7 Great Music Videos about Work and Working People

By Staff

We have a long history of music that chronicles the struggles of working people in this country. This music depicts our transformation from an agrarian economy to an industrialized one and the labor movement that arose from that transformation. The econ0my has been transformed yet again as we moved from manufacturing to service sector jobs; as jobs are outsourced and employees are re-defined as independent contractors; and as worker productivity has sharply increased, wages for the middle class and working poor remain stagnant.

Work remains dangerous and too often deadly for some; underpaid or unequally paid for far too many. Labor unions have historically addressed both of those work issues and union members have put their lives on the line to remedy them. These videos are a reminder of work and of the struggle. And they still resonate today.

United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh are fighting a lock-out and union busting. 2,000 US Steelworkers are out of work now, which will have a devastating economic impact on the surrounding steel towns.

U.S. Steel Music Video- Tom Russell Band

The last union coal mine in Kentucky has closed. “Kentucky coal miners bled and died to unionize.”

Sixteen Tons- Johnny Cash

Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said “that for African-Americans between the ages of 17 and 20, ‘the real unemployment rate … is 51 percent.'”

Run DMC- Hard Times

Can we pass the 2015 Paycheck Fairness Act, already? And then move on to paid family leave?

Nine to Five- Dolly Parton

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump wants to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, along with their American born children and build a huge wall along the Mexican (of course) border. Time to read about the Mexican Repatriation during the 1930s right here in San Diego. Immigrants built this country and have never stopped doing so.

Manu Chao- Clandestino