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I can't stop reading the 1793 third edition of "A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" (originally published 1785). I have been irritating all my friends and coworkers with fun new terms like "That's the barber!" and "He looks like God's revenge against murder."

Anyway, Ash talked me into drawing some of the phrases and I ended up with these little mid-1780s Londoners.

✨✨ Congratulations to Sega of America and our INDUSTRY LEADING union contract ✨✨

With a gratifyingly massive vote in favour we ratified our contract guaranteeing worker protections, increased wages, credit for all games worked on and more!

We are the largest and only multi-department video game union, and hope this joyous news will encourage others to organize and fight for their own employee rights in our beloved, but layoff-plagued industry.

I'M SO PROUD TO BE A MEMBER OF AEGIS 💙💙

Would you go down and give me head?💦🤫

tumblr: your boss is not your friend! they shouldn't be making you do emotional labor! work-life balance! do only what they pay you for and then check out! [to be clear, I agree with this sentiment]

also tumblr: omg why is this literary protagonist saying she's LONELY when there are SERVANTS ALL AROUND HER?! what a SNOB she is to not BEFRIEND THEM AND TELL THEM ALL HER TROUBLES!!!

On November 23, 1909, more than twenty thousand Jewish Yiddish-speaking immigrants, mostly young women in their teens and early twenties, launched an eleven-week general strike in New York’s shirtwaist industry. Dubbed the Uprising of the 20,000, it was the largest strike by women to date in American history. The young strikers’ courage, tenacity, and solidarity forced the predominantly male leadership in the “needle trades” and the American Federation of Labor to revise their entrenched prejudices against organizing women. The strikers won only a portion of their demands, but the uprising sparked five years of revolt that transformed the garment industry into one of the best-organized trades in the United States.

“I am typing these words as June 2003 surges with Pride. What year is it now, as you read them? What has been won; what has been lost? I can’t see from here; I can’t predict. But I know this: You are experiencing the impact of what we in the movement take a stand on and fight for today. The present and past are the trajectory of the future. But the arc of history does not bend towards justice automatically—as the great Abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed, without struggle there is no progress . . .”

- Leslie Feinberg

okay because i am DEATHLY curious about this, please select from the options below. reblog with your country of origin as well please.

ETA BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE GETTING SNARKY: i am asking it this specific way with these specific poll options (american vs non-american) because it's my understanding and experience that most US state public schools actively suppress any teaching of labor history in any concrete way to the point of editing textbooks. i'm not trying to be an american exclusionist here or say that there weren't non-american labor movements. i'm saying that as a historian with degrees i have noticed that there is a very different attitude towards teaching labor history in the united states than there is in other countries. for fuck's sake.

Earlier this year in Halifax, a former sex worker won a precedent-setting case. Brogan, the plaintiff, took a client to small claims court for not paying her and she won! It’s the first time a court has ruled on the enforceability of contracts between sex workers and their clients. It affirms what we’ve been saying all along: sex work is work!

In January of last year, Bradley Samuelson contacted Brogan on LeoList, an online advertising platform for sex workers. She told him her rate of $300 per hour plus transportation, he agreed and paid for her Uber to his apartment. She spent seven hours with her client, but after much wrangling, only got paid for an hour’s worth of work.

Unpacking the win

What’s really interesting about this decision is that the adjudicator gives not one, but two reasons why Brogan won her claim – the first being that a contract was established, the second being unjust enrichment. There is also a third reason that she deserved to win, but it wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the ruling: the interconnectedness of payment and consent. I’ll be unpacking all three factors today. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

Woman using Beckman/SDS Integrated Computer System. 1964.

Science History Institute

It’s May Day

you know what that means. it’s also international workers day!

highly recommend picking up the following books from our collection!

Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America by Miriam Frank

My Desire for History: Essays in Gay, Community, and Labor History by Allan Bérubé

Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America by Margot Canaday