Labor cartoonists Gary Huck and Mike Konopacki have retired and closed their syndicate service.
The introduction to their farewell message:
In 1983 Gary Huck and I attended a convention of the International Labor Press Association (now the International Labor Communications Association). Our mutual friend David Elsila, editor of the UAW Solidarity magazine, introduced us to his fellow labor editors. As a result, we collected about 25 subscribers and mailed our first package of labor cartoons in October of 1983.
Over the following years our subscription list grew to about 120 subscribers in the US and Canada. Because of their support we were able to create 37 years of labor cartoons and seven published collections of our work.
Sadly our tenure as labor cartoonists coincided with the decline of the U.S. labor movement. When we started, labor union density in the U.S. was 20.1%. In 2019 the movement had shrunk to 10.3%.
“Had shrunk” is the passive voice. In reality, federal government and corporate policies hostile to organized labor has slowly killed off the movement.
The Northwest Labor Press is among those sorry to see them go:
Wrapping up their cartoon syndicate means an end to their commitment to produce and distribute a dozen or more cartoons a month for labor union newspapers. But Konopacki says the two will still draw occasional cartoons and post them on their web site— HuckKonopackiCartoons.com — they don’t know what else to do, he says.
The Huck/Konopacki Facebook page.
