces, NM. He is also a founding director of A Still Small Voice 4U, a not for profit supporting arts, culture and community that presents folk concerts, sponsors artists, festivals and community groups.