Labor Express Radio - WCFL and The History of Labor Radio in Chicago

WCFL and The History of Labor Radio in Chicago

Chicago has always been a leading center of the labor movement in the United States. The events of the “Haymarket Affair” in 1886 are recognized world wide as seminal to the modern working class movement. Chicago has more union locals with the number designation 1 (usually meaning the first) than any other city in the country – a testament to the number of national and international unions who owe their early formative history to the city. Likewise, Chicago has long been a pioneer in the field of labor movement communications – especially radio. John Fitzpatrick, President of the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) from 1905 until his death in 1946, and Edward Nockels, secretary of the CFL from 1903 until his death in 1937, were labor movement visionaries who recognized the potential that radio offered to communicate the message of organized labor to a mass audience. Their advocacy in favor of a station independent of the influence of “big business”, lead to the creation of WCFL, “Chicago’s Voice of Labor”, the first and only labor-owned radio station in the country.

According to historian Nathan Godfried, who wrote a history of WCFL, the station served the trade union movement by devoting considerable time to labor focused programs and was especially useful during periods of labor unrest, such as major strikes, when much of the corporate owned media was far less likely to analyze the situation from a pro-labor perspective... Launched in 1926, the station continued to function under the ownership of the CFL until 1978, with the Federation finding the need to make it a commercial operation in 1930. By the 1960s, the station had turned over almost all of its programming to a Top 40 music format. The CFL made the decision in 1978 that operation of the station was no longer profitable and sold it to the Mutual Broadcasting System, at the time a subsidiary of the infamously anti-Labor Amway Corporation.

From the late 1970s until the early 1990s, Chicago lacked a consistent outlet for labor news. In the early 1990s, communication activists at Loyola University of Chicago and in the surrounding community, lead an effort to transform the university’s radio station from a dance music format into a station that sought out community oriented programming. One of the first programs to develop from these efforts was Labor Express.