Kevin Van Meter will present a talk, “Of Pirates, Witches, and Workers: 500 Years of Labor History.” For 500-years, “the cause of labor is the hope of the world.” The talk begins in the conflict over the collection of firewood and then circulates through the witch-hunts, pirate utopias and slave resistance, corresponding societies and the communards of Paris, the 8-hour day movement and mine wars, great sit-down strikes and great migrations, wartime strikes and the Treaty of Detroit, neo-liberal responses to worker-student and civil rights movements, and the return of the labor movement today. With stories that reverberate throughout labor history, across the planet, and in our working lives.