[poll] May Day (I voted for 4 of the 7)

[hermionesviolin]

So, I asked my May poll question on Facebook, and one of my former pastors suggested "Favorite union leader?" -- which I loved, but which meant I had to then come up with a starter list (my office tends to be paralyzed by completely blank poll canvases).

There are approximately 469 total pages in the Wiki category American labor leaders, so instead of trying to go through all that I went to my "labor" shelf on GoodReads (which is entirely picturebooks).

In the office poll, I included brief blurbs about each person, to pre-empt at least some of the "I don't know all these people" responses, but even a 2-foot by 3-foot white board is only so big, so below is first the version I posted, and then a second version that has slightly more information, plus references.

I feel sort of bad that it's all U.S. labor movement, but I know even less about international labor movements than I do about USian. I'm hoping people at work write in votes and I can learn about more labor leaders -- and you in the Internet can also add people in the comments :)

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In honor of May Day, this month's poll question is:
who is your favorite union/labor leader?
Feel free to vote for more than one and/or write-in

• Cesaer Chavez
  
• Dolores Huerta (originator of the "Sí se puede" slogan)
  
• Florence Reece (author of the song "Which Side Are You On?")
  
• Clara Lemlich (leader of the Uprising of 20,000)
  
• "Mother Jones" (called "the most dangerous woman in America" in 1902)
  
• Fannie Sellins (died intervening in the beating of a striking miner)
  
• Emma Tenayuca (started as a labor activist as a teenager)

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In honor of May Day, this month's poll question is:
who is your favorite union/labor leader?
Feel free to vote for more than one and/or write-in

• Cesaer Chavez (1927-1993, Mexican-American, farm workers) -- okay, this is probably the one person everyone has heard of, but maybe read Side by Side/Lado a lado: The Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez/La historia de Dolores Huerta y Cesar Chavez?
  
• Dolores Huerta (1930-present, Mexican-American, farm workers) originator of the "Sí se puede" slogan (She was at a workers' organizing thing in Arizona and someone was like, "Yeah, you did that in California, but you/we can't do that in Arizona -- no se puede," and she said, "Sí, se puede -- yes, we can.") [I would recommend the documentary Dolores.]
  
• Florence Reece (1900-1986, Tennessee, coal miners) author of the song "Which Side Are You On?" -- which she wrote while company thugs were shooting into her house because her husband was organizing a coal miners strike [Which Side Are You On?: The Story of a Song]
  
• Clara Lemlich (1866-1982, Jewish Ukranian immigrant to New York, women garment workers primarily -- though she was active throughout her life ... including agitating for labor and organizing workers at the nursing home she lived in at the end of her life!) a leader of the Uprising of 20,000 -- a labor strike primarily involving Jewish women working in New York shirtwaist factories in 1909 a year before the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire [Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909]
  
• "Mother Jones" (Mary Harris Jones, c. 1837-1930, Irish-American, child labor etc.) called "the most dangerous woman in America" in 1902 for her success in organizing mine workers and their families
  
• Fannie Sellins (1872-1919, Missouri/West Virginia/Pennsylvania, garment workers and miners) died intervening in the beating of a striking miner [Fannie Never Flinched: One Woman's Courage in the Struggle for American Labor Union Rights]
  
• Emma Tenayuca (1916-1999, Mexican-American, Texas, primarily known for her work with pecan shellers) started as a labor activist as a teenager ... as a child, her grandfather took her to Plaza del Zacate, where socialists and anarchists gathered [That's Not Fair! / ¡No Es Justo!: Emma Tenayuca's Struggle for Justice/La lucha de Emma Tenayuca por la justicia]

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Now you're all prepared for May Day :)