Wayne Heimbach, Labor Beat TV, and The Early Years of Labor Express Radio
The founding producer of Labor Express Radio, and its host for over 10 years, was Wayne Heimbach, an organizer with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73 at the time. Heimbach, much like his predecessors who founded WCFL, recognized the importance of developing forms of labor movement mass communication. Heimbach had already been active in supporting the work of the Committee for Labor Access, the organization responsible for producing the Labor Beat TV program, a weekly Public-access television show in Chicago that also covers issues related to the working class movement in Chicago and on the national scene. When WLUW expressed its interest in broadcasting locally-produced, community-focused programming, Heimbach seized the opportunity to launch the first labor oriented radio news program in the city in nearly 20 years.
WLUW currently broadcasts Labor Express once a week, in a one hour time slot at 10 AM on Monday mornings. The early focus of Labor Express was local struggles of the labor movement in Chicago and the Midwestern United States. Some of the stories covered in the program's early years included renewed efforts at organizing service sector workers in Chicago by SEIU (Service Employees International Union), Heimbach’s own union, and the Chicago Staley Workers Solidarity Committee, which formed to support the locked out workers at A. E. Staley, a corn sweetener processing plant in Decatur Illinois. But the program was not solely restricted to issues of local concern. Many national and international issues of concern to working people were also addressed, such as the election of a reform slate led by John Sweeney to the leadership of the AFL-CIO in 1994, and efforts of trade unionists in the United States to form links of solidarity with South African unions fighting the Apartheid regime. The program also featured segments on working class culture and songs of the labor movement by artist like the Chicago-based folk musician Bucky Halker.
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