Labor History in 2:00: Recent Episodes
The Rick Smith Show
A daily, pocket-sized history of America's working people, brought to you by The Rick Smith Show team.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. That was the day that would go down in labor history as the “Woman’s Day Massacre.”
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee were attempting to bring union recognition to the Steel Industry.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941. That was the day that an historic meeting took place at the White House.
Black labor leader A. Philip Randolph, along with the head of the NAACP sat down to talk with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1903. Mary Harris better known as “Mother” Jones held a rally in Philadelphia.
The famous Irish-American labor leader had come to Pennsylvania to support a strike of textile workers. As many as one-hundred thousand workers were out on strike.
On this day in Labor History Pinkerton Detectives arrived at job sites across the US to escort workers off the premises. No--this was not at a railroad or coal mine in labor’s distant past. It was at the offices of what was once the largest computer seller in the United States. And the year was 2000.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1990. About 400 janitors were protesting at Century City, a large office complex in Los Angeles.
It was part of SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign in LA. The janitors had gone out on strike against International Service Systems.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1924. Three-hundred members of the International Workers of the World, or Wobblies, gathered at their union hall in San Pedro California. They were holding a benefit for two of their members who had been killed in a railway accident. For the past year, the KKK had targeted the San Pedro IWW members.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1991. That was the day that a San Francisco man, Jeffrey Collins, received $5.3 million for wrongful termination from Shell Oil. The judge ruled the company had fired Jeffrey because they found out he was gay.
In 1981 the Los Angeles Dodgers dropped the first two games of the World Series to their rivals, the New York Yankees. The Dodgers would come roaring back, sweeping the next four games. And so closed the curtain on one of the strangest seasons in baseball history.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1913. Police in New Orleans shot at maritime workers striking against the United Fruit Company.
Two workers were wounded. A third laid dead in the street. At the time of the strike the port in New Orleans was one of the busiest U.S. ports for importing bananas.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1963. That was the day President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act.
The goal of the act was to end wage discrimination against women.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1865. Labor leader Helen Marot was born to a wealthy Quaker family in Philadelphia.
Helen grew up around the written word, as her father was a book binder and seller
On this day in Labor History the year was 1966. That was the day that the roaring of the jet age grew quiet across the United States.
35,000 members of the International Association of Mechanics went out on strike.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. The leader of Lansing, Michigan’s United Auto Workers union, Lester Washburn, returned home, in the wee hours of the morning. He had been to Detroit for a meeting. At his home he found a disturbing scene.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1988. That was the day that between two and three million black workers went on strike in South Africa. The Congress of South African Trade Unions had called for three days of “national peaceful protest.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1979. That was the day that leaders from the Retail Clerks and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters unions began two-day special conventions to discuss merging their organizations. The result was the forming of the United Food and Commercial Workers.
In the past few years you may have seen news stories about efforts to raise the minimum wage. From the “Fight for Fifteen,” to various state-based campaigns, raising the minimum wage has become an important campaign for workers. But do you know where in the United States the minimum wage started?
On this day in Labor History the year was 1900. That was the day that the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union was formed. Eleven delegates attended the founding meeting. They represented the major garment making cities of the east coast.
On this day in Labor History, we are going all the way back to the year 1786. That was the day when what labor historians widely consider “America’s First Strike” occurred in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A group of the city’s journeymen printers gathered to discuss proposed decreases to their wages.
Would you be willing to risk your job to stand up for the rights that you believe in? For postal worker Henry Gerber, the answer to that question was a resounding yes. And so On this day in Labor History, the year was 2001.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1889. Nestled in western Pennsylvania was the community known as Johnstown. The town and surrounding area was home to 23,000 people, families of workers who labored in the regions’ booming steel mills.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. It was a day that would become known as the Memorial Day Massacre. Ten demonstrators were killed by police bullets, while protesting at Republic Steel, on the south east side of Chicago.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day fifteen women lost their jobs for dancing on their lunch break. The women worked for the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1946. That was the day the working people of New York stood up in true labor solidarity. It all started at stroke midnight on May 15th as messengers delivered the following statement to 489 municipal employees:
On this day in Labor History the year was 1935. That was the day the United States Supreme Court unanimously declared the National Industrial Relations Act unconstitutional. The act had been passed just two years before, as the centerpiece of President Franklin Roosevelt’s plan to combat the Great Depression.
Did you know that sometimes photographs have the power to help change the course of a labor struggle? That is what happened on this day in Labor History, the year was 1937. Detroit News photographer James “Scotty” Kilpatrick came with his camera to the River Rouge Ford plant.
Unions were created to make living conditions just a little better than they were before they were created, and the union that does not manifest that kind of interest in human beings cannot endure.”
Those were the words of Philip Murray, born on this day in Labor History, the year was 1886. Philip Murray was born in Blantyre, Scotland, the son of a union coal miner.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1883. The “eighth wonder of the world, the Brooklyn Bridge opened for traffic. 600 men worked on the project, which took 14 years to complete. Between twenty and thirty men died working on the bridge. This included the bridge’s designer, German-born John. A. Roebling.
How can unionized workers and unemployed workers stand together? Perhaps we can look to the past for examples of the power of such solidarity. On this day in Labor History the year was 1934. It was the height of the Great Depression.
On this day Labor History the year was 1895. Labor organizer Eugene V. Debs began a six month prison sentence in Woodstock, Illinois. Debs was the leader of the American Railway Union that had led a nationwide boycott and strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1894.
On this day Labor History the year was 1945. That was a very important day for workers on the islands of Hawaii.
It marked the passage of the federal Hawaii Employment Relations Act, more popular known as the “Little Wagner Act.”
On this day Labor History the year was 1926. That was the day President Calvin Coolidge signed the Railway Labor Act.
For decades railroad labor disputes had often become bloody affairs.
On this day Labor History the year was 1920. That year a national coal strike had won unionized miners a twenty-seven percent pay raise. But the miners in West Virginia were not in the union
On this day in labor history, the year was 1979. That was the day an Oklahoma City jury found in favor of the estate of Karen Silkwood. Karen worked as a lab tech at the Cimarron nuclear plant, operated by the Kerr-McGee Corporation.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1838. The Second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women was being held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For a while, a group of anti-slavery abolitionists had had difficulty finding a venue in the city willing to host their convention.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1979. That was the day that A Philip Randolph, perhaps the most significant African American figure in the US Labor Movement, passed away.
On this day in labor history the year was 1942. The Labor Movement lost one of its prolific voices. T Bone Slim was born Matti Valentinpoika Huhta in Ashtabula Ohio.
One could say that brewing beer is important to the identity of the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Even the city’s baseball team goes by the name the “Brewers.” And so on this day in Labor History the year was 1953. The beer brewers in Milwaukee walked off the job in what came to be a ten week strike.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1998 and if you tried catch a cab in New York City on that particular day you probably did not have much luck. The city’s yellow cab drivers held a one day strike to protest Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s new taxi cab regulations.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. It was mother’s day. Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a group of thousands of women in a demonstration in Washington D.C.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. It was the first day of the Pullman Strike.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1869. At 2:47 pm a one-word telegram was sent from Promontory Summit, Utah. The message read simply, “done.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1970. On that day workers and the US labor movement lost a leading voice in a tragic plane crash.
If you are a member of a union, how well do you know your union’s history? You might be surprised to find out how far back that history goes. Such is the case with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1867. That was the day that shoemakers founded the labor union the Knights of St. Crispin, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. St. Crispin is the patron saint of cobblers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. That was the year that 400 black women who worked as tobacco stemmers walked off the job at I.N. Vaughn and Company in Richmond, VA.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1852. It was the last day of a three-day convention held in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Printers who worked for newspapers and other publications from fourteen cities had converged to decide if they wanted to form a union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1886. This was one of the most significant days in US labor history.
A mass meeting of workers was called for that night in Chicago’s Haymarket Square.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1886. A little after three o’clock on that Monday, in Chicago, radical labor activist and newspaper man August Spies climbed onto a box car to give a speech about the fight for the eight hour day.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. That was the day the administration shut down the Paris University at Naterre. Student protests at the school had begun weeks before around the ideas of a sexual revolution, or the right of young people to sleep together if they chose to without adult interference or moralizing.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1886. This was the day that began events in Chicago that would make May First the most important day on the calendar for the labor movement across the world.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. A group of 400-500 unemployed men marched down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the US Capitol. In a buggy at the front of the march rode Jacob Coxey.
When you stand up for Civil Rights and Workers Rights you never know how far the struggle may travel. This was the caseon this day in Labor History the year was 1963
On this day in Labor History the year was 1971. That was the day that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was founded. Since then OSHA rules have become a powerful tool for the protection of workers health and safety
You have probably heard about the Red Scare, when thousands of people lost their jobs in the 1950s for allegedly harboring Communist sympathies. But have you ever heard of the “Lavender Scare” that happened during those same years?
In 1848 gold was discovered at John Sutter’s Mill in California. As word spread, fortune seekers from all across the United States and across the world flocked to California in what came to be known as the Gold Rush.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1969.
The Governor of South Carolina sent 1,000 state troopers and National Guardsmen to Charleston.
They were sent there to deal with striking hospital workers who wanted union recognition.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2013.
That was the day of the deadliest workplace disaster in garment industry history.
More than 1,100 workers lost their lives when a factory complex building collapsed in Bangladesh.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1980. That was the day that Ida Mae Stull passed away.
She is widely considered to be the first woman coal miner in United States history.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2011.
That was the day the labor movement lost one of its most poignant voices.
Hazel Dickens was born in Mercer County, West Virginia in 1935. It was coal country.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. The nation was in the grip of deep depression.
Unemployment soared. Workers wages and hours were cut dramatically in virtually every industry.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1914 the bloody anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre.
11,000 miners had gone on strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation, owned by one of the wealthiest men in the world, John D. Rockefeller.
This marks the day one of the most horrendous acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. History occurred in Oklahoma City.
A truck bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people
You have more than likely heard of Rosa Parks, and how she heroically sat down on a bus to help end segregation in Montgomery, Alabama. But did you know discrimination often barred black bus drivers, even in northern cities?
On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. This marks the day that more than 4,000 furniture makers walked off the job in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947.
The day dawned unseasonably cool in Texas City, TX, a port city forty miles south of Houston on the Gulf of Mexico.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947.
It was opening day of a truly new baseball season.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1939. This was the day readers were first introduced to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1919. Labor leader and socialist Eugene V. Debs was sent to prison for speaking out against World War I.
There are some songs that stand at the core of the labor movement. Year after year these songs ring out on picket lines, at labor rallies, and in union halls around the world. These Songs inspire and build solidarity between workers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941.
For years auto workers had participated in a series of sit down strikes and walk outs. They had won union recognition from almost every major auto maker.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1930. That was the day that Dolores Huerta was born in the mining town of Dawson, New Mexico.
The fight for an eight hour work day was one of the most difficult and important efforts of the US labor movement.
Slogans such as “Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what we will!” became the rallying cry of working people.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. At 6:30 in the morning an explosion shook the Banner Mine, owned by the Pratt Consolidated Coal Company. Banner was located near what would later become Birmingham, Alabama.
Their slogan was “Justice for Janitors!” Their chant was “Si se puede!” “Yes we can!”
Their image was a red and black poster of a mop raised high in a clenched fist. 3,000 members of SEIU Local 1877 marched in the streets of downtown Los Angeles.
Often Southern states are the focus of histories of slavery in the United States.
But did you know that in the early 1700s one in five residents of New York were enslaved Africans?
On this day in Labor History the year was 1954. It began what some have called the “longest major strike in U.S. history.” The strike was against Kohler, the Wisconsin-based manufacturer of bathroom fixtures
On this day in Labor History, the year was 1968. This is a day of mourning. Today is the day an assassin’s bullet murdered Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he was coming out of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. That was the night that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his now famous “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. He was speaking in support of striking sanitation workers who were members of AFSCME Local 1733.
When you go shopping, do you remember to look for the union label? On this day in Labor History the year was 1909.
The American Federation of Labor launched its “Union Label” department
On this day in Labor History the year was 1929.
It was the first day of the strike at the Loray textile mill in Gastonia, North Carolina.
Textile mill workers in the south were paid significantly less than workers in the north
On this day in Labor History the year was 1933. The nation was in the grips of the Great Depression. Long bread lines formed each day in major cities across the nation with at least one in four people out of work. The crisis deepened as the Dust Bowl ravaged US farmland crippling farmers and limiting food production.
The most important word in the language of the working class is ‘solidarity.’”
Those inspiring words were spoken by labor leader Harry Bridges, who died on this day in Labor History the year was 1990.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1918 and someone was born who would forever change the retail industry in the United States. His name was Sam Walton.
Walton opened his first Walmart store in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas.
This is the day in Memphis that marked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final march for Civil Rights.
If you are a regular listener to Labor History in 2, last month you heard about how AFSCME sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike to win union recognition.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. Between six and seven thousand workers walked off the job, on strike against the Canadian Northern Railway. Their issues included low pay, worker safety, and the poor quality of food and housing provided by the railroad.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1943.
The United States was in the midst of fighting World War II.
And by 1943 there were more than 9 million people serving as military personnel.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. Marking one the most tragic days in US labor history. 146 women and girls died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1974.
It was the final day of a ground-breaking gathering of more than 3,000 women union members in Chicago to found the Coalition of Labor Union Women, or CLUW.
Do you know that it used to be legal for employers in their United States to make their employees sign a contract promising not join a union?
Such agreements were often referred to as “Yellow Dog Contracts.”
At some time during your life you’ve probably read a book or heard a story by Mark Twain.
But did you know that this renowned American author was also a strong supporter of labor?
In 1835 he was born Samuel Clemens in town of Hannibal, Missouri.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1857. Labor activist, Alice Henry was born in Melbourne, Australia.
Alice originally went to work as a teacher, but then found her true calling as a journalist.
She wrote in support of the day’s progressive causes, including care for dependent children, labor reform, and women’s rights.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. Three hundred police men waited outside the Bernard Schwartz Cigar Factory in Detroit, MI.
They were there to break up the peaceful sit down strike going on inside the Cigar plant. During the winter and spring of 1937, Detroit had seen a wave of sit down strikes.
Is it unpatriotic to go on strike when the nation is at war? What if your workplace is in an industry critical to the war effort? On this day in Labor History the year was 1941.
The world was at embroiled in the Second World War, and increasingly it seemed as if the United States would soon join the fighting.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1970. This was the day postal workers walked off the job in New York City. The strike caught many by surprise.
The workers had not received a raise since 1967 and were not permitted by law to engage in collective bargaining.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1966. This is the day Chicano labor organizer, Cesar Chavez started a 340 mile march from Delano to Sacramento, California for the rights of farm workers.
The action had actually started the year before, in 1965. Filipino farm workers had gone strike against grape growers in California.
Albert Shanker was fed up. Mr. Shanker taught math at a junior high in in Astoria, Queens. He and his colleagues felt they were underpaid and not respected. The assistant principal of the school even spied on their classrooms with binoculars!
On this day in Labor History the year was 1887. This was the day the International Brotherhood of Painters and Decorators of America got their start issuing their first charter. John Elliot led the founding meeting.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1954, marking the opening of the powerful labor film, “Salt of the Earth.”
“Salt of the Earth” told the story of striking Chicano miner members of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Local 890 against the Empire Zinc mine in New Mexico.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1906. That was the day the world lost a great champion of woman’s and worker’s rights, Susan B. Anthony.
Born in 1820 in Massachusetts to a Quaker family, Susan B. Anthony is most well-known for her tireless campaign to secure the right to vote for women.
The year was 1912. The Lawrence MA. Textile workers strike had worn on for over a month.
More than 20,000 workers had walked off the job. Most of them were young women.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1785.
That was the day the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York was founded.
Twenty-two skilled craftsmen, with the motto, “By Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand,” met on Pine Street to form a benevolent organization that could provide cultural, educational and social services to craftsmen and their families.
Two months later, founders met for their annual meeting.
They represented many of the city’s trades including hatters, butchers, sail makers, bolters and comb makers.
In his book, Chants Democratic, historian Sean Wilentz states, the General Society was “intended to be a semi-political umbrella organization for all of the city’s independent mechanics, to help oversee the trades and secure favorable legislation from local and national government. The group captured the ideal of mutuality and craft pride essential to artisan fraternities since the Middle Ages.”
The General Society opened one of the city’s first free schools at a time when there were no public schools.
It established a tuition-free Mechanics Institute, the General Society Library and Lecture Series.
The Mechanics Institute, founded in 1858, continues to provide free evening trades-related instruction.
The Library, established in 1820 is the second oldest library in New York City.
It is also one of the few remaining membership circulating libraries.
Its collections and archives span two centuries.
The General Society continues its tradition of public lectures in the form of The Labor, Literature and Landmarks Series.
More recently, it has added the Artisan Lecture Series that features lectures by master artisans.
The series also promotes the work and art of skilled craftsmen.
The General Society has been at its current location at 20 west 44th Street since 1885.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2006.
That was the day mounted police charged 50 janitors and their supporters during a protest in Houston.
SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign had been organizing for years throughout the South and Southwest.
Modeled on success achieved in California, SEIU broadened their campaign to Houston and Miami.
The union called a month long strike against the cities’ largest cleaning companies.
Protests and civil disobedience actions continued throughout the strike.
Hundreds of strikers routinely marched through the streets of Houston, beating drums and hauling bags of garbage into the middle of intersections to highlight the key services they provided to the city.
They were subject to repeated threats of firings and arrests.
When police charged at the janitors, it served to turn public support in favor of the strikers.
By the end of the month, Tom Balanoff and SEIU Local 1 in Chicago claimed victory for 5300 Houston janitors.
The Chicago local had been central to the three-year campaign in Houston.
Incomes doubled and janitors finally had health insurance, paid vacations and holidays.
The Chicago Tribune detailed the campaign in a November 25 article.
The union lobbied building owners and major corporations who held contracts with the cleaning companies.
The union worked to gain a foothold among the janitors, sending in seasoned Latino janitors from Chicago to help with organizing.
The SEIU also committed millions of dollars to the organizing drive, setting aside $1 million alone in strike funds.
At a victory rally, union leader Flor Aguilar proclaimed, “No one thought that a group of poor Latinos form Houston would be able to win anything, but today we can lift our heads up very high.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 2014.
That was the day four workers were killed and a fifth injured during a chemical leak at a DuPont insecticide plant near Houston.
The plant used methyl mercaptan in its production of insecticides.
24,000 pounds of the deadly chemical were released through two valves in a poorly ventilated building onsite.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board found numerous flawed safety procedures, design problems and inadequate planning.
Days earlier, liquid methyl mercaptan had solidified in piping, causing a blockage.
Workers attempted to clear it by spraying the pipes with hot water.
They didn’t realize they had cleared the blockage, which then created high-pressure buildup of the chemical in other piping.
When two workers went to drain those pipes in a routine procedure, they were overcome by toxic vapor.
Another two workers answering the subsequent distress call were also killed.
DuPont blamed workers for the release of the toxic gas.
But the CSB found a number of violations.
The building where the release occurred had an inadequate toxic gas detection system, ventilation fans were not working and workers were not required to wear additional breathing protection for tasks they performed there.
Line-clearing procedures were faulty, routinely exposing workers to toxic fumes.
The Board also found that DuPont worked to conceal from environmental regulators, as many as four major releases of methyl mercaptan two days before workers were killed.
The CSB asserted that design flaws prompted months of clogs before the deadly incident.
More generally, they noted the design of the building that housed the pesticide unit inherently increased the threat of exposure to workers and the public.
DuPont opted to close the plant in 2016 rather than meet recommendations of federal regulators.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1978.
That was the day OSHA published its lead standard.
The standard reduced permissible exposure by 75% to protect nearly a million workers from damage to nervous, urinary and reproductive systems.
As early as 1908, Alice Hamilton, the mother of occupational medicine, noted that lead had endangered workers as far back as “the first half-century after Christ.”
In their book, Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, historians Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner add that “throughout her distinguished career, Hamilton was deeply involved in uncovering the relationship between lead and disease in the American workforce.”
Hamilton’s groundbreaking research on the effects of lead paved the way for a growing uproar against its continued use.
After the Occupational Safety and Health Act passed in 1970, occupational and public health activists pushed hard for a lead standard.
A new generation of industrial hygienists emphasized how unsound, industry-driven conclusions regarding “safe lead levels” impacted women workers and workers of color.
Industry had long asserted that women and African-Americans were simply more susceptible to lead poison, which served to justify discrimination in hiring.
Some unions accepted these terms, if only to demand a stringent lead standard that included immediate implementation of engineering controls.
But leading hygienists like Jeanne Stellman blasted these arguments.
Stellman insisted such conclusions reflected racial and gender bias rather than any credible scientific evidence.
She added that men, women and children, regardless of race or ethnicity, were all adversely affected by lead exposure.
The final standard adopted was considered a compromise.
Discrimination in hiring has continued and enforcement proves difficult.
But even a watered-down standard was too much for the lead industry.
They have been fighting it ever since.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1974.
That was the day Karen Silkwood was killed in a mysterious car crash.
Though her death was ruled a one car accident, some maintain she was forced off the road.
Silkwood was a union activist and representative for Local 5-283 of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers.
She worked at Kerr McGee’s Cimarron plutonium plant in Crescent, Oklahoma, making plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods.
Meryl Streep popularized her life in the 1983 film, Silkwood.
Karen’s union loyalty only grew after the company crushed a strike in 1972.
She was elected to the union bargaining committee just as the company moved to force a decertification election.
She also served as a union health and safety rep.
Silkwood found a number of apparent violations: routine contamination exposure, faulty respiratory equipment, falsified inspection records, and improper storage of radioactive material.
She met with OCAW leader, Tony Mazzocchi to highlight safety issues in a campaign to beat back decertification.
It worked.
Then Karen testified before the Atomic Energy Commission, worried about her own contamination.
It was clear her home was contaminated too.
She worked tirelessly to gather the documentation and the evidence, detailing the company’s life-threatening negligence.
And on this day, Karen Silkwood was headed to Oklahoma City to meet Mazzocchi’s assistant, Steve Wodka and a New York Times reporter to present evidence she collected.
She never made it.
Her car was found with rear end damage, near skid marks, in a ditch along Route 74.
While the company attempted to smear her as a drug addicted lesbian who deliberately contaminated herself, they would eventually settle with her family for nearly $1.4 million.
Karen Silkwood became a model and a hero for women workers and all those who fight for safe workplaces.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1954.
That was the day Ellis Island closed its doors.
More than 12 million immigrants had passed through its gates since its opening in 1892.
Those steerage and third-class passengers coming to America were processed at the island between 1892 and 1924.
They were routinely subject to medical inspections to determine they were free of disease.
Legal inspections included questions regarding birth, occupation, destination, finances and criminal record.
Its busiest year was 1907 with more than a million arriving to enter the United States.
During World War I, the Island was used as a detention center for presumed enemies and those considered foreign-born subversives.
After Congress passed the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924, arrivals entering the country slowed to a trickle.
Then Ellis Island became primarily a detention and deportation center.
During World War II, thousands of Germans, Italians and Japanese made up the majority of those detained, awaiting deportation.
It also served as a military hospital for returning servicemen and training center for the Coast Guard.
By 1950, Ellis Island served as a holding center for arriving Communists and Fascists, who were prevented entrance under the recently passed Internal Security Act.
A Norwegian seaman who had overstayed his leave was released the day the Island closed and told to catch the next ship back to Norway.
In 1965, President Johnson made Ellis Island part of the National Park Service.
A massive restoration of the Island began in 1984, organized by Lee Iacocca’s Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation.
It reopened as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in 1990, featuring numerous exhibits, publicly accessible immigration records and the award-winning film documentary, “Island of Hope, Island of Tears.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1887. That was a tragic day for the labor movement. Four men were hung in Chicago for their alleged role in the bombing at a labor rally at the city’s Haymarket Square a year earlier. In a sensational trial a total of eight men were convicted for Haymarket.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1933. That was the day that Hormel plant workers in Austin, Minnesota began a sit-down strike. Company head, Jay Hormel, boasted that his company was a benevolent dictatorship. Workers agreed that the company was a dictatorship but not very benevolent.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1935.The Committee for Industrial Organizations was created by eight unions, as part of the American Federation of Labor. United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis was the driving force behind this new committee
On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. That was the day that black and white workers in New Orleans began what is considered the first integrated general strike in United States history. The strike began when the New Orleans Board of Trade refused to enter into an agreement with the Teamsters Union because it included black members.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1990. That was the day that Lemuel Ricketts Boulware died. Boulware had a notorious reputation with labor leaders. He was the Vice President for employee relations for General Electric during the 1950s.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1860. That was the day that Abraham Lincoln was elected sixteenth President of the United States. When Lincoln came to office the nation was deeply divided on the question of slavery. By December 20, South Carolina had seceded from the United States.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1855. That was the day that Eugene Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. Debs was forced to leave school when he was just fourteen. He worked as a railroad fireman.
Got milk? If you lived in Neillsville, Wisconsin the answer might have been NO. On this day in labor history the year was 1933. Wisconsin is known as the dairy state.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1921. That was the day the New York Times headline proclaimed: “Striker Rioting All Over the City, Dump Thousands of Gallons of Milk; Hylan Threatens to Seize plants.” Hylan referred to New York City Mayor John Francis Hylan.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1928. That was the day that police shot at protesting union workers at Prince’s Pier in Melbourne Australia. Three union workers were injured, one fatally.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1835. That was the day that workers in Philadelphia organized what was the first general strike in North America. There call was for a ten-hour workday.
On this day in Labor History ghosts and goblins are going door to door to gather up candy. But did you know that some of that candy is made by union workers?
In Hershey, Pennsylvania, tagged the Sweetest place on earth you’ll find the nation’s chocolate center.
It wasn’t always so sweet for workers who in 1937 tried to win union recognition.
Then the company laid off some of the union organizers, and claimed it was due to seasonal cutbacks.
Outraged, 600 workers began a sit-down strike in the plant.
Local dairy farmers relied on Hershey to purchase their milk.
They grew increasingly angry at the strikers.
They joined with workers not participating in the strike, and other community members.
The angry mob stormed the plant to oust the strikers.
Twenty-five strikers were severely beaten and the sit-in strike ended.
But the next year, the Hershey workers tried again to form a union.
This time they affiliated with the Bakery and Confectionery Workers' International Union of America and established Local 464.
They are not the only union members who help make Halloween sweet.
Today the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union Local 1 in Chicago, Illinois makes tootsie rolls.
If your candy of choice is Clark Bars or Thin Mints, you might want to thank a member of Local 348 in Cambridge Massachusetts.
And Local 125 makes Ghirardelli Chocolate in San Francisco.
Unfortunately things are not always so sweet. In September of 2016, 400 union workers at the Just Born candy factory in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania went out on strike. The company decided to change their pensions to 401ks for new hires and reduce health care contributions.
They make such iconic candies as Peeps, Mike & Ike’s, and Hot Tamales.
One strike slogan rang out “no pensions, no peeps!”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1986. That was the day that Edward Meese, gave a speech to the US Chamber of Commerce. Meese was serving as Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan. During the speech, Meese encouraged bosses to spy on their employees, in order to determine if they were using drugs.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1929. That bleak day is now known as “Black Tuesday,” the day of the Stock Market crash that marked the start of the Great Depression. During the optimistic Roaring Twenties investments in the Stock Market soared.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1965. That was the day that the St. Louis Gateway arch was completed in St. Louis. The project was the result of a nation-wide design competition.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1951. That was the day that the National Negro Labor Council held its founding convention. African American workers had made significant gains in the American workforce during World War II.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1825. That was the day the construction of the Erie Canal was completed.
The 363 mile canal connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, by way of the Hudson River. The project was started in 1817.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1990.
That was the day that eight of the ten unions at the New York Daily News went out on strike.
The paper had had one of the highest daily circulations in the United States.
The New York Daily News was owned by the Chicago-based Tribune Company.
The strike began when management demanded major concessions from the delivery drivers, essentially forcing them to strike.
Seven more unions joined them on the picket line.
In retaliation management brought in scab labor.
This caused a ninth union to join the walkout.
The Newspaper Guild workers had planned to honor the picket lines, but not go on strike themselves.
But according in an article in the Los Angeles Times, “said local Guild President Barry Lipton, the editorial employees decided almost immediately at an afternoon meeting to go on strike rather than to work with any “imported scabs and goons.”
Well known journalist Juan Gonzalez, was a strike leader for the local.
By using replacement workers, Daily News management was able to keep the paper in production.
But they found it much more difficult to get the paper distributed.
Even where they could make delivery, many newsstands refused to sell the struck paper.
The New York Times blamed this on intimidation from delivery drivers.
But they also acknowledged that some refused distribution “either out of sympathy for strikers or an unwillingness to offend pro-union customers.”
To support the strike, the unions put on a concert headlined by Lou Reed, along with Pete Seeger, Q-Tip from a Tribe Called Quest and other musicians.
The strike lasted for five months, prompting the Tribune to sell the paper.
Under new management the strike was finally settled.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1934. That was the day that the first minimum wage law went into effect in the United States. The minimum was twenty-five cents an hour. The wage law was part of the Fair Labor Standards Act passed earlier that year.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1989. At 1:05 in the afternoon a massive explosion rocked the town of Pasadena, Texas, near Houston. The explosion was so large it registered as a 3.5 on the Richter scale, used to measure earthquakes.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority voted to decertify Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. The PATCO union had gone on strike earlier that year over wages, hours, and working conditions.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1999. That was the day that 270 workers from the Embassy Vacation Resorts in Maui voted to join Local 5 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees. Local 5 got its start in Hawaii in 1938.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1983. That was the day that musician Merle Travis died. Known for his unique finger-picking guitar style, Travis wrote songs that captured the hard life of the coal miner.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1980. In what the Chicago Sun Times called it the “biggest labor management war of the last two decades.” The battle for union recognition at ten J.P. Stevens’s textile plants ended in victory.
On this day in Labor History, and we are going all the way back to 1648. More than a hundred years before the American Revolution, an early trade organization was founded in the Colony of Massachusetts. They called themselves the “Company of Shoemakers.”
On this day in Labor History, the year was 1877. That was the day that John D. Rockefeller, and his company Standard Oil struck a deal with the Pennsylvania Railroad that would cement his monopoly on the nation’s oil refineries. In the early 1870s Rockefeller was building his oil empire out from its center in Cleveland, Ohio.
On this day in Labor History, the year was 1859. That was the day that abolitionist John Brown led a raid at the armory in Harpers Ferry, in what is now West Virginia. His goal was to strike a blow toward ending slavery.
On this day in Labor History, the year was 1914. That was the day that President Woodrow Wilson signed the Clayton Antitrust Act. The act also became known as Labor’s “Magna Carta.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1976.
That was the day more than a million Canadian workers walked off the job in a Day of Protest.
The Canadian Labour Congress called the general strike.
Workers downed their tools against a three-year wage controls plan implemented by then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
Trudeau had actually campaigned against wage controls during the 1974 elections.
A year later, the Liberal government introduced the C-73 Anti-Inflation Bill.
It was considered the worst attack on labor since the 1930s, when bargaining rights were first legalized.
Trudeau’s wage controls suspended collective bargaining rights for all workers and amounted to deep wage cuts.
Public sector workers were hit hardest as many hospital, school and municipal workers teetered on the edge of desperation from already low wages made worse.
But for a day at least, many industries across Canada came to a screeching halt.
Forestry, mining and auto production all completely shut down.
Many towns and cities were one hundred percent on strike, even among the non-union workforce.
Saint John in New Brunswick, Sudbury, Ontario, Sept Iles, Quebec and Thompson in Manitoba were all cities where the strike was most successful.
But elsewhere, the strike was uneven.
Many public sector workers stayed on the job, while in cities like Vancouver, pickets successfully shut down bus service and newspaper deliveries.
Most heralded the Day of Protest as a fierce show of power against a years’ worth of wage controls.
But others argued that a one-day action was not enough.
To combat the attacks on labor, any general strike would have to keep the country shut down until the program of wage controls was finally defeated.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2010.
That was the day thirty-three Chilean miners were finally pulled to safety after being trapped for sixty-nine days.
Workers had been mining copper and gold twenty three hundred feet down, at the San Jose mine near the northern city of Copiapo, when the mine caved in, in early August.
The Compania Minera San Esteban Primera waited several hours to notify authorities and rescue efforts only began two days later.
Trapped miners initially tried to escape through ventilation shafts but found required ladders missing.
Each route they attempted was blocked by fallen rock or threatened additional collapse.
A state owned mining company took over rescue efforts and soon they began, as Geologist Sorena Sorensen noted, prospecting for people.
Initial exploratory boreholes failed to locate miners because mineshaft maps had never been updated.
Rescuers had no idea whether miners were even still alive.
Finally, seventeen days later, the eighth borehole reached them.
The miners tapped on the drill and taped notes to it, alerting rescuers above they were indeed alive and well.
Food, medicine and other supplies were lowered down to them as rescue efforts intensified.
Mini cameras were also lowered down and the miners videotaped messages of their continued ordeal.
They told how they continued to search for possible escape routes and agreed to ration their limited food supplies so they could all survive.
The first of three drilling plans to free the miners began.
It was an international effort.
The Chilean Navy consulted with NASA to design and construct the rescue pods.
Throughout the entire process, rescuers worked to prevent additional cave-ins and rock falls.
Finally the extraction process began and in less than 48 hours all emerged as heroes.
Bury me with my boys in Mt. Olive, and let no traitor draw breath over my grave.” Such was the last wish of labor leader Mother Jones. She wanted her final resting to place to be alongside the coal miners who gave their lives in the struggle to bring fair wages and a safe working environment to Virden, Illinois.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1965.
That was the day acclaimed photojournalist Dorothea Lange died.
She is celebrated for her work documenting the Great Depression for the Farm Security Bureau.
Lange’s photos captured images of migrant workers, sharecroppers and the rural poor.
Her iconic photo, Migrant Mother, is probably her most well known image.
It depicts a despondent, Dust Bowl mother surrounded by her hungry children.
Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1895.
She suffered the effects of polio as a child, which left her with a permanent limp.
She studied photography at Columbia University in New York, and eventually settled in the Bay Area.
When the Great Depression hit, she began photographing labor strikes, breadlines and soup kitchens, the homeless and unemployed.
The Resettlement Administration hired her soon after.
Nowadays, we can access images from around the world at a moment’s notice that broaden our understanding of current events.
But until the 1930s, few Americans could access media that adequately depicted the desperate social conditions engulfing the nation.
Federal programs that funded projects like Lange’s brought Depression-era images into the public eye.
Americans soon realized their suffering wasn’t caused by personal failure; that millions across the country were experiencing destitution brought on by broader economic forces.
During World War II, Lange worked for the War Relocation Authority, where she documented forced evacuation and internment of Japanese-Americans.
Her images, especially of Manzanar, were withheld from the public until after the war and were accessible to the public through the National Archives.
After the war, she taught at San Francisco’s Art Institute and cofounded the magazine Aperture.
She has been heralded as an innovator and has influenced generations of documentary photography.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1965.
That was the day acclaimed photojournalist Dorothea Lange died.
She is celebrated for her work documenting the Great Depression for the Farm Security Bureau.
Lange’s photos captured images of migrant workers, sharecroppers and the rural poor.
Her iconic photo, Migrant Mother, is probably her most well known image.
It depicts a despondent, Dust Bowl mother surrounded by her hungry children.
Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1895.
She suffered the effects of polio as a child, which left her with a permanent limp.
She studied photography at Columbia University in New York, and eventually settled in the Bay Area.
When the Great Depression hit, she began photographing labor strikes, breadlines and soup kitchens, the homeless and unemployed.
The Resettlement Administration hired her soon after.
Nowadays, we can access images from around the world at a moment’s notice that broaden our understanding of current events.
But until the 1930s, few Americans could access media that adequately depicted the desperate social conditions engulfing the nation.
Federal programs that funded projects like Lange’s brought Depression-era images into the public eye.
Americans soon realized their suffering wasn’t caused by personal failure; that millions across the country were experiencing destitution brought on by broader economic forces.
During World War II, Lange worked for the War Relocation Authority, where she documented forced evacuation and internment of Japanese-Americans.
Her images, especially of Manzanar, were withheld from the public until after the war and were accessible to the public through the National Archives.
After the war, she taught at San Francisco’s Art Institute and cofounded the magazine Aperture.
She has been heralded as an innovator and has influenced generations of documentary photography.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1912.
That was the day mill workers began to walk off the job at the Phoenix and Gilbert Knitting Mills in Little Falls, New York.
The strike was sandwiched between the Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts and the 1913 Paterson textile strike.
American, Hungarian, Polish and Italian workers, over 70% of them women, struck against wage reductions.
Their hours had just been cut from 60 hours a week to 54, and their wages adjusted accordingly.
A recent factory inspection commission investigation revealed deplorable working and living conditions, among the worst in the state.
As a result, state legislators passed protective legislation restricting women’s work hours.
Many social reformers pushed for laws like these in the hopes of improving women’s quality of life by minimizing their exploitation on the job.
But the reduction in hours spelled disaster for these mill women, who then faced a loss of income that ranged from 75 cents to $2 a week.
Socialists in nearby Schenectady, including the socialist mayor George Lunn, arrived in town and were promptly arrested for giving open-air speeches in support of the strikers.
IWW organizers soon followed to help organize picketing, daily strike parades and strike committees at each of the factories.
They quickly established IWW Local 801, National Industrial Union of Textile Workers.
By the end of the month, mounted police closed in on the women strikers and began clubbing them, many into unconsciousness.
The police raided strike headquarters and arrested IWW strike committee leaders.
But the women strikers stood strong and were celebrating victory by the beginning of the year.
They won full reinstatement and 60 hours pay for 54 hours work.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1823.
That was the day abolitionist and women’s suffragist, Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born.
Her parents were free blacks of color in the slave state of Delaware.
They were involved with many prominent abolitionists and active in the Underground Railroad.
The family moved to Pennsylvania, where Mary and her siblings were educated in Quaker schools.
As a young woman, Mary became a teacher and returned to Wilmington, Delaware where she opened a school for black children.
Once the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, Mary and many other free blacks fled to Canada to safely continue their abolitionist work.
She opened a school for fugitive slaves in Windsor, Ontario just across the river from Detroit.
Mary soon came under fire in the local press for insisting the school be racially integrated.
She responded by starting her own newspaper, The Provincial Freeman.
She and her husband, Thomas often traveled to the United States to continue their anti-slavery work.
They were present at John Brown’s 1858 Constitutional Convention.
Mary worked with Osborne Perry Anderson to publish his 1861 memoir, A Voice from Harper’s Ferry.
Anderson had participated in Brown’s raid and was the lone African-American survivor.
After her husband’s death, Mary returned to the United States with her children to help recruit black soldiers to the Union Army.
Once the Civil War was over, Mary moved to Washington D.C to teach.
She enrolled in Howard University where she earned a law degree.
There she joined the National Woman Suffrage Association and worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
She continued to advocate for civil rights and women’s equality until her death in 1893.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1933.
That was the day garment factory owners locked out dressmakers in several shops throughout Los Angeles.
The women garment workers, overwhelmingly Mexican, had been organizing with the ILGWU for over a month.
They began conducting strikes at selected shops the previous month to press their demands.
The women wanted union recognition, a thirty-five hour workweek, an end to homework, shop floor committees, a guaranteed wage and more.
Historian Douglas Monroy observes that their demands reflected the harsh working conditions they faced.
It was a volatile, competitive, seasonal industry.
Businesses worked tirelessly to undercut each other and job out the work.
Women workers were routinely unemployed or underemployed, subject to widespread wage theft and discrimination.
They were frustrated by promises of the new National Industrial Recovery Act, which promised the right to organize but held no provisions for enforcement.
Employers flaunted the new legislation and continued to discharge workers for union activity.
When the employers forced a lockout, Local 96 looked to the AFL’s Central Labor Council to sanction a general dressmakers strike, which started four days later on October 12.
As many as 3,000 Latina strikers maintained solid picket lines, despite dozens of arrests.
ILGWU organizer Rose Pesotta arrived from New York to help with food distribution and packing the picket lines.
The rank and file leadership produced a bilingual strike bulletin and made daily radio announcements.
The strike ended in arbitration that conceded few gains to the garment workers.
But the women of Local 96 continued to organize throughout the Los Angeles area.
They led a series of strikes that finally won the closed shop in 1936.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1933.
That was the day Detroit anarchist labor leader, Joseph Labadie died.
Born in Paw Paw in 1850, Jo was born to descendants of French immigrants and grew up among Native Potawatomi peoples in southwest Michigan.
He became a printer, joined the local Typographical Union No.18 and worked for the Detroit Post and Tribune.
He was an early leader of the Socialist Labor Party.
By 1878, Jo organized the first Knights of Labor Assembly in Detroit.
He served as the first president of the Detroit Trades Council and founded the Michigan Federation of Labor.
He wrote tirelessly for a number of labor and socialist newspapers across the country.
He embraced anarchism and soon produced a popular column titled, “Cranky Notions.”
Labadie enjoyed the company and correspondence with radical labor leaders like Emma Goldman, Albert and Lucy Parsons, Eugene V. Debs, Benjamin Tucker, Terrance Powderly and others of the Progressive Era.
He was often referred to as ‘The Gentle Anarchist’ for his insistence on non-violence and distancing from those Anarchists who advocated the use of violence as an acceptable tactic.
Labadie was also known to never throw out any printed material relevant to labor or radical causes.
His biographer, Carlotta Anderson notes that, “the story of his life, deeds and thoughts is abundantly revealed through the treasure trove of letters, periodicals, clippings, manuscripts, booklets, photos and circulars once stored in his attic and now housed in the Labadie Collection of the University of Michigan. His stockpile of documents of social protest has proved a boon to scholars, enabling them to study the early labor movement in detail.”
When he died at the age of 83, he considered this to be his legacy.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917.
That was the day Civil Rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi.
She was the youngest of 20 children.
Her parents were sharecroppers and she began working the fields at the age of six.
At the age of 12, Fannie had to drop out of school to sharecrop to meet the needs of her family.
Marrying in 1944, she and her husband continued to work as sharecroppers on a plantation near Ruleville.
After decades of abject poverty and Southern political repression, Fannie Lou Hamer joined up with voter registration activists in 1962.
When she and seventeen others traveled to Indianola to register, Fannie was fired from her job and driven from the plantation she had worked at for decades.
She began working with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and played a central role in organizing Freedom Summer.
In a short time, Fannie was repeatedly arrested, beaten and shot at for her activism.
She suffered kidney damage after police beat her nearly to death in a Winona, Mississippi jail as she traveled home from a literacy workshop.
By 1964, she helped to found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the all-white delegation to the Democratic Convention.
President Lyndon Johnson was so threatened by live testimony she was giving before the Convention’s Credentials Committee, that he orchestrated an emergency press conference to preempt the broadcast.
When the Committee attempted a backroom deal to seat just two MFDP delegates with no voting rights at the convention, Hamer and other delegates left in disgust.
Hamer continued her activism but her life was tragically cut short in 1977 from hypertension and breast cancer.
She was just 59.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1886.
That was the day Henry George accepted the nomination to run for mayor of New York on the United Labor Party ticket.
In cities across the country, trade unionists met to found state labor parties and to hammer out political platforms for local and state elections.
In New York City, ULP advocates issued the Clarendon Hall platform and nominated Henry George as the ULP candidate for the mayoral race.
George had gained prominence with the 1879 publishing of his book, Progress & Poverty.
In it, he addressed private land ownership as the basis for inequality and advocated for a single tax system.
At New York’s Cooper Union that evening, where thousands of supporters gathered, George addressed the crowd.
He presented the ULP platform: higher pay, shorter hours, better working conditions, government ownership of railroads and communications and an end to police repression.
Burrows and Wallace describe the scene that night in their book, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898.
During his speech, George declared that, “this government of New York City—our whole political system is rotten to the core.”
He argued that “politicians had made a trade out of assembling votes and selling them to powerful interests; what business got in return was police protection, lax enforcement of housing and health codes, friendly judges and fat franchises. To purify the political order, working class voters had to sever ties to all the established parties and choose from their own ranks.”
For a party that had just been founded weeks before, George came in second.
But like its sister organization in Chicago, the New York ULP would split over the issue of socialism within a year.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1945. That was the day President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9639. It ordered the US Navy to seize control of more than four dozen oil refineries across the country. As World War II was drawing to a close, workers in many industries were growing increasingly restless. They had seen company owners rake in record profits, and the workers felt they had not received their fair share.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1932.
That was the day the State Militia was called into Kincaid, Illinois.
164 high school students had just walked out of the classroom, declaring themselves on strike.
They were protesting the school board’s use of coal from the Peabody Coal Company.
The students walked out in solidarity with their fathers, who were on strike against the Peabody Coal mine in nearby Langleyville over wage concessions.
The father-son strike, as it was referred to, was one more in a series of protest actions that came on the heels of the founding of the Progressive Miners of America a month earlier.
Thousands of Illinois miners had just voted with their feet to repudiate John L. Lewis’ UMWA over wage concessions.
After their founding conference, new PMA leaders began aggressively organizing non-union mines.
They marched into mining towns and ordered non-union diggers out of the mines.
They also struck UMW mines, picketing against the industry standard of $5 a day that had been set by the latest concessionary contract.
At some mines, the PMA was able to win the old $6.10 a day wage.
Throughout the month, the State National Guard had been called out to a number of mining towns to quell armed conflicts between PMA and UMW supporters.
The Peabody Coal mine at Langleyville had been shut down for months by ongoing PMA/UMW conflict.
Now it had reopened under heavy National Guard protection and was the only mine operating in Christian County.
The striking fathers were PMA miners picketing the continued mine operations under the UMW concessionary contract.
The years-long Illinois mine wars had just begun.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1949.
That was the day Americans awoke to fears the nationwide steel strike would spread rapidly to include key fabrication plants.
Half a million steel workers had joined 400,000 coal miners on strike the morning before.
The miners’ resolve to defend their $100-a month pensions, instituting what John L. Lewis called the “no-day work week,” emboldened the steel workers to walk out of the mills.
Within 24 hours, 96% of all steel production in the country was completely shut down.
USW contracts were due to expire on the 15th, But the writing was on the wall.
The mill owners decried anything close to mine pensions as nothing short of socialistic and refused to budge in negotiations.
USW president Phil Murray thundered that those companies that failed to agree to demands for non-contributory pensions and insurance would be shut down.
But militants warned that President Truman’s Fact-Finding Board had already watered down strike demands.
The President’s Board had been established to put off two previous strike deadlines.
The ‘guidelines’ it issued only encouraged steel magnates to stand tough against USW demands.
These included a 30-cent raise plus increased company insurance and pension contributions.
Now it had become a defensive struggle over whether steel workers would have to begin contributing to health and pension plans through wage cuts.
By the time steelworkers ended their strike forty-two days later, they had won the $100 a month pension, minus what they would receive from social security.
And they had to begin contributing to a health insurance plan with no wage increase at all.
Still, workers celebrated that they had successfully defended the USW against the all out union-busting drive.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1991. That was the day that the Pattern Makers League of North America merged with International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Have you ever heard of the Pattern Makers union? The Pattern Makers can trace their history all the way back to 1887.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. That was the day that 29 leaders of the Homestead Steel Strike in Pennsylvania were charged with treason against the state. If you are a regular listener to this broadcast, you have heard about this strike before.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1931. Canadian Coal miners, their wives, and children marched through the streets of Estevan, Saskatchewan. The miners were on strike for union recognition, and better pay and working conditions. Safety was a major concern for the 600 men and boys who worked in the mines.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1909. That was the day the International Ladies Garment Workers Union began a strike against the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Eventually, female workers struck at 339 of the 352 shirtwaist manufacturing firms in New York City. The strike was referred to as the “Uprising of the 20,000.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1904. A woman was arrested for smoking a cigarette in a car on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Women in the United States are no longer likely to be arrested for smoking cigarettes in public. They continue to face unequal treatment in the labor force.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1786. Daniel Shays led a group of farmers in an armed uprising. They were angry about taxes levied by the State of Massachusetts. Shays had been a captain in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
Can a photograph bring about social reform? Lewis Hine believed it could. On this day in Labor History the year was 1874, renowned photographer, Lewis Hine, was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Hine studied sociology at the University of Chicago, Columbia Universityand New York University.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1789. Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789. This act established the plan for U.S. Supreme Court. At first the Court was comprised of just six justices appointed by the President with Senate confirmation.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1969. President Richard Milhous Nixon issued the Philadelphia Plan. The goal of the plan was to require building trades unions to admit black members into their ranks. Nixon believed this would show him as a civil rights supporter without having to give in to the more radical demands of the civil rights movement.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2006. Eleven Domino’s pizza delivery drivers in Pensacola, Florida formed what is thought to be the first ever union of pizza delivery drivers. The American Union of Pizza Delivery Drivers won recognition from the National Labor Relations Board as the bargaining agent for drivers at the Pensacola franchise.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day that labor activist, Mother Jones, led a march of miners’ children through the streets of Charleston, West Virginia. Her aim was to illustrate the effects of poverty.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1878. That was the day that socialist author Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland. A prolific writer, Sinclair wrote nearly 100 books and other publications. Upton Sinclair’s father and father’s relatives had been wealthy Southerners.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. More than 400,000 union members marched in labor’s first Solidarity Day demonstration in Washington, D.C. The demonstration was called by the AFL-CIO to protest the Reagan administration’s policies and the firing of striking air traffic controllers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1830. That was the day that “Tom Thumb,” the first locomotive built in the U.S. raced a horse on a nine-mile course in Maryland.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1947.
That was the day workers at the International Harvester plant in Louisville, Kentucky had had enough.
They had just rejected a pay scale lower than that of Harvester workers elsewhere.
In her recent article for Leo Weekly, historian Toni Gilpin refers to the lower pay as the “Southern Differential.”
Harvester workers walked off the job in a 40-day strike.
Black and white Louisville workers were united in a rare form of solidarity.
International Harvester had had a long labor-hating history.
Its forerunner had been the McCormick Reaper Works, the site that sparked the 1886 Haymarket incident in Chicago.
Harvester had been able to keep the unions out until the Farm Equipment Workers/CIO finally organized there in 1941.
And the FE followed Harvester as they attempted to escape to the union-free South.
The FE successfully organized the new Louisville plant, just two months before the strike.
Workers learned quickly that they were paid much less making the same equipment as their brothers in Chicago, Indianapolis and elsewhere.
Gilpin adds that FE literature forthrightly stated, “Once the Negro and white workers were united, the low-wage system of the South would collapse.”
Workers pressed for their demands, and appealed to area farmers for support.
They stressed that farmers would not pay less for equipment, simply because local workers were paid less.
Black and white workers picketed together, ate together and planned their strike together at their new union hall.
Harvester initially tried to redbait FE leaders.
When that failed, the company was forced to grant steep wage increases.
Gilpin cites FE News, which reported “two smashing victories in hand, one over International Harvester, the other over the Mason-Dixon, low-wage line.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1945.
That was the day oil workers walked off the job.
The strike soon spread to 20 states and involved more than 43,000 workers at 22 oil companies.
After years of wartime wage freezes, the union’s demand was 52 for 40—fifty-two hours pay for 40 hours work.
Workers demanded a 30% pay increase, shift differentials and an eventual return to the 36-hour workweek.
The strike began in Michigan at the Socony-Vacuum refinery in Trenton.
From there it spread to Gulf, Sinclair and Shell.
By October 4, President Truman signed executive order 9639, allowing the Secretary of the Navy to seize petroleum operations.
The Oil Workers International Union/CIO immediately called off the strike and ordered its members back to work.
A month later, the Navy had still not relinquished control of operations.
The union considered Truman’s seizure a betrayal.
There was no mechanism put in place to settle the dispute or consider workers demands.
By January 1946, the Oil Panel, created by the Secretary of Labor, finally awarded oil workers an 18% wage increase.
Though disappointed, the union considered it a victory.
They asserted the strike action was significant on a number of levels.
The first nationwide industry strike had just forced the oil companies to meet with the union for the first time.
The OWI believed the groundwork for industry-wide bargaining had finally been established.
It had been the first post-war strike and had forced the government to begin moving away from wartime wage controls.
Of the post-war strikes, it won the largest pay increase.
And importantly, it broke the power of Standard Oil to dictate wages to the industry through its dealings with its “independent union.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1970. That was the day 350,000 GM workers kicked off a 67-day strike.
It was the largest auto strike since the end of World War II.
According to historian Jefferson Cowie, it was likely the costliest.
In his book, Stayin’ Alive, Cowie notes that the strike cost GM a billion dollars in profits and nearly bankrupted the union.
But he adds it “lacked the proletarian drama that fired journalists’ hearts.”
For Cowie, it was an example of labor-management cooperation, “a civilized affair.”
But historian Jeremy Brecher points out that The Wall Street Journal drew different conclusions about the strike at the time.
In a series of articles, the paper noted that labor-management cooperation during the strike served ironically, to get workers back to work.
A long and costly strike served a number of functions.
It wore down strikers’ expectations.
After eight or ten weeks, workers would be amenable to terms they initially rejected.
It also provided an escape valve for built up frustration over working conditions.
And a long strike served to coalesce internal union factions around a common enemy, strengthening the union’s leadership in the process.
For management, a long and costly strike leant hope that workers would be reluctant to strike in the future.
But Brecher notes, these ideas about workers motives nearly backfired.
Strikers simply wouldn’t budge on their demands.
They made gains in wages, pensions and cost of living allowances.
And they were finally able to retire after 30 years.
But critics argued the agreement fell short of initial demands.
And workers lacked more say in the workplace.
This would be a key issue in the many strikes and wildcats in the years to come.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917. That was the day Illinois Governor Frank Lowden hoped to meet with striking streetcar men in an effort to end their strike.
Transit workers in Springfield, the state’s capitol, had been off the job since July 25th.
But the strike had gained so much support that Springfield had now erupted into a full blown general strike.
According to the Sangamon County Historical Society, thousands of “union members shut down mines, railroads, bakeries, restaurants, laundries and construction sites… following the violent crackdown of a pro-labor march by state police and militia.”
That march had been scheduled for September 9.
The unions hoped to show support for the striking streetcar men after a number of clashes between strikers and state militia.
After they were denied a permit, many of the 50 or so unions decided to march anyway, and were attacked.
Some were shot, more than 40 suffered bayonet-inflicted injuries.
By the 11th, most everyone in Springfield had walked off the job.
Striking women shoe factory workers stopped a streetcar, pulling the scab drivers off by force.
By the end of the week, as many as 12,000 members of 34 unions in the city were on strike.
When telephone operators walked off the job, they paralyzed communications of the scab streetcar drivers and the State National Guardsmen.
The streetcar strikers refused to meet with the governor until troops were withdrawn from the city.
The governor insisted disloyal, pro-German forces were at fault for the “labor troubles.”
By the 16th, the streetcar men agreed to negotiate and the general strike was called off.
But the company refused to meet striker demands for recognition and higher wages or even to take them back.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934. That was the day Rhode Island Governor Theodore Green demanded that federal troops be sent to crush a textile strike in his state.
The General Textile Strike, then in its second week, stretched across the Piedmont from New England to Georgia.
Green declared, “We are face to face, not with a textile strike but with a communist uprising.”
His demands came after days of pitched battles between thousands of strikers and the Rhode Island National Guard in Saylesville and Woonsocket.
Secretary of War George Dern assured the governor and the press that 3,000 combat troops were ready and available for immediate duty in Rhode Island.
President Roosevelt declined to send federal troops.
But the state assembly authorized the governor to close the mills and appropriated $100,000 in funds to beef up state police forces.
The governor then directed Rhode Island’s police chiefs to round up all communists on charges of inciting riots in textile centers across the state.
It gave local authorities the pretext to round up and arrest over 200 alleged agitators, strike leaders, militants and radicals.
Over the course of four days, three strikers had been killed, including Charles Gorcynski at Saylesville and Jude Courtemanche, at Woonsocket.
Hundreds had been seriously injured in the two cities.
Seven of the sixteen strikers who had been shot by state troops were near death.
State National Guardsmen had been given “shoot to kill” orders to protect textile mills and scabs.
Once the Governor shut down the mills, police forces easily arrested dozens of flying squadron picketers and established martial law like conditions, though it was never officially established.
Within days, the strike would be quelled in Rhode Island.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1935.
That was the day the United Rubber Workers was founded in Akron, Ohio.
Akron was the rubber capital of the world.
All the major companies were there—Goodyear, Firestone, Goodrich and General Tire.
In Akron alone, there were more than 40,000 rubber workers and thousands more throughout the country.
After 30 years of struggling to build the union, hopes of organizing the industry were finally made real.
The founding of the international came after a successful strike the year before.
But the union was born amid growing tensions within the AFL.
These were years of industrial organizing that rivaled the exclusive skilled craft unions.
Growing demands to organize the mass industries would explode the next month at the historic AFL convention in Atlantic City.
The tensions between AFL leaders and rubber workers delegates gave a taste of things to come.
At the founding convention, rubber workers delegates opposed a number of AFL leaders’ demands.
The AFL insisted on appointing officers.
They threatened to withdraw financial assistance when the delegates demanded democratic elections.
But AFL leaders backed off when unionists from across the city protested.
Then, delegates voted down an AFL constitutional clause proposal to bar “communists” from the union.
They also refused AFL orders to organize on anything less than a total industrial basis.
Organizing skilled workers into the URW became a contentious issue at the October AFL convention.
It led to the fight between Carpenters leader Bill Hutcheson and UMW president John Lewis, which precipitated the AFL split.
By the following spring, the new URW would lead another successful strike that put it firmly among the industrial unions of the CIO.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2001.
We pause to remember those who died in the 9/11 attacks.
Of those killed, nearly a quarter were union people.
Hundreds of firefighters were lost.
Dozens of building trades people, including carpenters and electricians were also killed.
And many other unions lost members as well, including the AFT, SEIU, UNITE-HERE, CWA, and AFSCME.
Those lost that day will remains firmly forever in our memories.
What is less well known is the number of those first responders who are suffering from chronic and fatal diseases related to 9/11 or those who have already died.
It is estimated that over 400,000 people were exposed to World Trade Center contaminants.
These include more than 70 carcinogens and other hazardous substances.
Of those exposed, over 91,000 were first responders.
As of June 2017, over 67,000 first responders and over 12,000 survivors had registered in the World Trade Center Health Program run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The program provides medical monitoring, health evaluations and treatment for those who qualify.
Of those registered responders still alive, more than 45,000 suffer from certified conditions as defined by the Zadroga Act of 2010.
And for registered survivors, nearly 10,000 suffer from certified conditions.
Close to 700 registered first responders have already died from certified conditions.
However, this number is considered a low estimate, given there were many who died before the program was established.
There are also a number of illnesses believed related to the attacks but not yet certified.
If you are a survivor or were a 9/11 First Responder and would like to enroll in the World Trade Center Health Program, please visit www.cdc.gov/wtc or call toll free 1-888-982-4748.
Labor History in 2:00https://feed.podbean.com/laborhistoryin2/feed.xml
A daily, pocket-sized history of America's working people, brought to you by The Rick Smith Show team.
September 10 - Chicago Teachers Say, Enough!Friday Sep 10, 2021
On this day in labor history, the year was 2012.
That was the day the Chicago Teachers Union walked off the job for the first time in 25 years.
The historic weeklong strike resonated nationwide among trade unionists and served to reinvigorate the labor movement.
Certainly higher wages and better benefits were among the teachers’ demands.
The city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel had canceled the union’s wage increase, laid off close to 1000 teachers and went on the attack against seniority rights and working conditions.
The strike enjoyed wide public support among parents and the public.
Teachers emphasized broader educational problems they faced, namely the attacks fueled by corporate privatization.
They wanted a return to more traditional forms of education rather than simply preparing students for endless rounds of testing.
They wanted more art, music and gym classes.
And they demanded stable funding for social support services for the most vulnerable, at risk youth.
Union teachers understood that the Board of Education was using standardized testing to get rid of teachers and schools in order to privatize education, all in the name of turning around failing schools and “helping the kids.”
Though the contract was far from perfect, it showed the power working people have to hold the line against continued assaults on their standards of living, especially in the public sector.
The CTU was able to beat back attempts at merit pay and increased use of student test scores in teacher evaluations.
They won first time recall rights, supply reimbursements and liberal arts classes.
There were concessions made on seniority rights, pay for laid off teachers and longer work days.
But the CTU demonstrated that strikes can win in a period of extended anti-union onslaughts.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1929.
That was the day a mistrial was declared in the case of sixteen textile mill unionists in North Carolina.
The mistrial sparked five days of anti-union vigilante violence.
Textile workers at Gastonia’s Loray Mill had been on strike since April 1.
They demanded higher wages and shorter work hours, union recognition and an end to the hated stretch out system.
Soon, textile workers at Bessemer City’s American Mill walked off the job in solidarity and joined the National Textile Workers Union.
Ella Mae Wiggins was one of the strike leaders at American Mill.
She was known for her militancy but also for organizing black workers into the union.
As the strike wore on, mill owners evicted dozens of families from company housing.
Wiggins helped set up a tent city.
On June 7, sheriff’s deputies attacked strikers who marched to Loray Mill to call out remaining workers.
The police arrived at the tent colony later that evening to disarm them and Gastonia’s police chief wound up dead.
Immediately more than seventy textile union members and leaders were rounded up and arrested.
Sixteen stood trial for the murder of Chief Aderholt.
The anti-union Committee of One Hundred smashed up NTWU headquarters in Gastonia and Bessemer City.
They kidnapped, beat and threatened to kill several union members.
The rampage continued as scab forces moved onto Charlotte to raid the offices of the International Labor Defense, who had handled the strikers’ case.
Five days into the terror, Wiggins was killed on her way to a union solidarity rally.
Outrage over her murder forced mill owners to improve conditions and wages.
But the fight to organize would continue for years.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1965.
That was the day the Delano Grape Strike began in California.
The strike came a year after activists had forced Congress to end the Bracero contract labor program.
The Filipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, led by Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz and others called the strike against the Delano Growers and the Coachella Valley Grape Growers.
It had been a record harvest.
Farmworkers demanded higher wages, humane working conditions and union recognition.
When the growers refused, thousands walked out of the fields.
A week later, the Mexican-American National Farmworkers Association, led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, joined the strike.
It was a historic moment.
Within a year the two unions would merge to form the United Farm Workers.
The union sent strikers to the Oakland docks to persuade Longshoremen not to load non-union grapes.
Many of the Filipino workers in the San Joaquin Valley worked in the Alaska fish canneries organized by the ILWU in the off season.
And so the ILWU honored their union brothers request.
Thousands of cases of grapes were left to rot on the docks.
This initial victory led Chavez to organize a grape boycott against heavy weights, DiGiorgio and Schenley Industries.
Six months into the strike, union leaders marched 300 miles from Delano to Sacramento to bring attention to their struggle.
They hoped to pressure growers to the negotiating table and legislators to act on their behalf.
For five years, the strike and boycott continued, with marches, organizing and picket line arrests.
Gradually, the UFW began winning higher wages, union recognition and hiring halls.
Finally in 1970, a collective bargaining agreement covering 10,000 workers was reached.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2011.
That was the day hundreds of ILWU strikers blocked railroad tracks near Longview, Washington.
They hoped to stop grain shipments from moving in and out of the EGT Grain Terminal.
Longshoremen had been sitting down on the tracks throughout the summer resulting in over a hundred arrests.
No trains had moved in or out of the terminal since July.
But then a federal judge issued an injunction against ILWU pickets.
BNSF railroad tried to move grain once again.
ILWU picketers in Vancouver were able to hold off the train until police forcibly dispersed the crowd.
Then hundreds gathered at Longview to block the train from coming in.
That’s when police went on the offensive.
They used clubs and pepper spray against the longshoremen, arresting 19.
They threw ILWU president Bob McEllrath to the ground.
Rumors spread that police had broken his arm.
Hundreds of regional longshoremen rushed to Longview.
The Seattle and Tacoma ports shut down in protest.
The next morning, 10,000 tons of grain were opened onto the railroad tracks.
The grain export terminal was the first to be built in the Pacific Northwest in almost 30 years.
EGT hoped to undercut the powerful ILWU, who controlled operations at the port since its founding in the 1930s.
The union refused to agree to work 12-hour shifts at straight time.
The EGT hoped to break the hiring hall by refusing to recognize maintenance and inside workers at the terminal.
Then they attempted to fill jobs with workers from the Operating Engineers.
But the ILWU persevered.
By the end of January, EGT backed off many of its demands, negotiations resumed and days later the contract was signed.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934. That was the day that became known as “Bloody Thursday.” Seven striking workers were shot dead and another 30 wounded at the Chiquola Mill in Honea Path, South Carolina.
The Great Textile Strike of 1934 had started September 1. The twenty-two day strike spanned the eastern United States, from New England to Georgia and involved close to half a million workers. The main issue was the dreaded “stretch out,” increased workloads at the same or even reduced pay rates.
Striking textile workers implemented the flying picket squad tactic employed by Minneapolis Teamsters earlier that summer. Hundreds drove from mill to mill to prevent scabbing. Mill executives across the Piedmont were stunned and terrified at the strike’s effectiveness and the workers’ militancy.
Strikers at the Chiquola Mill had formed solid picket lines at the gate when scabs and special deputies armed by the mill’s owner, opened fire. All seven were shot in the back as they tried to escape the hail of bullets.
According to a New York Times article the following day, the killings marked “the beginning of the second bloody phase of the strike as one town after another reported completion of preparations to resist the flying squads and the picketing activity of the strikers.”
Frank Beacham, the grandson of Chiquola Mill owner and mayor of Honea Path, Dan Beacham, has worked to unearth the history of the massacre and apologize for his grandfather’s cruelty. He notes that, as in many southern mill towns, after the strike went down to defeat, those who struck were fired and blacklisted. Those who retained their jobs essentially took a vow of silence never to discuss the strike or massacre again.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934. That was the day that became known as “Bloody Thursday.” Seven striking workers were shot dead and another 30 wounded at the Chiquola Mill in Honea Path, South Carolina.
The Great Textile Strike of 1934 had started September 1. The twenty-two day strike spanned the eastern United States, from New England to Georgia and involved close to half a million workers. The main issue was the dreaded “stretch out,” increased workloads at the same or even reduced pay rates.
Striking textile workers implemented the flying picket squad tactic employed by Minneapolis Teamsters earlier that summer. Hundreds drove from mill to mill to prevent scabbing. Mill executives across the Piedmont were stunned and terrified at the strike’s effectiveness and the workers’ militancy.
Strikers at the Chiquola Mill had formed solid picket lines at the gate when scabs and special deputies armed by the mill’s owner, opened fire. All seven were shot in the back as they tried to escape the hail of bullets.
According to a New York Times article the following day, the killings marked “the beginning of the second bloody phase of the strike as one town after another reported completion of preparations to resist the flying squads and the picketing activity of the strikers.”
Frank Beacham, the grandson of Chiquola Mill owner and mayor of Honea Path, Dan Beacham, has worked to unearth the history of the massacre and apologize for his grandfather’s cruelty. He notes that, as in many southern mill towns, after the strike went down to defeat, those who struck were fired and blacklisted. Those who retained their jobs essentially took a vow of silence never to discuss the strike or massacre again.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1882. That was the day the first Labor Day Parade took place in New York City.
But whose idea was it? According to the late Jonathan Grossman, former historian at the Department of Labor, the first Labor Day occurred during a general uptick in working class organizing, strike activity and militancy that year.
Peter McGuire, Carpenters Union General Secretary is often credited as the father of Labor Day. But others assert that Knights of Labor machinist and New York City’s Central Labor Union leader Matthew Maguire was the force behind the holiday. The machinist Maguire had been active in the eight-hour movement and later as a Socialist Labor Party politician.
By the end of the decade, 400 cities nationwide celebrated the first Monday of September as “a general holiday for the workingman.” It was already an official holiday in most states when the labor movement started campaigning for a day of recognition at the federal level. Labor militants contend that by 1894, the holiday was promoted for its respectability against the more radical May Day.
Another unanswered question remains regarding President Cleveland’s motives for signing the federal legislation. The widely accepted view is that Cleveland hoped to win back Labor’s vote after federal troops crushed the 1894 Pullman Strike in early August.
But the President signed legislation much earlier, on June 28th. The nationwide boycott against Pullman cars, called by Eugene Debs and the American Railway Union, had just begun two days earlier. Did he hope to deflate the boycott? What do you think?
For many in the Chicago labor movement, the fact that both Labor Day and May Day are linked to the city’s history is a source of pride.
On this day in labor history the year was 1875. That was the day anti-black violence erupted into a two-day massacre in Clinton, Mississippi.
As many as 2500 Black Republicans and their families met at Moss Hill, a former plantation destroyed during the Civil War. The day was one of festivities and political speeches ahead of the fall elections. The County Republican Party invited local Democrats to debate. The Democratic State Senatorial candidate did address the crowd. The editor of a local Republican newspaper and Union officer, Captain H.T. Fisher, followed him.
Soon a group of white Democrats began to heckle Fisher as he spoke. Republican politicians attempted to quell the growing tensions. Almost immediately the heckling whites opened fire on the crowd. Women and children fled in all directions as black Republican forces rushed to defend themselves and their families.
By the end of the day three whites and five blacks were killed. Clinton’s mayor fed off rumors of black retaliation. He called upon white paramilitary forces, the White Liners, from surrounding areas for assistance. Several hundred answered the call and filled the town’s streets. Historian Melissa Janczewski Jones notes that though heavily armed, the White Liners accompanied white locals as they rampaged door to door, looking for black Republicans to murder.
After two days, as many as fifty black Clintonians were killed by white Democrats looking to end Reconstruction and regain political control of Mississippi. A Senate Committee would later conclude, “The riots at Clinton were the result of a special purpose on the part of the Democrats to break up the meetings of Republicans and to inaugurate an era of terror, not only in those communities but throughout the state.”
On this day in labor history the year was 1932.
That was the day the Progressive Miners of America wrapped up their founding convention in Gillespie, Illinois.
Fed up with concessions and what they viewed as a heavy-handed, anti-democratic rule by UMW president John L. Lewis, Illinois miners met to break decisively.
Area miners were active in radical politics and many supported currents within the Socialist and Communist movements.
That July, Lewis opened the contract and agreed to a 20% pay cut.
Tens of thousands of miners were furious and threw up picket lines at mines throughout central and southern Illinois.
In Franklin County, striking miners were assaulted, shot and beaten by special deputies and strike breaking thugs.
Many miners thought Lewis had a hand in the violence against them.
Two miners were killed and hundreds more injured.
By September 1, 273 delegates representing 40,000 miners resolved to break from the UMWA, form a new union, and plan immediate negotiations with coal operators.
They drafted a constitution emphasizing rank and file industrial democracy.
A women’s auxiliary was established, with Agnes Burnes Wieck at its head.
It imbued union solidarity and leadership qualities among non-mining women.
An enraged Lewis charged dual unionism but the new PMA alleged they represented ninety percent of Illinois miners.
The split gave rise to the Illinois Mine Wars.
Years of shootings, bombings, and assaults became almost commonplace as both unions struggled for power.
The PMA soon faced internal fighting as conservatives attempted to wrest leadership from many of the founders.
By 1937 racketeering charges were engineered against PMA leaders and close to forty were tried and convicted.
Though the union never dominated the industry, it continued to represent thousands of Illinois miners throughout the 20th century.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1910.
That was the day the ‘Protocol of Peace’ brought an end to the cloak makers strike in New York City.
The garment industry had been rocked by the ‘Uprising of the 20,000’ months earlier.
Young women had struck hundreds of small shops over pay, recognition and working conditions.
They won ILGWU recognition in all but a handful of shops.
60,000 cloak makers in the city were inspired to walkout of the sweatshops that July.
The mostly male strike force demanded shorter hours and increased pay, the closed shop and more.
Union membership soared and most of the smaller shops caved.
The larger manufacturers would not however, and by the end of summer, the Protocol of Peace was negotiated.
Future Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis figured prominently in the negotiations.
The Protocol established higher wages, shorter hours and overtime pay.
It also guaranteed the union shop, elimination of contracting and monitoring of piecework rates.
Even more significant, workers won a Union Health Center, a Board of Sanitary Control, a Board of Grievances and a Board of Arbitration.
For the first time, garment workers had access to health care, a way to eliminate sweatshop conditions and a way to mediate and resolve shop floor complaints.
The price to be paid however was that workers would give up their most powerful leveraging tool, the right to strike.
The agreement was lauded as a step forward for industrial democracy.
But soon many workers complained that the Protocol failed to answer a number of shop floor issues.
Grievances piled up and workers were penalized when they attempted to strike to resolve their problems.
The Protocol would be scrapped for a return to militant strikes during the 1920s.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934. That was the day nearly half a million textile workers, from Maine to Alabama, walked off the job in a general strike.
The United Textile Workers had launched an organizing campaign the year before. Within months their membership had grown from 15,000 to well over 250,000.
Working conditions and pay were abysmal. The normal workweek averaged 55 hours. Child labor was widespread and workers were always in fear of mill closings, pay cuts and firings for suspected union activity.
In the South, the industry had essentially been in a depression since the early 20s. The key issue was the ‘stretch-out”. Workers were routinely expected to complete an increasing amount of work at the same rate and wage.
For a brief moment, workers hoped their conditions would change when President Roosevelt signed the Code of Fair Competition the previous summer.
It raised wages, limited hours, and prohibited child labor. It also allowed for union organizing. But the mill owners maneuvered around the code effectively and the Textile Relations Board refused most workers complaints.
Fed up, workers walked out of the mills by the hundreds of thousands. They used the flying squadron tactic employed by Minneapolis Teamsters earlier that year, traveling from town to town, from mill to mill, calling workers out on strike.
Mill owners were shocked. Within days, strikers confronted thousands of police and scabs. More than 40,000 National Guardsmen were called out in 16 states. Over the course of the strike, sixteen were killed and hundreds injured.
After 22 days, union leaders called off the strike when President Roosevelt promised a government survey of industry conditions. It was an outrage, a betrayal and a defeat felt for decades.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1864.
That was the day the final battle of the Atlanta Campaign began with the Battle of Jonesborough.
The Union had been embroiled in a civil war with Confederate forces to end the slave labor system for three and a half years.
It had been a difficult summer.
Battles were increasingly bloody, with casualties on both sides numbering in the tens of thousands.
Criticisms intensified against key Union generals like Sherman and Grant.
Pressure mounted against President Lincoln to end the war and withdraw the Emancipation Proclamation if necessary.
General William T. Sherman mounted the Atlanta Campaign earlier that year, in May.
His forces scored a number of victories throughout the summer, but could not decisively defeat Confederate forces.
By August, Northern morale was so low that the Republican National Committee deemed Lincoln unelectable.
The Democratic National Convention, convening in Chicago, had declared the war a failure and planned to ride to victory over Lincoln in the November elections.
But Lincoln’s commitment to emancipation was unwavering.
And Sherman did not disappoint.
He understood that Atlanta was, as historian Eric Foner describes it, “a key railroad hub and the communications and transportation center for the entire Southeast.”
Sherman’s forces had been marching down from Chattanooga for most of the summer.
Finally, they marched to the south of Atlanta to cut the last key rail line.
On this day, Union forces positioned themselves at the Flint River and at the Macon and Western Railroad.
Over the next two days, they would successfully beat back multiple Confederate assaults, destroy the rail line and force Confederate forces to abandon Atlanta.
The city was now fully under Union occupation.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1907.
That was the day labor leader Luisa Moreno was born in Guatemala City.
As a young woman, she fought for the admission of women into Guatemalan universities.
After attending journalism school in Mexico City, Luisa moved to New York with her husband and worked as a seamstress.
Outraged by low pay, racial discrimination and poor working conditions, she led organizing efforts on the job.
During the Depression she worked as a full-time union organizer, first with the AFL organizing black and Latina cigar rollers in Florida.
But she also became active with the Communist Party and joined CIO efforts to organize cannery workers.
Luisa led unionizing efforts of pecan shelling women workers in San Antonio, Texas and then of cannery workers in Los Angeles.
In 1938, Luisa helped organize the Spanish-speaking Peoples Congress.
During World War II, she fought against discrimination in hiring of Mexicans in oil and war-related industries.
In the 1940s she became centrally involved in high profile legal defense cases of Mexican-American youth prosecuted on frame-up charges.
These included work around the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon case and then of victims of the Zoot Suit riots a year later.
She continued union work in California, helping to organize and represent walnut pickers.
By 1950 she was caught in the cross hairs of the McCarthy-era witch-hunts.
Luisa was targeted by Operation Wetback, and offered citizenship status in return for testimony against radical labor leader, Harry Bridges.
When she refused, she faced deportation on the accusation that she had once been a member of the Communist Party.
She returned to Guatemala and continued organizing workers throughout Central America.
Luisa Moreno died in Guatemala in 1992.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1941.
That was the day 2500 steel workers at the Pressed Steel Car Company near McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania walked off the job.
It was the second walkout in two weeks.
Workers effectively shut down production of armor plate for the Navy, shell forgings for the Army and railroad cars used to transport military materiel.
The company had gone back on promises of holding a collective bargaining election.
Steelworkers Organizing Committee sub-regional director, Abe Martin told The Pittsburgh Press that while the union had not called the strike, workers had “walked out themselves because they are fed up with the company’s discrimination against them.”
SWOC had been trying to organize the plant for years.
But the company had engineered an election for a so-called, independent union 18 months earlier, when the complex was only operating at half capacity.
Workers walked out at the beginning of the month and ended their strike on the guarantee that negotiations for a new election would begin.
But when they returned, they found that some were stripped of seniority while others were forcibly transferred to new departments.
The day before, machine shop workers on the afternoon shift were fed up and dropped their tools.
Word spread throughout the evening and by early morning, picket lines were solid and production had come to a complete standstill.
When the company tried to force reopening of the plant after Labor Day, 1500 workers formed picket lines at the gates to stop scabbing.
They returned to work 10 days later in compliance with a request by the National Defense Mediation Board.
The NLRB rejected SWOC’s election petition two months later, but SWOC persisted and won exclusive bargaining rights the following June.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day 7,000 white and Filipino lettuce workers in California’s Salinas Valley walked out on strike.
Salinas was the lettuce capital of the world.
The division of labor in the Valley was largely ethnically based.
Filipinos did much of the field labor, while whites worked in the packing sheds.
At the time, Filipinos made up 40% of the total agricultural workforce in the Salinas Valley.
They had founded the Filipino Labor Union a year earlier.
White packing shed workers had organized into the AFL’s Vegetable Packers Association.
While the VPA had been reluctant to work with the FLU, they now sought to join forces in strike action.
Both unions agreed neither would return to work until both had achieved victory.
Together, they demanded wage increases, union recognition and better working conditions.
Losing $100,000 a day, the growers soon imported scabs of all races.
They enlisted California Highway Patrols to arrest striking Filipinos on incitement and vagrancy charges.
Soon the VPA agreed to arbitration, leaving the FLU to continue the strike alone.
Some speculated the members were threatened with the loss of their charter if they refused to return to work.
The striking Filipino workers continued to organize job actions and experienced increased retaliation as a result.
VPA leaders publicly distanced themselves from the Filipino strikers and racially charged vigilante violence intensified.
It culminated in the burning down of the labor camp where hundreds of Filipino workers lived a month after the strike began.
Vigilantes then drove as many as 800 Filipinos from the Valley at gunpoint.
The strike was officially called off and those that remained returned to work.
By October, both unions had won wage increases.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1950. At 4 pm that day the US Army completed its take-over of the country’s railroads.
They were acting on the orders of President Truman.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1919. That was the day that Fannie Sellins and Joseph Starzeleski were murdered while standing up for workers’ rights. Fannie was born in New Orleans, and then married a garment worker in St. Louis.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1925. 500 African American sleeping car porters gathered at the Elks Hall at 129th Street in Harlem. The meeting was called by A. Philip Randolph.
The year was 1877.
That summer during what came to be known as “The Great Upheaval,” police, the US Army, and the National Guard brutally crushed a national railroad strike. The simmering anger of working people had many elected officials and industrialists on edge.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day the US Congress approved the formation of the Commission on Industrial Relations. In the early 1900s the terrible work conditions and entrenched resistance to union organizing had led to increasing labor unrest.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1945. That was the day five women working for United Airlines formed the first union for airline stewardess. Those women were Ada Brown, Frances Hall, Edith Lauterbach, Sally Thometz and Sally Watt.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1945. That was the day five women working for United Airlines formed the first union for airline stewardess. Those women were Ada Brown, Frances Hall, Edith Lauterbach, Sally Thometz and Sally Watt.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1831. That was the year Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in Southhampton, Virginia.
From a young age Turner believed he had a purpose ordained by God. Turner had learned to read from one of his master’s sons.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1964. President Lyndon B. Johnson gave a mid-morning address in the Rose Garden of the White House. He was there to sign the Economic Opportunity Act that launched what became known as Johnson’s War on Poverty.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1909. That was the day that a committee of the Industrial Workers of the World in Spokane, Washington published the first edition of the “Little Red Song Book.” The collection were “Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1927. That was the day that a new radio station began to broadcast on the New York dial. The station’s call letters were WEVD. It stood for Eugene V. Debs. The radio station was founded to honor the recently deceased Socialist and labor leader.
On this day in Labor History the year 1918. That was the day that 101 leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies were convicted in a Chicago Federal Court. Their alleged crime?
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. That was the birthday of the long-time leader of the AFL-CIO.
George Meany grew up in the Bronx, with his Irish Catholic family.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1971. That Sunday, President Richard Nixon addressed the nation in a speech that preempted the popular television show, Bonanza. His subject? The state of the economy. The speech was timed before the stock markets opened on Monday morning.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1936.
That was the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law.
The act was a key piece of the President’s “New Deal” a series of federal programs responding to the ravages of the Great Depression.
Social Security would provide an income for retirees and the disabled, to ensure they did no slide into complete destitution.
On signing the bill, President Roosevelt, known for delivering memorable speeches, addressed the press.
He said, “Today, the hope of many years’ standing in large part fulfilled. The civilization of the past hundred years, with its startling industrial changes, had tended more and more to make life insecure. Young people have come to wonder what will their lot when they come to old age. The man with a job has wondered how long that job will last. This Social Security measure gives at least some protection to 50 million of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation, through old age pensions, and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health.”
He went on to say, “The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and inflation. It is, in short, a law that will care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.”
Over the past few decades, politicians, have increasingly sounded the alarm that Social Security will not remain viable as the large baby boomer generation retires and draws benefits.
Yet despite those who seek to attack Social Security, it remains a bedrock of the social safety net for millions of Americans.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1892.
That was the day miners in Tracy City, Tennessee rebelled against the state’s convict lease system.
Miners had been forced to work side by side with convict labor.
The convicts, overwhelmingly African-American, were forced to live in deplorable stockade conditions.
Their presence in the mines served to minimize paid labor, keep wages low and stunt union organizing throughout the state.
Miners demanded that Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad give them the same hours of work as the convicts.
When they refused, the miners marched on the stockades where convicts were housed.
They released the convicts and marched them onto trains bound for Nashville, burning the stockades to the ground.
The revolt at Tracy City followed armed uprisings of thousands of miners the previous year in nearby Briceville and Coal Creek.
Here it is thought that Knights of Labor leaders led miners to surround stockades, disarm guards, and release convicts onto Knoxville bound trains over the course of several days.
By August 1892, hundreds of miners would confront state forces in armed shootouts across Grundy, Marion and Anderson counties, releasing convicts when they could onto trains bound for Nashville.
Miners were eventually arrested and convicted.
But these revolts would lead the Tennessee General Assembly to end its convict lease system four years later, making it one of the first Southern states to do so.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1955.
That was the day Teamsters organizer, 28-year old William Grami was kidnapped and beaten.
Grami had arrived in Sebastopol, California to help organize about 350 workers in local canneries, drying plants and fruit sheds.
The Teamsters had been on campaign footing for months, in an attempt to win union recognition, higher wages and benefits.
They had lost a union representation election the previous fall, after Sebastapol Apple Growers moved quickly to lay off union supporters.
By January, cannery workers at Oscar Hall and Sons voted for union representation, though workers at Barlow Company would vote against the union just two months later.
But by early August, the strike wave hit.
Workers walked off the job at the Sebastopol Cooperative Cannery.
More at seven other area canneries joined them on strike in the days that followed.
Grami would later testify that he had heard reports weeks earlier of a grower threatening to have him killed within three hours, should any strike actually take place.
During the strike that would ultimately prove victorious, three men kidnapped Grami outside the union hall.
He was driven along a rural road, tied to a pole, gagged and beaten with a bicycle chain.
Left for dead, he was found the next day and hospitalized immediately.
But the union and the strikers remained undeterred.
Before the strike was over, scab trucks attempting to haul apples to market were vandalized or burned, and scab drivers were beaten.
Eight months later, the apple industry finally came to the negotiating table.
By May 1956, area apple growers signed with the Teamsters.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union was founded.
After the victorious strike of 1934 that established the union hiring hall,
West Coast union leaders embarked on an inland campaign to organize the thousands of warehouse workers who handled shipped goods.
But West Coast dockworkers overwhelmingly chose to join the CIO after it was expelled from the AFL earlier that year.
They found the ILA planned to abandon the warehouse workers they had worked so hard to organize.
They also opposed dues assessments to fight the CIO and disagreed with the ILA’s hostility to minimum wage laws, social security and unemployment insurance.
Radicals like Harry Bridges and others had established themselves not only as workers leaders but also led attacks on Jim Crow racism in the ranks and in the industry.
The success of the 1934 strike was due in part to the welcoming of blacks into the ranks of the union.
In his Workers on the Waterfront, historian Bruce Nelson notes that, “the ILWU’s well-known opposition to racial discrimination was an important factor in the union’s expansion into Hawaii, not only on the waterfront but among sugar and pineapple plantation workers. The triumph of the ILWU in Hawaiian agriculture brought about a degree of fraternization across racial lines that few had thought possible.”
Since then, the union has beat back numerous Taft–Hartley and McCarthy era attacks.
More recently, the ILWU has been in the forefront of broader social justice struggles, leading walkouts and work stoppages for various political causes.
Today it represents close to 60,000 workers, including those locals that initially refused to affiliate.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1922.
That was the day 1300 workers from the four railroad brotherhoods walked off the job in Joliet, near Chicago.
The walkout threatened to paralyze freight service for steel mills in nearby Gary and other regional industries.
Four hundred thousand railroad shopmen had been on strike across the country for nearly seven weeks.
Newspaper headlines that day warned a general strike of two million trainmen loomed on the horizon.
Brotherhood leaders promised sympathy strikes in response to threats made against their members by troops on duty at railroad centers and yards.
There were also real concerns about the health and safety of trainmen, given rolling stock was no longer being maintained.
In Joliet, workers stayed away under threats from troops.
Additionally, Illinois Central trainmen faced threats from striking miners throughout Kentucky and Illinois, who warned:
“Stop transporting non-union coal or suffer the consequences.”
Resentment had been building against state guard troops stationed in Illinois yards.
Earlier in the week, striking shopmen had engaged in a fatal confrontation with Joliet sheriffs that left a striker and railroad detective dead and scores injured.
Riot orders were called when authorities sought to arrest striking shopmen who had stormed the home of a scab.
Brotherhood workers refused to return to work unless troops were removed.
Warren Stone, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers stated: “We are not going to have our men shot up or beaten up or threatened by armed guards at railroad shops and yards.
When the men cannot go to work without having irresponsible armed guards endangering their lives, they may go home and stay there.
There will be 100 more cases soon if conditions are not changed.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1965.
That was the day fifty-three construction tradesmen were killed in a fire at the Titan II ICBM launch complex near Searcy, Arkansas.
It is considered one of the worst industrial accidents at a U.S. nuclear weapons facility. The complex was one of four sites containing Titan II missiles. Each missile weighed 340,000 pounds, measuring 103 feet in length and 10 feet in diameter.
President Johnson had just committed more troops to the Vietnam War. The Air Force hoped to strengthen the silo against a possible Soviet attack.
They had contracted with Peter Kiewit and Son of Colorado to bring in electricians, carpenters, millwrights, painters and pipefitters for a number of tasks.
Crews worked to shore up the silo, improve the blast doors, adjust hydraulics and install emergency lighting.
52 of 55 workers on all nine levels of the silo were almost immediately asphyxiated when it suddenly filled with smoke and heat.
The Air Force determined a welder on level 2 accidentally pierced a high-pressure hydraulic line, igniting the fire.
Investigators also concluded the silo lacked adequate ventilation, alternative exits and independent power sources.
The contractor was held responsible for numerous safety violations, contributing to unsafe working conditions.
The welder was found drowned in hydraulic fluid.
Two survivors suffered burns and smoke inhalation. They contested the Air Force’s findings. One worker insisted no one had been welding on level 2.
The other survivor stated he saw flames burst from the diesel engine just before the power went out. Both men insisted the fire started from below.
By 1981, two more deadly accidents involving Titan II missiles would prompt President Reagan to order their deactivation.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1902.
That was the day more than 100 trade union delegates representing thousands of working people in St. Paul, Minnesota elected Charles James to be the president of the city’s Trades and Labor Assembly.
Virtually forgotten by history, James is considered to be the first African American elected to a city labor council anywhere in America.
He was born in 1866 in St. Paul and began working as a leather cutter for local shoe manufacturers at age 15.
This was at a time when most African Americans were excluded from skilled trades.
His biographer, Dave Riehle, asserts that it is unclear when James became involved in union politics and organizing.
Shoe making was the largest mass production industry in St. Paul, employing thousands.
Riehle notes the Knights of Labor had been active in the city during the 1880s and shoe workers were among the first to organize.
By 1899, James had become the first president of a newly formed shoe workers union in Minneapolis and helped to found three more locals in St. Paul.
By 1902, James was well known and well respected throughout the Twin Cities as a strong union leader.
He served three terms as president of the Trades Assembly and then as secretary for seven more years.
Riehle states that James continued as full time organizer and district business agent, traveling to cities across the Midwest to organize shoe workers.
When he died in 1923, the Boot and Shoe Workers Union eulogized him in their national journal.
Though James had been obscured from local labor history for decades, Riehle and others have worked to write Charles James back into the history books.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1978.
That was the day President Jimmy Carter declared a federal health emergency at Love Canal, in the city of Niagara Falls, New York.
Premier spokeswoman, housewife Lois Gibbs became the poster child for the citizen environmental justice movement virtually overnight.
Niagara Falls Gazette journalists broke the story two years earlier.
Their sump pump testings and health surveys found a number of toxic chemicals and unusually high rates of cancers, birth defects, miscarriages and other serious health concerns.
Initially planned as a canal, the site remained abandoned until the 1940s.
That’s when Hooker Electrochemical Plant and the City began using the site to dispose of toxic chemical and municipal waste.
More than 20,000 tons of toxic sludge containing more than 21,000 chemicals were buried there.
Then, in 1953, the City School Board bought the site and built two schools on the property.
Soon, about 1,000 families settled nearby.
By the early 70s, residents complained of foul odors, health issues, substances filling their basements and leaky waste disposal drums popping up in back yards, killing all plant life.
Class and racial tensions soon emerged among working class white homeowners and black renters, both of whom sought compensation and relocation.
Carter’s initial declaration provided limited funding.
But the disaster led to the passage of the Superfund Act.
The neighborhood was demolished and residents were compensated and relocated.
The new owner of Hooker Chemical, Occidental Petroleum settled with the EPA for $129 million.
Despite 21 years of remediation and residential redevelopment, new residents complained in 2011 of foul odors and ruptured sewage lines oozing toxic sludge.
By 2014, 1,000 new complaints had been filed contending the area had never been properly remediated.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2012.
That was the day release of flammable vapor led to a fire at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, California.
A Level 3 Community Warning System Alert was issued for the cities of Richmond, San Pablo and North Richmond.
Toxic black smoke could be seen for miles while the fire burned for hours.
Nineteen workers were nearly incinerated trying to escape the fire.
More than 15,000 area residents sought medical treatment for chest pain, breathing problems, headaches and sore throats.
The Chemical Safety Board found that the release was caused by a leaking pipe that eventually ruptured.
The pipe, made of carbon steel, suffered sulfidic corrosion.
The CSB noted that for 40 years, the refinery industry had known that carbon steel corrodes at a much faster rate than higher chromium content steel pipe.
The pipe in question had no shut off valve to isolate the leak. In its final report, the CSB issued a number of findings.
They found that Chevron knew of the corrosion but did nothing to prevent it.
As well, Chevron not only failed to perform 100 percent component inspections, but also rejected earlier recommendations to inspect and replace the pipe that would eventually fail.
When it came to Emergency Response, Chevron failed to identify and communicate process controls or damage mechanisms in the incident command structure.
They also had no leak response guidance or formal protocol to determine how to handle a process leak.
The CSB found the Safety Culture lacking. Workers were reluctant to use their Stop Work Authority and were often encouraged to continue operations despite hazardous conditions.
The CSB issued a number of recommendations, including more stringent regulatory enforcement.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917.
That was the day IWW leader Frank Little was buried in Butte, Montana.
Little had been lynched on August 1, by police agents thought to be working for the despised Anaconda Copper Company.
He had arrived in town to help organize 14,000 striking copper miners.
Devastated by the deaths of 168 miners in the June fire at Granite Mountain & Speculator Mines, mine workers formed the Metal Mine Workers’ Union and walked off the job.
Frank Little had previously worked as a hard rock miner and organizer for the Western Federation of Miners. He also took part in the free speech campaigns on the West Coast.
Little was involved in early drives to industrially organize oil workers and lumberjacks.
He voiced his opposition to the First World War and sought to stop workers from enlisting.
When Little arrived in Butte in July, he worked to build strike support, picket lines and spread the strike to other trades across the city.
Early on August 1, six masked men broke into the boardinghouse where he was staying. He was beaten and taken from his room.
His assailants tied him to the bumper of their car and dragged him through the granite streets of Butte to Milwaukee Bridge, where he was hanged.
An ominous note was pinned to his bullet-ridden body, with the words “Others Take Notice.
First and Last Warning.” It included the numbers 3-7-77 as well as the initials of other union organizers in the area.
As many as 10,000 marched in the funeral procession.
Days after his lynching, martial law was declared.
Labor radicals were rounded up and charged with espionage. The miners strike and union were crushed.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1941.
That was the day Michael Siegel, Business Agent for New York City’s Local 3, IBEW announced the lights would be going out on Broadway for an half an hour.
Electricians had been on strike for nearly a week to protest Consolidated Edison’s refusal to employ union electricians for work on its new Waterside plant.
The company claimed it could only use members of the Brotherhood of Edison Employees, an ‘independent union.’
The walkout also affected electricians at area construction sites and at 25 defense contractors across the city.
The union had just agreed to exempt electricians at the Brooklyn Navy Yards, where the strike held up work on four battleships.
And the IBEW allowed electricians at Ford Instrument to return to work, given they had orders for $100,000,000 in defense instruments.
Siegel announced that at 9 p.m. the following evening, maintenance men not on strike, would pull the switches on all signs in Times Square in sympathy, to bring attention to their plight.
After the half-hour blackout, the IBEW continued to fight injunctions brought by the New York Electrical Contractors Association.
Harry Van Arsdale Jr., business manager for Local 3, declared the blackout had been more successful than they had hoped.
He characterized the switch-off as a “blackout for enlightenment.”
Naval officials complained however that the strike held up vital defense projects.
Newspapers noted that Broadwayites suddenly noticed the moon when an estimated 10 million watts of super-lighting was turned off.
A Times Square veteran noted it was darkest since 1918, when a Zeppelin raid alarm caused a blackout.
The strike was called off a week later when ConEd acknowledged its previous agreement with IBEW.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1981
That was the day 13,000 workers in the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or PATCO, went on strike.
Highly stressed workers had been driven to nervous exhaustion by long hours, problematic technology and brutal management.
They wanted better pay and working conditions, and a 32 hour work week.
PATCO workers had proven that militancy bred victories throughout the early 1970s.
But public sector employers went on the offensive as the decade drew to a close.
By the time Ronald Reagan was elected to office, automation, deregulation and inflation had taken its toll.
As Joseph McCartin details in his book, Collision Course, controllers found new technology unreliable.
They experienced on average, a computer outage a day, in critical moments of take offs and landings.
As well, the Airline Deregulation Act and the Civil Service Reform Act became laws in October 1978, serving to restrict union rights and worsen working conditions.
By the late 1970s, inflation had tripled.
Federal workers, unlike those in the private sector, lacked any COLA protections.
Emboldened by their skill level, solidarity and previous victories, the controllers walked.
Invoking Taft-Hartley, President Reagan issued a 48 hour back-to-work ultimatum.
In a historic move, he fired the strikers, jailed their leaders and forced costly injunctions that spelled doom for the union and the labor movement.
Many labor activists hoped the Teamsters and Machinists would walk out in support.
Instead the strike was a pivotal moment for labor.
It ushered in an era of unprecedented attacks not seen since the 1930s.
As Robert Weir notes, PATCO’s defeat “touched off a new wave of downsizing, decertification and concessions strikes.”
The labor movement continues to suffer its impact today.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day striking Teamsters in Minneapolis defied martial law.
They stopped scab trucks, forcing the release of their strike leaders.
Armed with bayonets and machine guns, the National Guard had patrolled the streets for nearly a week.
They seized scores of strikers and union leaders and threw them into military stockades.
Drivers were outraged.
They defied Governor Olson and Major General Walsh who, on behalf of the Citizens Alliance and trucking bosses, were determined to break the strike.
Soon after strikers were imprisoned, drivers began chasing scab trucks across the city.
Multiple reports poured in of pickets forcing trucks to stop.
Some unloaded their cargo onto bridges.
Others chased, captured and damaged trucks.
Strikers ripped ignition wiring out, forced scabs from the wheel and then disappeared before police and the National Guard could arrive to retaliate.
In just three hours, strikers had overturned nearly 70 trucks.
Unable to stop the superior force of striking drivers, Bill Brown, Vincent and Miles Dunne were ordered unconditionally released from the military stockades.
Now employers, the governor, and other strike breaking agencies were eager to propose peace to federal mediators.
But they proposed to scrap the terms of their early May agreement.
In response, the leaders of Local 574 issued a General Strike call.
In it they asked, “Is there one man so blind as not to see that if 574 is allowed to go down to defeat, under the brutal hammering of military despotism, the whole labor movement of the city will have been dealt a mortal blow?
Union men, brothers, sisters, fellow workers!
What are you going to do about it?
We appeal to you for solidarity!”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day National Guard troops in Minneapolis raided Teamsters local 574 headquarters.
Over 150 were arrested, including top strike leaders Bill Brown and the Dunne Brothers, who were imprisoned in military stockades.
Troops also seized union records and files.
Then they raided the Central Labor Union, seizing records and forcing out dozens of area labor leaders.
Teamsters had been battling the trucking bosses and the Citizens Alliance throughout the spring and summer in what would be a turning point for industrial organizing.
Finally, drivers agreed to a tentative settlement on the 25th, but the bosses rejected any deal, refusing to negotiate with ‘Reds.’
Farmer-Labor Party Governor Floyd Olson declared martial law the next day.
4,000 troops arrived, issuing unlimited military permits to scab drivers.
By month’s end, over 7,500 scab trucks were rolling throughout the city!
Local 574 challenged the martial law: they demanded that peaceful picketing and open-air meetings be reinstated; they wanted troops withdrawn from the city; and they wanted all truck movement halted for 48 hours.
When Olson rejected these demands, a mass rally was called for the 31st to mobilize strike support.
25,000 turned out to the Parade Grounds, cheering strike leader Bill Brown, who declared, “the Farmer-Labor Party is the best strikebreaking force our union has ever gone up against!”
Historian Bryan Palmer notes the loudest and longest applause was reserved for Albert Goldman, who thundered, “If we submit without a struggle, then we deserve the fate of submissive slaves. We cannot, we dare not, submit. We call upon the workers, organized and unorganized, to clench their fists, shout defiance of the bosses, and struggle until victory or death.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1939.
That was the day striking autoworkers in Cleveland, Ohio defended their picket lines in what is known as “The Battle of East 140th Street.”
Members of UAW Local 45 at GM’s Fisher Body plant had been on strike for three weeks.
They had joined striking GM workers at 12 plants throughout Michigan.
They demanded a supplemental agreement granting skilled workers wage increases, overtime adjustments and seniority, and apprentice provisions.
In Cleveland, strikers vowed to stop the scabbing and were mostly successful.
Now, at the start of the morning shift, a scab attempted to plow through picket lines at high speed.
Strikers flooded the gates and brought the scab car to a virtual stop.
As they attempted to convince him not to cross through, mounted police viciously charged and attacked the strikers.
Police continued to shoot tear gas guns from behind plant gates.
Soon, there were more than 5000 picketers fighting with police, as workers poured out from half a dozen nearby plants to support the strikers.
For over two hours, workers showered strikebreaking forces with bricks, rocks and paving blocks.
They overturned scab cars and drove the police off the streets and into the plant.
Fighting broke out again in the afternoon when police tried to bring in more tear gas supplies.
Strike leaders directed activities from an amplifier on the roof of a nearby restaurant.
The next day, famed prohibition crusader, Eliot Ness, now Cleveland’s Director of Public Safety, enforced a 500 yard ”riot zone,” banning all gatherings near the gates and limited picketers to seven at each gate.
Strikers began picketing the homes of known scabs and would ratify a new contract just days later.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1866. That was the day known as the Mechanics Institute Massacre.
Black and white republicans in New Orleans called a constitutional convention to consider voting rights for African-Americans.
It would be another three and a half years before the ratification of the 15th amendment.
Freedmen, many of them Civil War veterans gathered in the Fauburg-Marigny and proceeded to march to the convention, held at the Mechanics Institute on Canal Street.
Just before they reached the Institute, Black Republicans were confronted by a mob of white democrats, ex-Confederate soldiers and police, determined to prevent blacks from attaining any semblance of civil or political rights.
The delegates were able to momentarily beat back the mob and reach the Mechanics Institute.
But the racist mob charged again and started shooting.
By the time it was over, at least 50, mostly black Republicans were shot dead in the street. More than 200 were seriously injured.
Historian Justin Nystrom notes that it was an absolute massacre.
But he adds it was “actually very useful to the Republican Party because it gave them a concrete example of the kinds of problems former Confederates were causing in the South.”
He adds that events such as these helped influence voters to bring more Radical Republicans into Congress.
These politicians would be key to passing the Reconstruction Acts.
Nystrom points to a poem written by Camille Naudin, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the massacre.
Titled “Ode to the Martyrs,” the poem mourns the massacred while bitterly observing that Jefferson Davis remains alive: “But for the Mulattos, blacks and whites, this fact I must tell: Victor Lacroix is dead. Jeff Davis lives still.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1969.
That was the day AFSCME sanitation workers in Charlotte, North Carolina walked off the job.
More than 85% of the sanitation workers were black in this predominantly white Southern city. It was their third garbage strike in a year.
State statutes prohibited union contracts in municipal agencies.
But AFSCME was determined to win union recognition and establish an agreement with the city.
Southern Director for AFSCME, James Pierce thundered, “We’ll bring in whatever help we can get if the city tries to break the strike.
We can turn this place into a Memphis or a Charleston in a few days.”
Of course, Pierce was referring to two victorious strikes by black workers that had rocked the South within the past year.
Black sanitation workers in Memphis walked out in a historic strike in the spring of 1968.
Hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina had just won their strike days earlier.
Pierce outlined the issues at stake.
According to the Asheville Citizen-Times, the Charlotte City Council had adopted its final budget without providing dues checkoff, without adhering to established grievance procedures or seniority rights and without adding important safety precautions for garbage collection.
At first, Charlotte’s mayor asserted claims that the strike was about dues checkoff.
But Pierce shot back about broken promises regarding the establishment of safety committees and non-discrimination enforcement.
By the end of the month, a tentative agreement was in place. Strikers won all demands, except the dues check off.
But as hospital workers soon found in Charleston, South Carolina, the city council refused to carry out its agreement with the union.
Sanitation workers in Charlotte would strike twice unsuccessfully over the next year and a half.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917. That was the day more than 10,000 African-Americans marched down New York City’s 5th Avenue in what is known as the Silent Parade.
The protest came in the aftermath of the July 2, East St. Louis race riot and a number of lynchings in Texas. Organized by black scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson and the NAACP, the Silent Parade protested lynching and anti-black violence. Children led the march, dressed in white. Women, who were also dressed in white, followed them. Men dressed in dark suits, marched behind.
It was considered the first major public protest of racial violence in the United States. Alexis Newman describes the scene as the parade proceeded to Madison Square. “The marchers carried banners and posters stating their reasons for the march. Both participants and onlookers remarked that this protest was unlike any other seen in the city and the nation. There were no chants, no songs, just silence.” Some signs read, “Mother, Do Lynchers Go To Heaven?” and “Mr. President, Why Not Make America Safe For Democracy?”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1918. That was the day miner’s president Ginger Goodwin was shot dead in British Columbia. His murder sparked Canada’s first general strike, in Vancouver the following week.
Goodwin had arrived in British Columbia 8 years earlier and found work in the Cumberland Mines on Vancouver Island. He considered working conditions in the mines absolutely appalling and began advocating for safety and organizing miners. He was soon blacklisted after participating in a two-year coal miner’s strike for recognition on the island.
He moved to Trail, British Columbia, where he emerged as a Socialist Party candidate in the 1916 elections. He was also elected president of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, District 6, the vice-president of British Columbia’s Federation of Labor and the head of the local Trades and Labor Council.
He openly expressed his opposition to Canada’s entry into the war, stating that workers were now employed in killing each other. He was found unfit for military duty after a medical exam. That was, until he led a strike for the eight-hour day at Consolidated Mining & Smelting.
It was the world’s largest lead and zinc smelter and a key munitions producer during the war. His status was quickly changed to make him eligible for conscription. He fled to the Cumberland Hills, where he hid out for months to avoid the draft.
On this day, Goodwin was shot dead by a Dominion Police Special Constable. He was brought back to Cumberland, where thousands turned out for his funeral in a mile long procession. The Vancouver labor movement was outraged by Goodwin’s murder and called a one-day general strike on August 2 to protest his killing.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1877.
That was the day striking railroad workers in Chicago clashed with police in the “Battle of the Halsted Street Viaduct.”
The Great Railroad Strike had reached the nation’s railroad hub, and began there three days earlier.
Switchmen from the Michigan Central traveled to freight shops in yards across the city, calling workers out to strike.
Soon lumbershovers, butchers and industrial workers joined the strike.
By the time the Battle began, police had already clashed with unarmed strikers twice. Historian Richard Schneirov describes the scene leading up to the Battle: “The city was now preparing itself for a full-scale insurrection, even though violent confrontations were rooted in police attacks on non-violent crowds.”
Previous confrontations centered in the railroad yards. Now, strikers’ actions spilled over into the neighborhood of Pilsen, where they lived.
Thousands gathered along Halsted Street between 12th and 16th streets.
The police arrived, attempting to disperse the crowd.
They chased strikers south and as Schneirov describes, “emptied their revolvers into the masses of humanity.”
The crowd pelted the police with stones in defense and chased them over the viaduct.
As word spread of the pitched battle, stockyard workers from nearby Bridgeport walked off the job.
They marched along Halsted Street, with butcher knives in hand, to support the strikers under attack.
The crowd on Halsted swelled to more than 10,000 as workers continued to battle police.
By evening, 30 workers had been shot dead, hundreds more were seriously wounded.
But the strike continued to spread more fiercely.
Streetcar stockmen, stonecutters, gas workers, glasscutters and others joined the strike.
The city was shut down for another week until railroad bosses finally rescinded wage cuts.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1944. That was the day Local 212, UAW workers at Briggs returned to work.
Briggs was directly involved in war production. 3000 workers, on two shifts, made ball turrets for heavy bombers.
Workers on both shifts walked off the job when management at the Outer Drive plant carried out a series of transfers and layoffs, while expecting the same level of production.
It had been the second walkout in a week. Management set a precedent of refusing to settle grievances of any kind.
They routinely snubbed the union, insisting they take any and all grievances to the War Labor Board.
Local 212 president, Jess Ferrazza noted it would take anywhere from 12-18 months to get a grievance processed.
Workers were fed up with waiting. He added “it was like a fireman with a water bucket running around trying to put fires out.
Management never cooperated.
If the grievance were a justifiable one, they would not settle it.
They would tell you to get the workers back to work.”
The strike came on the heels of a contentious State CIO convention earlier in the month.
There, delegates debated the merits of the no-strike pledge. Local 212 delegates were among a full third of total delegates, who made known their opposition to the pledge. Ferrazza argued that, “the no-strike pledge has tied labor’s hands and as long as our hands are tied, the corporations will continue their attacks on labor.”
Briggs workers agreed to return to their jobs on the promise of direct settlement of grievances.
They also geared up for the national CIO convention, intent on overturning the wartime, no-strike pledge.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1877.
That was the day Louisville sewer workers walked off the job.
The Daily American reported that, “hundreds of black sewer-men stopped work, and began marching through the streets, armed with picks and shovels.”
They went from one sewer construction site to the next, calling workers out to strike for higher wages.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 had clearly impacted workers in Mid-Southern cities like Memphis, Nashville and Louisville.
Historian Steven J. Hoffman observes these workers were able to capitalize on strike threats to advance their demands. Railroad bosses for the Louisville, Nashville & Great Southern had rescinded pay cuts for mechanics and engineers.
But they had not raised wages for the lowest paid laborers.
Those laborers joined sewer workers in their march through the city.
By nightfall, the mass of integrated strikers marched to the L&N depot, clashing with police.
Some broke off to march to the Short-Line Depot, smashing windows of the mayor’s house on their way.
Though the crowd was largely dispersed by early morning, Louisville was now in the midst of a general strike.
Hoffman describes the scene: “workers at the metal shops and foundries downtown struck for higher wages.
There were reported strikes at the Kentucky lead and oil works, all the downtown furniture factories, woolen mills, horse collar makers, and tobacco factories as well as by many of the city’s coopers, brick makers and African-American levee workers.
Many of the demands of these workers, which tended to focus on wages and hours, were met and they returned to work quickly.”
Though Southern cites avoided railroad strikes, for the most part, they could not evade the Great Strike’s impact on other sectors of the workforce.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1913.
That was the day 9,000 copper miners in the Keweenaw region of Upper Peninsula, Michigan went on strike.
Organized by the Western Federation of Miners, the strike raged on for over eight months, witnessed devastating tragedy in a Christmas Day fire and ended in bitter defeat.
The strike was waged over basic issues like the eight-hour day, higher wages, mine safety and union recognition.
But strikers were also fed up with the company’s paternalism and intrusion into their personal lives.
They also worried for their jobs with the introduction of labor saving machinery. The WFM succeeded early on in shutting down the mines. But the copper barons wouldn’t budge.
By August, many mines reopened with scab labor.
Later that month, deputies shot two strikers dead and wounded two others, as they returned home from attempting to collect strike benefits.
The incident became known as the Seeberville massacre.
Striking miners were absolutely devastated when on Christmas Day, 73 people, mostly children, were trampled to death during a Christmas party and benefit at the Italian Hall in Calumet.
Witnesses remembered seeing a man with a Citizens Alliance button just moments before someone yelled ‘Fire!’ that caused the stampede.
Soon after the Italian Hall disaster, WFM president Charles Moyer was shot by a Citizens alliance mob, then loaded, bleeding, onto a train bound for Chicago.
By April, the union was broke, the strike was broken and miners resolved to return to work. Bosses would only rehire strikers once they had turned in their union cards.
The copper mines in the region would finally be organized some 30 years later in a campaign led by Mine Mill during the years 1939 to 1943.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1916.
That was the day a bomb rocked the Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco, killing 10 and injuring at least 40.
The Chamber of Commerce and the newly formed Law and Order Committee organized the parade to shore up support for war production and eventual entry into World War I.
But isolationist sentiment in San Francisco remained strong. Anti-war activists prepared pamphlets and protests for the march.
Many trade unionists were opposed to entry into the war.
Some considered the parade a response to the combative longshoreman’s strike raging on the docks for weeks.
San Francisco had been a strong union town for years, known for strikes and labor disputes.
1916 was an election year and already, the city had been rocked by a number of strikes.
Business interests launched an open shop campaign and began targeting labor radicals.
They found their scapegoats in labor leaders Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, who were framed and convicted for the bombings.
Journalist Carl Nolte points out that Mooney and his assistant had been trying to organize workers at the city’s largest streetcar company, United Railroads.
He notes their convictions were based on perjured testimony and doctored evidence. Incredibly, one of the prosecution’s star witnesses wasn’t even in town that day!
But the convictions served to vilify labor militants as terrorists.
Fremont Older, editor of two local newspapers, discovered the frame-up evidence.
He and many others, including Upton Sinclair and Clarence Darrow campaigned for years to free the two men. They were finally released after 22 years, in 1939.
The actual bombers were never found, though some have speculated that Anarchists of the Galleanist movement were likely responsible.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1913.
That was the day 9,000 copper miners in the Keweenaw region of Upper Peninsula, Michigan went on strike.
Organized by the Western Federation of Miners, the strike raged on for over eight months, witnessed devastating tragedy in a Christmas Day fire and ended in bitter defeat.
The strike was waged over basic issues like the eight-hour day, higher wages, mine safety and union recognition.
But strikers were also fed up with the company’s paternalism and intrusion into their personal lives.
They also worried for their jobs with the introduction of labor saving machinery. The WFM succeeded early on in shutting down the mines. But the copper barons wouldn’t budge.
By August, many mines reopened with scab labor.
Later that month, deputies shot two strikers dead and wounded two others, as they returned home from attempting to collect strike benefits.
The incident became known as the Seeberville massacre.
Striking miners were absolutely devastated when on Christmas Day, 73 people, mostly children, were trampled to death during a Christmas party and benefit at the Italian Hall in Calumet.
Witnesses remembered seeing a man with a Citizens Alliance button just moments before someone yelled ‘Fire!’ that caused the stampede.
Soon after the Italian Hall disaster, WFM president Charles Moyer was shot by a Citizens alliance mob, then loaded, bleeding, onto a train bound for Chicago.
By April, the union was broke, the strike was broken and miners resolved to return to work. Bosses would only rehire strikers once they had turned in their union cards.
The copper mines in the region would finally be organized some 30 years later in a campaign led by Mine Mill during the years 1939 to 1943.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1877.
That was the day that some of the worst violence of the Great Railroad Strike erupted in Pittsburgh.
The strike started days earlier. It is contested as to whether it began in Martinsburg, West Virginia or Baltimore.
The strike spread rapidly along the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to New York State, Pennsylvania and throughout the Midwest.
At its height, the Great Railroad Strike involved well over 100,000 workers.
The strike began on the Pennsylvania Railroad on the 19th.
Management repeatedly tried to move trains through the yards and was confronted by angry strikers. Pennsylvania Guardsmen were called out.
The strikers presented the railroad with their demands: they wanted an end to double engine trains that required fewer workers, wages reinstated, reinstatement for their fired coworkers and an end to pay grades.
Local militia sided with the strikers and refused to show for duty.
When thousands of strikers gathered at the depot, the Pennsylvania National Guard moved unsuccessfully to disperse them.
Then they fired on strikers, killing 20 and wounding 29.
The strikers were infuriated by the deadly aggression and drove guardsmen into a nearby railroad roundhouse.
Word spread quickly throughout the city of the massacre, launching a virtual general strike. Workers began seizing arms wherever they could find them.
They set fires to dozens of railroad buildings, burned down the Union Depot, destroyed over 100 locomotives and more than 1000 freight and passenger cars.
The next day, guardsmen shot their way out of the roundhouse, killing 20 more as they were chased from the city.
A total of 3000 federal troops would be necessary to quell strikers’ fury by month’s end.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day that came to be known as Bloody Friday.
Minneapolis Teamsters had been on strike for three days in their third strike of the year.
The trucking bosses had reneged on their May settlement.
They refused to recognize union organization of inside workers.
In the period between strikes, the union had documented hundreds of cases of discrimination.
Now, 7,000 Teamsters effectively shut down trucking throughout the city. Local 574 leaders established a daily strike bulletin.
The Organizer, as it was called, would serve to guide strikers to victory.
In his book, Revolutionary Teamsters,historian Bryan Palmer notes that the first few days of the strike had been quiet.
Then on this day, police attempted to break the picket lines by running what seemed to be a lone scab truck through the lines.
It was later discovered the truck was moving no merchandise, but was used to draw strikers into a confrontation.
When flying pickets moved to stop the truck, they were ambushed. Police opened fire on unarmed pickets and then sprayed those who attempted to escape with buckshot.
At least 48 were wounded. Striker Henry Ness and Unemployed Council supporter John Belor were killed.
Palmer notes that Ness had been shot point blank in the chest. Doctors pulled 38 slugs from his body.
“His death bed injunction repeated word of mouth among the strikers: “Tell the boys not to fail me now.”
More than 40,000 turned out to pay their respects to the World War I veteran and father of four. Palmer adds that, “Bloody Friday had lasted a matter of minutes.
But its’ meaning would leave a mark on the very fabric of Minneapolis socio-economic relations…”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day San Francisco’s Central Labor Council voted narrowly to end the general strike, then in its fourth day.
It had been one of three historic strikes that turned the tide towards industrial organizing in the 1930s.
It emerged as part of the ongoing longshoreman’s strike, which started in May.
The decision was controversial.
Longshoremen and seamen raged that leadership of the strike had been torn from them by more conservative elements.
As author of Workers on the Waterfront, Bruce Nelson puts it, “after two and a half months on strike, literally thousands of arrests, at least six deaths and hundreds of serious injuries, the men and their families were holding the line.
But their allies were gradually cutting the ties of solidarity that had been the strike’s lifeblood.”
The shipping bosses forced a vote for arbitration from the longshoremen, and withoutthe seamen.
As Nelson notes, this served to drive a wedge between the two unions, creating a rift that would only deepen.
The two would continue to strike until the end of July.
But the strike left longshoremen emboldened.
They pushed back on the job, driving off scabs and establishing work rules and conditions ahead of the arbitrator’s ruling, which came in October.
The hiring hall was finally established.
While it was decided that the union and the shipping bosses would rule the hall jointly, the union controlled the position of dispatcher.
This meant the union determined hiring, which put an end to the despised ‘shape-up.’
The award also mandated wage raises and a coast-wide contract.
It would serve as a catalyst for the founding of the ILWU three years later.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1969.
That was the day hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina won union recognition.
The 113-day strike reflected all the broader social issues of the day.
Led primarily by black women, the strike at the Medical College, Charleston County and several other hospitals intersected civil rights and racial and gender discrimination on the job.
Jewel Charmaine Debnam notes that women like Local 1199B president Mary Moultrie, Naomi White and others were “essential to the strike not only as daily participants on the picket line but also as leaders of the local movement establishment.”
For months, strikers marched, walked picket lines, clashed with police and held vigils demanding their right to organize.
They defied injunctions and endured hundreds of arrests, nightly curfews and confrontation with the State National Guard.
Governor McNair and the hospital boards had initially refused to concede to the workers’ demands for union recognition.
They claimed workers paid with public funds could not engage in collective bargaining. But the women were steadfast.
They pointed to the wage disparities between black and white workers and between male and female workers.
They also protested the blatant disrespect and discrimination meted out daily by management.
Local longshoremen solidarized with the strikers and threatened a walkout in support if their demands were not met.
Coretta Scott King and many other Civil Rights leaders also played a supportive role.
Finally, the new union won reinstatement of fired workers, which had touched off the strike, a solid grievance procedure, a minimum wage raise and access to the credit union.
Victory would be short lived however when the State almost immediately refused to hold up its end of the agreement.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917.
That was the day 50,000 lumber workers across the Pacific Northwest participated in an industry-wide strike, called by the Industrial Workers of the World.
The IWW had been organizing loggers for years around wages, hours, working conditions and camp sanitation.
The IWW began building for the strike in the aftermath of the Everett Massacre the previous fall.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn started touring camps in Idaho.
By March, the Wobblies established Local 500 of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union in Spokane to organize actions across the region.
In his book, Empire of Timber, historian Erik Loomis details the chronology of events that led to the momentous walkout.
In Idaho, loggers began walking off the job in April, when demands for improved bunkhouses and food, higher wages and the eight-hour day were refused.
The strike spread to Washington State, the rest of Idaho and into Montana and Oregon.
Loomis notes that by August, “they made employers feel their wrath.” The strike cut production by over 80% and threatened war materiel.
Infuriated timber bosses demanded federal troops be sent in to crush the strike and IWW leaders be prosecuted for treason and sabotage.
Raids and arrests were orchestrated throughout the Pacific Northwest and the strike began to stall.
After 10 weeks, the IWW called off the strike but instructed workers to quit work after eight hours.
They continued to lead sanitation-related job actions that would substantially change conditions for the better.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934. That was the day fatalities on Bloody Thursday touched off a four-day general strike in San Francisco.
It was the first time a general strike had shut down a major U.S. port city. The strike had been raging since May. Workers battled with police days earlier as the shipping bosses tried to force open the docks. Two workers were killed. More than 40,000 poured into Market Street to march silently in their funeral procession.
Outrage fueled plans for a general strike. Twenty-one unions across the city voted to walk. In his book Strike!, Jeremy Brecher notes the momentum for a general strike was unstoppable, despite attempts by AFL leaders to prevent it.
By 8 a.m. on this day, the San Francisco General Strike began. Over 150,000 workers including teamsters and butchers, restaurant and transit workers joined longshoremen and seafarers in shutting down the ports, the city and the highways.
But as Brecher points out, the strike was met with a powerful counter-attack. Hundreds of special deputies were sworn in. The National Guard was called out, “complete with infantry, machine guns, tank and artillery units; state officials were poised on the edge of declaring martial law.”
Vigilante raids began on the 17th, with assaults on the Marine Workers Industrial Union and the offices of the Western Worker newspaper and strike bulletin. Many other gathering places and homes where strikers regularly met were also busted up. Hundreds were rounded up, beaten and arrested.
The city’s Central Labor Committee authorized exceptions that eroded the strike’s power. In the face of violent raids and opposition from AFL leaders, the General Strike Committee voted to end the strike.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1959.
That was the day half a million steel workers walked off the job in a historic, 116-day strike to defend work rules.
It was the largest industry-wide strike and also the last.
The strike affected 12 steel companies and shut down more than 85% of steel production. Mill owners refused to grant wage increases unless the union agreed to changes in the contract.
Specifically, they were looking to eliminate Section 2 (b), titled “Local Working Conditions.”
The bosses wanted the ability to change the number of workers assigned to any given task.
They also wanted to introduce machinery and rules that would reduce labor hours and cut the work force.
USWA members understood this as an assault on workplace safety and a move to break the union.
Mill bosses hoped that a long strike would provoke the membership to abandon their union.
But, according to Jack Metzgar, author of Striking Steel, members had grown used to walkouts every 3 years and planned accordingly.
As well, the USW had a “well-oiled machinery including an internal welfare system for hardship cases and also reached out to merchants, banks, charitable agencies, and local and state governments” to organize relief.
By the end of August, the Defense Department stoked anxieties that national security was at risk.
Three months into the strike, union funds dwindled. Strikers felt the pinch.
President Eisenhower invoked a Taft-Hartley injunction, hoping to force strikers back to work.
As the union rose to challenge Taft-Hartley’s constitutionality, solidarity among the mill owners crumbled.
Kaiser Steel broke ranks and settled separately.
Their contract granted wage increases and preserved section 2(b).
It set the precedent for the contract that was eventually signed industry-wide.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1978.
That was the day municipal workers in Cleveland, Louisville and Philadelphia walked off the job.
That summer was rocked with public sector strikes, starting with a firefighters strike in Memphis.
In Cleveland, municipal services came to a virtual halt as city workers honored a police work stoppage.
In Louisville, firefighters walked off the job, after the Kentucky Labor Relations Board found the city guilty of unfair labor practices.
And in Philadelphia, 20,000 AFSCME members, including sanitation, highway and health department workers rejected a last minute contract offer.
They demanded wage increases.
But they were also furious when the city announced it would have to lay off city workers to pay an arbitration award to the police.
Sanitation strikes soon followed in New Orleans, San Antonio, Detroit and Tuscaloosa.
By the third week of July, transit workers in Washington DC staged a wildcat strike, as did postal workers in California and New Jersey.
Labor historian Joseph McCartin notes that public sector strikes peaked in 1975 and again in 1978.
By the late 70s, “the volatile recipe of rising public sector union militancy, inflation and anti-tax reform made public sector unions more vulnerable than at any other time.
Suddenly the union became a convenient scapegoat for public officials dealing with declining relative tax revenues, demands for improved public services and taxpayer unrest.”
McCartin adds that by 1978 public employers came out swinging in labor disputes.
Public sector unions would struggle to “hold their own in an increasingly hostile environment…as their ability
to strike was being severely eroded.”
The backlash against public sector militancy set the stage for President Reagan’s smashing of PATCO just 3 years later.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1995.
That was the day 2500 pressmen, reporters, drivers and clerks went on strike against the Detroit Newsand the Free Press.
Both newspapers had created a virtual monopoly in 1988 by merging their advertising and circulation departments into the Detroit Newspaper Association.
Even as the DNA raked in record profits, they forced years of concessions, including wage freezes and lay offs.
When the Association implemented a merit raise system, the Newspaper Guild voted to strike.
Five other unions, including CWA and Teamsters soon followed.
The newspapers were ready. Just before the strike, they cut off the dues check-off.
They also contracted with the company, Alternative Work Force, to provide scabs.
And they hired private security guards from Huffmaster and Vance International to enforce the scab herding.
A solid union boycott cut revenues for both newspapers.
On August 19, hundreds of strikers stopped scabbing until police attacked the picket lines, breaking arms and arresting at least four.
Then, on Labor Day weekend, thousands of strikers and supporters successfully repulsed police forces amassed from across the state to break up picket lines.
By mid-September, both newspapers were forced to airlift the Sunday edition until strikebreaking injunctions limited pickets.
Over a hundred had been arrested over the course of several weeks.
Unable to stop production, strikers gradually returned to work until the strike was finally called off in February 1997.
In his two volume set, Workers in America, Robert Weir notes that many labor activists criticized strike tactics.
They argued direct action to stop production should have been the priority rather than boycotts and political pressure.
Once the strike ended, the DNA claimed all but a few had forfeited their jobs.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937. That was the day newspapers throughout the South announced the return of Ida Sledge to Tupelo, Mississippi.
The ILGWU organizer had been leading unionization efforts at three area mills. Twice she was driven out. Prominent businessmen “invited” her to leave town just days earlier, warning her not to return under threat of violence.
Earlier that spring, workers held a sit-down strike at the Tupelo Cotton Mill. They demanded higher wages and shorter hours in the town’s first labor action ever. The mill’s stockholders responded by voting to liquidate. Sledge immediately filed charges with the NLRB against the mills for violating the Wagner Act.
Now, newspapers reported a tense atmosphere in Tupelo with Sledge’s return. She stated, “I don’t mean to cause any trouble. I intend to organize the garment workers and don’t propose to be scared away.”
The citizens committee soon declared victory, claiming they had organized 1000 workers at five plants into ‘independent,’ ‘home’ unions. Sledge condemned these as company unions.
By the end of the month, Democratic Representative of Mississippi, John Rankin thundered, “these representatives of the so-called Labor Relations Board boasted they were going to close every factory in the city before they quit and that when they got through with it, there would be no Tupelo left.”
The following spring, local organizer Jimmy Cox was taken outside of town and flogged by 15 men. Sledge was again threatened and driven away permanently. The mill owners finally relented in August as the NLRB trial loomed. They disbanded their company unions, reinstated fired workers with back pay and posted notices they would not interfere with organizing efforts. But the ILGWU never gained much from their organizing efforts
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
The Little Steel Strike was beginning to collapse.
Strikers in Massillon, Ohio had gathered that Sunday night at union headquarters across from Republic Steel’s Massillon Works.
As Ahmed White describes in his book, The Last Great Strike, the union had organized weekly festivities on Sunday nights, including food, live music and dancing.
For weeks, the Law and Order League had repeatedly demanded special police be deputized and armed to crush the strike.
By early July, Ohio National Guardsmen ensured the forcible reopening of the mill.
One self-appointed special deputy leader, Major Curley decided tonight would be the night he was going to “clean out that God Damned hall.”
He provocatively positioned his deputies in front of union headquarters.
First he ordered his deputies to fire on picketers attempting to block the gate at shift change.
When strikers hurled bottles and rocks in response, the deputies unleashed massive rounds of gunfire and tear gas for more than half an hour.
Guardsmen, railroad and company police joined in the anti-SWOC siege.
Two strikers were dead.
Nick Valdos was shot in the hip as he attempted to aid wounded strikers.
Fulgencio Calzara was shot in the back of the head in front of union headquarters.
Another seven strikers were shot and seriously wounded.
At least four more were hospitalized with injuries.
Police forces ransacked the hall, seizing union records and membership lists.
They continued their rampage through the neighborhood, ransacking homes and arresting anyone suspected of ties to the union.
As many as 165 were arrested and held for several days.
As White notes, the NLRB and the LaFollette Commission both concluded that blame for the evening’s violence lay with Republic.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1918.
That was the day machinist John Connolly was fired from General Electric’s sprawling River Works in West Lynn, Massachusetts.
Firings of several more labor activists prompted 14,000 workers, 40% of them women, to walk off the job and flood the ranks of the IAM and the IBEW.
The newly established War Labor Board emboldened GE workers.
They looked to the board for help in beating back yellow dog contracts and to organize bonafide unions.
A Metal Trades Council had finally been established at the GE plant in Schenectady, NY.
Workers hoped to do the same at Lynn.
After Connolly’s discharge, GE managers fired another fourteen activists three days later.
As Joseph McCartin describes in his book, Labor’s Great War, thousands of outraged workers met the evening of the firings and determined there was nothing left to do but strike.
The walkout began the following Monday.
David Montgomery describes the scene in The Fall of the House of Labor: “Early in the afternoon, union sound trucks outside the building blared fighting songs and calls to down tools. Within an hour, the GE river works were empty.”
The strike lasted three weeks.
In that time, strikers defeated attempts at arbitration, demanding the Board rule on their behalf as it had done for GE workers in Schenectady.
In October, the board adjusted wages, ordered reinstatement of all but two of the fired workers and established minimum pay for women.
It also ordered the election of shop committees.
Lynn River Works was now 95% organized.
Victory was short-lived however.
In the post-war period, unions at GE and elsewhere were summarily defeated by vigorous open shop drives across the country.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1935.
That was the day transit workers in the Bronx walked off the job in what is referred to as the Squeegee Strike.
These were the days when New York City public transit was barely organized.
Two of the three transit companies in New York City were privately owned, with entrenched company unions.
Up to this point, transit bosses had successful crushed every previous strike.
Now, six car cleaners at the Jerome Avenue barn had just been fired for refusing a management imposed speed-up.
Supervisors had replaced their 10-inch squeegees with those that measured 14 inches.
They expected workers to clean more in a shorter period of time.
According to historian Joshua Freeman, author of In Transit, when word spread that the six cleaners had been fired, others downed their tools in protest.
They demanded unsuccessfully to meet with the shop foreman.
After several hours of waiting, they discovered that management had removed their time cards.
That’s when the two-day walkout began.
As many as seventy workers stormed off the job.
Pickets went up at the barn and at Interborough Rapid Transit Headquarters.
The regional NLRB office quickly mediated a settlement that forced the IRT to reinstate the discharged workers and strikers, and answer their grievances.
Freeman notes this first strike, though small in scale and brief, was significant.
The victory of the Squeegee Strike immediately built the TWU’s authority citywide.
It quickly brought several hundred new members into the union.
New dues paying members provided a financial base for full-time organizers needed to organize New York City transit.
The union would grow rapidly and soon enjoy a number of organizing victories.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1939.
That was the day AFL president, William Green called all affiliates to meet in Chicago.
Green sought to mobilize union leaders in a fight to restore prevailing wages on federal relief projects.
Building tradesmen on WPA construction sites had started walking off the job in spontaneous strikes across the country three days earlier.
The strike spread rapidly to 36 states, quickly turning into a nationwide walkout of over 150,000.
Workers were outraged by provisions in the latest federal relief bill, titled the Woodrum Act.
New terms established the 130-hour rule, essentially slashing wages by more than half.
It also called for a 30-day dismissal of all workers who had been on WPA rolls for 18 months.
The AFL Building Trades Department stated the act would “destroy national wage standards established through 50 years of collective bargaining.”
IBEW leader Daniel Tracy added that forcing a lower wage on federal relief workers would only aid building contractors in private industry to do the same.
From St. Louis to Rochester, from Minneapolis to Akron, picket lines were solid.
Organizers worked to build solidarity among unskilled WPA workers affected by the new starvation bill.
Tens of thousands of strikers were fired in WPA-ordered dismissals.
President Roosevelt declared there could be no strikes against the federal government.
Attorney General Frank Murphy, former Michigan governor during the Flint sit-down strike, declared that striking against the government would build a fascist psychology.
WPA administrators also threatened organizers with federal prosecution, fines and jail time.
But New York’s Building and Construction Trades Council leader, Thomas Murray authorized a strike of 32,000.
He avowed, “This will be a strike to the finish.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1894.
That was the day thousands of Pullman strikers confronted state militia forces at the Grand Trunk Railroad Crossing in Chicago.
The strike began May 11 after George Pullman slashed wages but refused to lower rents in his company town.
In late June, Eugene Debs and the American Railway Union called for a national boycott of all Pullman trains.
The boycott spread to 27 states, involving more than 150,000 workers.
Attorney General Richard Olney issued an injunction, declaring the strike illegal on July 2.
The injunction failed to break the strike.
But it did prevent union leaders from communicating with strikers.
The next day, President Cleveland ordered troops into Chicago rail yards to crush the strike.
Workers were furious.
They flooded the yards, stopping trains, smashing switches and barricading themselves with baggage cars.
Fighting continued for several days as angry strikers stormed rail yards and overturned empty freight cars.
Thousands of workers impacted by the Depression joined in, including those stranded in the city after the Columbian Exposition.
Two strikers were shot dead on the Illinois Central railroad July 6.
Workers responded by setting fire to hundreds of rail cars.
Now, on this day, the militia attempted to run a work train, to clear the rail yard at 49th and Loomis.
Thousands followed the train, showering it with bricks and stones.
The troops returned gunfire, killing at least four and injuring dozens.
Chicago unions soon voted in favor of a citywide sympathy strike, but the railroads quickly hired replacement labor.
Federal troops and state militia cleared the railways for business.
Main strike leaders were arrested.
By the beginning of August, Pullman rehired only those strikers who agreed never to join a union.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1988.
That was the day 167 oil workers were killed in the Piper Alpha oilrig explosion in the North Sea.
It is considered the world’s deadliest oilrig accident ever.
Around 10 p.m., the platform essentially turned into a fireball so massive, rescue helicopters couldn’t get near it.
Gas lines ruptured when the night crew accidentally activated a gas pump, down for repairs.
Immediately, the platform was rocked with explosions, first wiping out the control room, then engulfing it in flames.
The platform split in two, its oil derrick toppled.
Most were killed instantly, as the crew quarters were directly above the gas compression module.
Toxic fumes overcame others.
Some jumped 100 feet into the sea.
The platform was completely destroyed.
It took three weeks to bring the fire under control.
Occidental Petroleum later admitted the rig’s design was fundamentally flawed.
But many considered the explosion nothing short of industrial murder.
The rig was notorious for fatalities and near misses.
Jake Malloy, head of the offshore trade union, OILC recalled, “Piper was synonymous with accidents. People would say Piper? Oh, you don’t want to go there. That place is ready to go.”
Conditions were so bad the union pulled its reps off the safety committee.
The next day 115 offshore oil workers in Humberside walked off the job demanding better health and safety conditions.
Subsequent investigation determined Occidental failed to enforce basic maintenance and safety procedures.
Over 100 safety improvements were recommended.
Occidental paid out $100 million to the families, but escaped prosecution.
Today, there is a memorial chapel at the Kirk of St. Nicholas and a memorial sculpture in the Rose Garden of Hazelhead Park, both in Aberdeen, Scotland.
On this day in labor history the year was 1934.
That was the day known as Bloody Thursday.
The historic West Coast Maritime Strike had been raging since May 9.
Longshoremen refused to cede to the Industrial Association, determined to open the ports by force.
The shipping bosses had rejected strikers’ demands, including a union hiring hall and recognition of offshore unions.
By July 3, picketers had been fighting for hours to stop trucks sent into move cargo under police protection, as bosses attempted to open the ports.
At 8 a.m. on this day, a line of strikebreaking trucks emerged.
Thousands of strike squads amassed in the warehouse district.
The Battle of Rincon Hill had begun.
The fighting continued through the afternoon in the center of the Embarcadero as strikers attempted to stop scab freight cars.
By the time it was over, longshoreman Howard Sperry and strike supporter, Nick Bordoise lay dead from police bullets.
30 strikers had been shot and dozens more lay in the hospital, some critically wounded.
The San Francisco Chroniclereported, “Blood ran red in the streets of San Francisco.”
In Workers on the Waterfront, Bruce Nelson notes, “Bloody Thursday was an epic moment. Strikers conducted themselves with remarkable precision and imagination in the face of three successive assaults by policemen who were using their firearms feely and laying down a barrage of tear gas bombs.
Donald MacKenzie Brown, the businessman eyewitness, was overawed by the workers ‘insane courage;’ “in the face of bullets, gas, clubs, horse hoofs, death; against fast patrol cars and the radio, they fought back with rocks and bolts till the street was a mass of debris. They were fighting desperately for something that seemed to be life for them.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1930.
That was the day some 1300 labor radicals and Communist Party supporters assembled in Chicago to establish The National Unemployed Council.
That spring, Councils in major cities across the country held massive rallies for jobs and relief.
They were responding to near catastrophic conditions created by the Stock Market crash.
Delegates emerged from the founding convention with an organizational structure and demands for action.
These included unemployment insurance, cash and work relief, public works at union wages, free food for children of the unemployed and a moratorium on evictions.
Delegates acknowledged that African-Americans bore the worst of the unfolding Depression.
They worked to address racial discrimination as part of an integrated push for jobs and relief.
Councils were established throughout 46 states.
They were best known for massive demonstrations, hunger marches and rent strikes.
Councils mobilized hundreds, sometimes thousands quickly to march on city halls or relief offices when benefits were threatened.
They were also able to mobilize scores of supporters at a moment’s notice to stop evictions.
And in a unique move, councils often mobilized the unemployed to bolster picket lines during strikes.
This undercut employer attempts at recruitment of scabs.
By 1935, the National Unemployed Council merged with other socialist unemployed groupings, led by the Socialist Party and A.J. Muste, to form the Workers’ Alliance.
According to sociologist, Chad Alan Goldberg, the Workers Alliance worked to secure “more WPA jobs, higher wages for WPA workers, and application of new federal labor laws to the WPA.”
Goldberg attributes their demise by 1941 to a combination of factors, including the rise of a powerful anti-labor coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats, red baiting and internal political conflicts.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937. That was the day Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins announced that sit-down strikes were “unsuited” to America and believed labor unions would abandon using the tactic altogether.
Her declaration came in the form of an open letter to Republican Congressman William Ditter of Pennsylvania. In the wake of the Flint Sit-Down strike, he had insisted on clarification of her perspective towards sit-down strikes. 1937 had been rocked by sit-downs everywhere.
Workers made huge gains using the tactic, especially during the historic GM strike in Flint, Michigan. During the strike, Secretary Perkins asserted that the legality of sit-downs had not yet been determined.
In her open letter, Perkins noted that she accepted the opinion of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That court had just ruled that thousands of striking hosiery workers at Apex Hosiery in Philadelphia had acted unlawfully when they employed the tactic in their tumultuous strike weeks before.
She added, “It is not and never has been an official position of the Department of Labor or of the Secretary that sit-down strikes are either lawful, desirable or appropriate. In fact, the officers of the Department and the Secretary have urged union leaders and members not to use the method and to bend every effort to take men out of a plant where used… It is also full of hazards to the progressive, democratic development of trade unionism and to the orderly process of collective bargaining and cooperation with employers on the basis of a recognized status.”
Perkins’ statement helped provide the basis for a legal backlash against the tactic, ruled illegal just two year later.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917. That was the day known as the East St. Louis Race Riot. It is considered the worst case of labor–related violence of the 20th century and one of the worst race riots in American history.
At the time, East St. Louis, Illinois was an industrial hub along the Mississippi River, across from St. Louis, Missouri. Production demands for World War I intensified the Great Migration. As African-Americans emigrated from the South, filling the demand for industrial labor, tensions grew at workplaces and in the communities in which they settled.
That spring, black and white workers had been hired to scab on a local strike. The violence began on May 28, when trade unionists marched to the mayor’s office, protesting the black labor they considered ‘unfair competition.’ It quickly turned into an anti-black riot. The National Guard was called out to quell the violence.
Then on July 2, two days of rioting began when a car of white men drove through a black neighborhood and fired at a group of blacks. Racist mobs killed as many as 200 African-Americans. 6000 more were left homeless. Many remarked bitterly that the police and National Guard stood by, indifferent to the race violence around them.
The President of the Illinois Federation of Labor insisted that employers were to blame for using Southern blacks to break the back of labor. Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs declared the riots were “a foul blot upon the labor movement.” Debs continued, “Had the labor movement freely opened their doors to the Negro instead of barring him, the atrocious crime of East St. Louis would never have blackened the pages of American History.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1929. That was the day 1800 streetcar drivers and motormen walked off the job at New Orleans Public Service.
The Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees, Division 194, had been in contract negotiations for months. They demanded higher wages, a closed shop and an end to arbitrary discharges. The company was looking to bust the Amalgamated with the creation of a company union.
For the first few days, the strike was quiet. But then on July 5, the company brought in strikebreakers. 10,000 union members and their supporters gathered to stop scab service. The company attempted to run a lone streetcar down Canal Street. Immediately it was pelted with bricks and stones. The scab driver bailed.
Another four cars attempted to leave the car barn. Pitched battles raged for hours with police and scabs. Two union men were shot and killed by scabs and hundreds more injured.
Trade unions throughout the city threatened a general strike. The strike raged on for two months. Throughout the summer, trolleys were burned to the ground, tracks destroyed, switches cemented in place. As the weeks wore on, conditions became more desperate.
That’s when Clovis and Bennie Martin, former division 194 conductors, decided to help out. They had since left public transit to open the Martin Brothers’ Coffee Stand and Restaurant. They declared to their former union brothers, “We are with you heart and soul. We are with you till h—l freezes over.”
They offered free super-sized sandwiches for the “poor boys.’ The strikers would eventually win some of their demands. The sandwiches would become a standard in New Orleans cuisine, better known as the po-boy.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1928. That was the day the state of Alabama outlawed the convict lease system, in practice for decades.
Slave masters throughout the South had routinely loaned out enslaved people before slavery was finally abolished. The convict lease system continued this practice, as the South worked to rebuild in a rush of rapid industrial growth after the Civil War.
African-Americans found themselves increasingly subject to sweeps by local and state authorities that coincided with harvest time or when labor agents arrived, looking to man the coalmines. Many were convicted on trumped up charges and shipped off to prison. Once there, they were leased to private industries and dispatched mostly to coal mines near Birmingham. By 1890, the state profited $164,000 a year. By 1912, prison mining brought in over $1 million in state revenues.
In the PBS documentary, Slavery By Another Name, Douglas Blackmon and other scholars note that prisoners could be driven in a way that earlier enslaved workers and free labor couldn’t. Convict labor served to depress wages, curtail union activity, organizing and strikes. These workers could also be worked practically to death and easily replaced.
Progressive reformers, Socialist Party leaders and UMW District 20 would wage an unrelenting war against the convict lease system for years. Even the 1911 Banner Mine explosion that killed 123 African American prisoners couldn’t outlaw the practice.
Finally, newly elected Governor Bibb Graves yielded to the public outcry that condemned the practice as a relic of barbarism. He also ceded to workers demands for jobs. Graves subsequently put prisoners to work on chain gangs building roads throughout the state, making Alabama the last state to abolish the convict lease system.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day SWOC leader Philip Murray beat back reports that the Little Steel Strike had collapsed.
Even as the Steel companies were championing that the strike had been broken, Murray insisted that of the 90,000 workers involved, only 20,000 had returned to work in mills that stretched across seven states.
He added they were mostly supervisors and foremen, not production workers.
Murray leveled charges against Ohio governor Martin Davey, that the Ohio National Guard was being used as company police to smash the strike.
Strike leaders added that the companies were staging ‘dummy’ back-to-work parades.
In fact, Secretary Perkins had announced that it was the government’s efforts at mediation that had collapsed.
But the steel magnates were on the offensive and had the backing of local politicians and police.
George Mike, a union man and disabled veteran was the latest casualty in the anti-labor war.
He was killed the day before at Moltrup Steel in Beaver Falls, Ohio, as picketers clashed with deputy sheriffs.
In Indiana, police rushed to plant gates at Inland Steel to guard against new battles as 20,000 strikers prepared for the imminent forced reopenings of Inland Steel and Youngstown Sheet and Tube there.
Both mills remained closed for weeks.
In Warren, Ohio, police issued a warrant for CIO strike leader Gus Hall and two other strike leaders, on charges he was the ‘brains’ behind a ‘terrorist’ plot to blow up strike-bound steel mills.
And at Bethlehem’s Cambria Works in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, two separate dynamitings destroyed main water supplies causing an immediate end to an attempted back-to-work movement there.
The strike was far from over.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1940.
That was the day President Roosevelt signed the Smith Act into law.
Some initially dubbed it the “Harry Bridges Law,” after the radical labor leader, long targeted by the FBI for deportation.
Politicians claimed it was designed to prosecute Fascists, Nazis and Communists.
In fact, the Smith Act was first used to prosecute and convict Minneapolis Teamsters leaders and supporters of the Socialist Workers Party, recognized for their successful 1934 strike and radical leadership.
Named after the Virginia Democratic Representative Howard W. Smith, it was originally titled the Alien Registration Act of 1940.
In addition to mandating the registration and fingerprinting of resident aliens, it allowed for the deportation of those resident aliens who sought to overthrow the government by force.
But the act also extended to those citizens who advocated the overthrow of the government by force or violence or engaged in the printing, publishing or distributing of materials that advocated sedition.
And it made it illegal for citizens to organize or belong to any association that engaged in such activity.
According to historian Donna Haverty-Stacke, author of Trotskyists on Trial: Free Speech and Political Persecution Since the Age of FDR, the Smith Act “was a peacetime antisedition law that marked a dramatic shift in the legal definition of free speech protection in America…the Minneapolis case shows how far the administration went to prosecute political dissent—even to the point of targeting the labor-liberal left.”
The Smith Act served as a prime tool for the McCarthyite Red Scare, and was used to prosecute more than a hundred Communists and labor leaders. Finally, in a 1957 landmark case, Yates v. Untied States, convictions under the Smith Act were rendered unconstitutional.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1905.
That was the day over 200 Socialists, Anarchists and Marxists, representing over 40 organizations, met at Brand’s Hall in Chicago to convene the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Representatives from groups like the Socialist Party, Socialist Labor Party and Western Federation of Miners joined together for an eleven-day convention to discuss the future of industrial unionism and revolutionary struggle.
Those present included Big Bill Haywood, James Connolly, Daniel De Leon, Eugene Debs, Lucy Gonzalez Parsons, Mother Jones and many others.
They hoped to cohere an alternative to the politically conservative, business unionism of the American Federation of Labor.
They sought to Build on the legacy of the Knights of Labor and their motto of “An injury to one is an injury to all.”
They were determined to build an industrial union that organized workers regardless of skill level.
They also distinguished themselves by opening their doors to men and women; black, white and all immigrant workers, including Asians.
Big Bill Haywood opened the first day’s morning session with the following remarks: “This is the Continental Congress of the working class.
We are here to confederate the workers of this country into a working class movement that shall have as its purpose the emancipation of the working class from the slave bondage of capitalism.
There is no organization that has for its purpose the same object as that for which you are called together today.
The aims and objects of this organization should be to put the working class in possession of the economic power, the means of life, in control of the machinery of production and distribution, without regard to capitalist masters.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day 1400 workers at the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company launched a four-day strike.
Three unions, representing about a third of the total employees, were fighting to break the hold of the company union.
The transit and power company had already fired 13 workers for union activity.
IBEW, Operating Engineers and the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees unions led the walkout.
They demanded reinstatement of their fired coworkers.
They also wanted the right to pick their own bargaining representatives and insisted the company union rescind its policy of barring strikers from membership and further employment.
The walkout began early that morning as strikers surrounded car barns, garages and power plants.
Company agents barricaded facilities with barbed wire, supplied Pullman cars for strikebreakers and posted armed guards on streetcars.
Almost immediately, striker Joseph Urbanski was mowed down and seriously injured as he tried to stop a scab streetcar.
By nightfall, 5,000 strikers and their supporters had blocked five transit lines.
They ripped protective screens from streetcar windows and forced scab drivers to abandon their routes.
As crowds swelled to 10,000 on the second day of the strike, a little more than half of all cars were in service.
More than 100 streetcars had been damaged.
Socialist Mayor Daniel Hoan placed the blame squarely on the utility company.
Street battles with police and scabs continued into the third day of the strike.
Milwaukee’s Federated Trades and Building Trades Councils threatened a general strike in the city by July 2 if the strike was not settled.
By June 30, workers celebrated total victory when the company conceded to all of their demands.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1943.
That was the day the Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes Act was passed.
In the years before Taft-Hartley, it was considered the foremost slave labor bill.
It gave the president the power to seize and operate war industries confronted with strikes or lockouts interfering with war production.
It also criminalized any future strikes in seized plants with $5000 fines and up to a year in prison.
And it held unions in war-related industries liable for damages incurred if they failed to give 30-day strike notices.
The law was passed just four days after miners struck in protest of a War Labor Board decision that denied all of their contract demands.
Congress overrode President Roosevelt’s veto in passing the Act.
But critics argued that FDR vetoed the bill over parts that did not go far enough to suppress strikes.
President Roosevelt argued for a proposed amendment that would “enable us to induct into military service all persons who engage in strikes, stoppages, or other interruptions of work in plants in possession of the United States.”
The bill effectively criminalized any worker that dared to defy the wartime no strike pledge, even as wages and working conditions quickly deteriorated in the face of massive defense industry profits.
Miners were outraged by threats of conscription and jail time if they dared to strike.
UMW president John L. Lewis refused to comment on the Act.
But other UMW leaders lamented that the bill would hurt AFL and CIO unions.
As far as the UMW was concerned though, the bill “wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.”
The Act expired In June 1947.
It was superseded by the detested Taft-Hartley Act.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1947.
That was the day spontaneous protest strikes began against the new Taft-Hartley Act.
250,000 soft coal miners walked out of the pits.
132,000 shipyard workers of the CIO’s Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers followed the miners’ example, on the East and Gulf coasts.
The Greater Akron Area Council of Labor Unions, a joint AFL & CIO council representing 185,000 workers, demanded that top union leaders call a general strike in defense of labor’s civil liberties.
Workers at Chrysler’s Kercheval plant walked out in protest even as the nations’ steel mills and auto plants began to slow from the absence of coal.
Congressman Fred Hartley, co-author of the slave labor bill denounced the UMW as mutinous citizens and demanded immediate enforcement of the Act against the walkout.
Millions of trade unionists, white-hot with anger at the repressive, union-busting legislation were ready for job actions.
But in this instance, William Green, head of the AFL and Philip Murray, head of the CIO were agreed in their opposition to general strike action.
William Green reported that he had been flooded with appeals from AFL unions across the country calling for a general strike.
He feared taking strike action would invite lawsuits and favored fighting through the courts and private contracts.
Murray echoed Green and rejected any talk of a general protest strike.
He invited leaders of the AFL and the Railroad Brotherhoods to join the CIO in a two-pronged fight against Taft-Hartley.
Murray looked to challenge the Act’s constitutionality in the courts and hoped to unseat the congressmen who passed it in the 1948 elections.
70 years later, unions are still hamstrung by many of the Act’s provisions.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1947. That was the day the despised Taft-Hartley Act became law.
It was a direct retaliatory response to the 1946 post-war strike wave, where millions walked off the job after waiting years for basic demands.
The labor movement mobilized against the slave labor bill through numerous rallies.
The AFL joined the CIO in threatening 24-hour strikes across whole industries in protest, as the bill wound its way through Congress.
11,000 soft coal miners in Pennsylvania walked out in a spontaneous protest strike earlier in the month.
The bill passed over the veto of President Harry S. Truman, who would invoke it a dozen times over the course of his presidency.
Many union leaders hailed Truman as a friend of labor for his 11th hour veto.
Labor party advocates were incensed that of 219 congressional Democrats, 126 voted in favor of the bill.
Practically overnight, the labor movement had been pushed back 25 years.
Taft-Hartley was nothing short of disastrous for the American labor movement.
With the stroke of a pen, the Act criminalized many of the actions key to historic union victories in the thirties and forties.
Jurisdictional strikes, secondary boycotts, solidarity strikes, closed shops and mass picketing were just a few of the most basic trade union activities now outlawed.
The Act helped fire the first shots of the McCarthy Red Scare by mandating that union officers file non-Communist affidavits with the government, later found to be unconstitutional.
The Act also provided the ammunition needed to strangle strikes by empowering the president to easily acquire strikebreaking injunctions.
And it allowed for the rapid growth of right-to-work laws at the state level.
The union movement has suffered ever since.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1999.
That was the day 5000 textile workers at six Fieldcrest Cannon Mills in North Carolina began voting for representation by the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, better known as UNITE.
The victory, later validated by the NLRB, was a significant win for Labor in the anti-union South.
The union’s organizing director, Bruce Raynor stated, “It feels like we just organized G.M. Suddenly, we’ve got a beacon to show other textile workers that they can do it.”
Labor historian Leon Fink noted that, “It’s a stunning victory for the union. It’s the biggest breakthrough in a traditional Southern industry for probably the last quarter century.”
Then AFL-CIO president, John Sweeney remarked that it was the largest union victory in a Southern textile mill in history.
The election and victory came after a 25-year struggle and four previous attempts to organize at Fieldcrest Cannon Mills.
Many noted that the young, immigrant workforce made the difference.
Conditions had been worsening at the mills.
Workers fed up with production line speedup, punitive decreases in piecework premiums and company harassment, were compelled to vote union.
One worker stated he and many others were sick of lies management told, to keep workers from voting yes in previous elections.
Supervisors routinely intimidated workers to vote no with promises of higher wages or when that failed, threats of deportation.
Workers were barraged with various forms of antiunion propaganda.
They found antiunion videos mailed to their homes.
Some were paid extra to distribute ‘Vote No’ t-shirts on the shop floors.
The company finally recognized the union and negotiated a first contract that guaranteed higher wages, pensions and other benefits.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1943.
That was the day United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis issued strike orders at the nation’s mines, calling out more than half a million miners.
The third general coal strike in three months defied the wartime ‘no strike’ pledge.
Miners raised several demands, including wage increases, an end to the dangerous third-shift and portal-to-portal pay.
High wartime inflation only worsened miners’ already low wages.
Early that spring, Lewis denounced the mine owners, the War Labor Board and the Little Steel formula, used to calculate wartime wages.
He warned the Formula meant starvation for workers and the end of collective bargaining.
By April, President Roosevelt ordered wage freezes.
Miners began walking out of the pits, even before the strike call, as soon as the War Labor Board handed down their decision on June 19.
The Board had rejected ALL of the miners’ demands.
The UMW responded, stating, “No member and no officer of the United Mine Workers of America would be so destitute of principle and so devoid of honor as to sign or execute such an infamous yellow dog contract.”
Though the UMW were forced to call off the strike the next day, some miners continued to stay out in protest.
Four days later, Congress passed the dreaded Smith-Connally Act, dubbed the ‘slave-labor’ bill, in response to the strike.
Throughout the summer, miners across the country would rage against the government for threatening them with conscription and jail time if they dared refuse the terms of the decision.
By November, the miners would walk out a fourth time and finally win many of their demands, at least from the War Labor Board.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1941.
That was the day Ford Motor Company finally signed with the United Auto Workers.
Ford was last of the Big 3 to sign with the UAW.
The hard-won victory came after nearly three decades of struggle to organize there.
Anyone attempting to build a union had been met with the full force of Ford’s Service Department, led by thug Henry Bennett.
Intimidation, Jew-baiting, redbaiting, firings, and beatings were common in the years leading up to unionization.
Some unionists had even been murdered.
The company finally caved after a solid strike shut down production at the massive River Rouge complex in April.
Several union committee members had been fired and the UAW called a strike in their defense.
Tens of thousands of black and white workers poured out of their departments to join the picket lines.
They blocked all plant gates with their cars
Strike bulletins, press statements and radio broadcasts kept workers updated on the latest decisions.
A week into the strike, the NLRB ruled an election be held within 45 days.
Strikers went back to work on guarantees their coworkers would be reinstated.
The following month, the UAW won union certification, after 60,000 rallied in Detroit’s Cadillac Square in support.
When Ford finally signed the first contract, it guaranteed competitive wages, a closed shop, and dues check-off.
The first contract also ensured seniority rights, grievance procedures, and pensions.
The union immediately took advantage of the contract clause that prohibited racial discrimination.
They set up a commission to combat racism on the shop floor, issuing anti-racist literature and backing the elections of black committeemen and stewards.
Labor historian Steve Babson notes, “It was a watershed in American history.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1953.
That was the day 26,000 members of the ILWU in Hawaii walked off the job.
Their strike was a four-day protest against the witch-hunt convictions of the Hawaii Seven.
Many docks and plantations immediately shut down.
Stevedores refused to load military cargo headed to the war in Korea.
At the height of the McCarthyite Red Scare, union militants continued to be the primary targets of the anti-Communist hysteria.
Longshoreman leader Jack Hall and six-codefendants had just been tried and convicted under the Smith Act.
The ILWU denounced the trial and verdict as a frame-up.
It was the ultimate move to bust the increasingly powerful union on the islands.
The ILWU had come under heightened surveillance after successfully organizing stevedores and many sugar and pineapple plantations.
The real trouble began after a long and bitter dock strike in 1949.
Then Nebraska Senator Hugh Butler proclaimed the island to be firmly in the grips of a Communist attack.
HUAC arrived the next year to investigate the ‘Red Situation.’
In August 1951, the FBI conducted early morning raids to arrest the Seven on charges of violating the Smith Act.
The arrests came just as the ILWU threatened a sugar strike, having reached an impasse in contract negotiations.
During the trial, it was clear the Seven were being tried not for anything they did, but for allegedly being part of a vast and secret conspiracy.
The proceedings had the quality of a show trial, designed more to terrorize the public and labor movement, than to prosecute any actual crime.
Their convictions were finally overturned with the landmark 1957 Yates decision, which rendered much of the Smith Act unenforceable.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1935.
That was the day more than a thousand locked out dockworkers battled police forces in Vancouver, British Columbia in the ‘Battle of Ballantyne Pier.’
The dispute began weeks earlier when the Shipping Federation locked out dockworkers at Powell River, using scabs to load and unload cargo.
Shipping magnates feared Communist leadership had taken over the company unions they established in the 20s.
Workers at other ports in British Columbia now refused to handle Powell River cargo and were locked out.
Hot cargoing was the main issue.
But dockers also demanded higher wages, union recognition and fair dispatching.
The previous year’s West Coast Waterfront strike had put dockworkers everywhere in a fighting mood.
In Vancouver, dockers ousted management lackeys from their union and voted in a radical leadership during a recent election.
Shipping bosses, local politicians and businessmen all cried ‘Bolshevik Menace.’
They formed a Citizens League and prepared for battle.
On this day, striking dockers marched to Ballantyne Pier, where they had been denied the right to picket.
They were determined to stop the scabbing and intended to confront scabs directly.
Led by World War I veteran, Mickey O’Rourke, dockers were abruptly stopped at the pier entrance by Vancouver Police.
Immediately, they were beaten and tear gassed by club-wielding police and despised specials.
Soon British Columbia Provincial Police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police emerged to join in on the assault.
The fighting continued for three hours.
Police horses trampled many as they tried to escape.
Scores were hospitalized and arrested.
The strike dragged on for months and ended in defeat.
But dockers would win the war through ten years of hard, dedicated organizing that culminated with an ILWU charter in 1945.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1913.
That was the day the Industrial Workers of the World led a strike at Studebaker in Detroit.
IWW organizers Matilda Rabinowitz, Jack Walsh and others arrived in Detroit to organize.
They gave lunchtime speeches outside the auto plants.
Their speeches were so popular with Ford workers that managers at the Highland Park plant stopped allowing workers to take their lunches outside and had organizers arrested.
They moved on to try to organize Studebaker, where they had supporters inside.
Workers there had complaints similar to those at Ford, namely long hours and endless speed-up.
At Studebaker, workers were also angry when management changed the way they were paid--from weekly to every other week.
IWW supporter Dale Schlosser was fired from Studebaker’s #3 plant as he tried to circulate a petition for a return to weekly paydays.
Word spread like wildfire and 3500 workers walked off the job in the first auto strike in Detroit. Rabinowitz and Walsh led a seven-mile march of thousands to Studebaker #1 and then downtown to Studebaker #5, calling workers out on strike.
By the end of the day nearly 6,000 workers speaking a number of different languages voted for IWW representation and put together a list of grievances.
IWW organizers envisioned an industry wide strike and 2000 strikers marched to the Packard plant the next day to call those workers out to join the strike.
There they were met and beaten by police.
The strike and organizing drive was quickly crushed. Rabinowitz remarked that workers returning to Studebaker were even more determined to fight.
IWW organizer Frank Bohn observed, “the strike was not for a few days or weeks, but maybe twenty or thirty years.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1918.
That was the day Eugene V. Debs, leader of the Socialist Party gave his legendary anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio.
It was the speech for which he would eventually be arrested, tried and convicted under the Espionage Act.
Though he avoided explicitly criticizing World War I or President Wilson, he made clear his views.
He gave the speech at a park near the jail where Charles Baker, Charles Ruthenberg and Alfred Wagenknecht, three prominent socialists, were being held on Espionage Act related charges.
Debs noted, “it is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world.”
Debs was defiant.
He unloaded his rage against the judicial system and the conviction of Socialist leader Kate Richards O’Hare for her anti-war views.
He railed against the suppression of Max Eastman’s Socialist press and the ongoing persecution of Socialists Tom Mooney and William Billings.
Debs briefly reviewed the history of wars in Europe and made the following observation:
“The master class has always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war… the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace…”
For this he was convicted of advocating disloyalty and draft resistance and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day anti-union violence erupted in the “Valley of Steel.”
The Little Steel Strike was then in its 20thday.
The strike had spread to Bethlehem’s Cambria Works in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Newspaper headlines screamed: “30 Clubbed, Stabbed, Shot in Strike: Guerilla Warfare Breaks Out Anew in Pennsylvania.”
The day had been marred by hours of fighting with scabs and the police as miners joined picketers in support
Strikers lobbed rocks at scab cars attempting to drive through picket lines and successfully overturned a number of vehicles.
Steel-helmeted police attacked strikers, swinging riot clubs and launching tear gas shells.
One picketer, Tony Mandos was in critical condition after having been shot twice by police.
Mayor Daniel Shields announced he had deputized 250 special police, and was preparing to “raise an army of 3000 American Legionnaires by nightfall to protect the city of Johnstown from strikers.”
At Warren, Ohio, dynamite crippled railroad operations at a struck Republic Steel Mill on the Ashtabula-Niles Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The explosion came after carloads of raw material had been shunted in and products shipped out of the mill.
Auto plants throughout the Midwest slowed production for lack of steel-made parts.
UAW president Homer Martin dispatched a telegram to CIO leader, John L. Lewis: “We are standing by ready to refuse to use steel made in struck plants in the production of automobiles unless the steel companies make a speedy and amicable settlement with striking steel workers.”
The CIO threatened a 20,000 strong strike support rally through the streets of Johnstown to protest the violence.
They claimed victory when the Governor quickly declared martial law and padlocked the gates to Cambria Works.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day John L. Lewis called miners who worked for Little Steel coal subsidiaries out on strike.
It was an act of solidarity as conditions worsened on steel strike picket lines.
The walkout was designed to force the closure of struck mills by stopping the flow of coal.
10,000 workers in as many as 19 mines owned by Republic Steel, Bethlehem Steel and Youngstown Sheet and Tube dropped their tools.
Bethlehem had not been one of the independent steel companies initially included in the Little Steel Strike.
But workers at its Cambria Works in Johnstown, Pennsylvania walked out in sympathy with railroad workers at Bethlehem-owned Black Lick and Conemaugh Railroad.
They had been refused a contract.
Striking miners in Johnstown marched to Cambria Works to join the seven-mile stretch of picket lines.
In Ohio, the Canton Federation of Labor voted unanimously for a general strike if the newly-formed ‘Citizens League” attempted to force re-opening of the steel mills.
SWOC leader Van Bittner threatened to call out another 600,000 miners by weeks end if the strike was not settled.
John L. Lewis remarked, “Labor is menaced by the force of arms of Republic Steel Corporation. Labor is calling attention to this situation so the law, government or public opinion can begin functioning before another massacre takes place.”
UAW president Homer Martin added, “It is our purpose to spread the light of Democracy to every part of this land until autocracy and industrial slavery have been driven from the country.”
But Johnstown civic leaders and town officials had formed a Citizens Committee and prepared for battle as the miners approached.
It seemed there was no end to the anti-strike violence.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1926.
That was the day union leader Tony Mazzocchi was born.
He is remembered as a long-time leader and international official with the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union.
Mazzocchi was a primary force behind the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.
He was also centrally involved in the grievances Karen Silkwood brought against the Kerr-McGee Company.
During the 90s, he worked tirelessly to establish a Labor Party as an independent political force that could truly represent working people.
Mazzocchi was born in Brooklyn, New York to a union family.
After fighting in World War II, he hired on at a cosmetics factory organized by the Gas Workers Union.
He quickly emerged as a leader, fought for the rights of women workers and soon became president of his local.
He would go on to aid in the merging of his union with Oil Workers International that created OCAW.
Within 10 years, he had become the international’s Citizenship-Legislative Director.
Many have noted that Mazzocchi was one of the first labor leaders to build ties with the environmental movement.
He linked hazards in the workplace with hazards in the environment.
He showed how workers and the public shared similar concerns about health and safety.
He pioneered the blue-green alliance that continues to advocate green blue-collar jobs, built union reading clubs and pushed his members towards social justice unionism.
Mazzocchi was a coalition builder and worked with allies for clean water and air, single payer health care, free education and just trade policies.
The United Steel Workers named their Health, Safety and the Environment Center in his honor.
He died in 2002 of pancreatic cancer. He was 76.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1936.
That was the day Remington Rand president, James Rand boasted of a new scheme.
He called it the Mohawk Valley Formula.
It served as a blueprint for the future of union busting.
The National Labor Relations Board called it a battle plan for industrial war.
Workers at Remington Rand had walked out on strike against the union in late May after enduring a year of anti-union harassment, threatened plant closures and firings of top union leaders.
The company used a number of dirty tricks during the strike to mislead and demoralize strike forces.
In his book, The Last Great Strike, Ahmed White describes the purpose and function of the Formula: writing “The scheme figured in the Little Steel Strike, as several authorities would accuse the steel companies of patterning their response to the steel strike after Rand’s formula. It consisted of no fewer than 9 steps, all oriented to employing threatening armed forces, spies and provocateurs, company-sponsored back-to-work movements and staged re-openings to terrorize and demoralize strikers; provoke strikers to violence, and discredit them; then use the specter of violence and pretense of a “state of emergency” to mobilize opposition to the strike on the part of local police and courts; and finally announcing that the strike had been broken and that any remaining resistance was the work of an intractable minority hostile to community values and the “right to work.”
The central insight behind the formula was that violence could be used, not only to drive workers off picket lines and paralyze them with fear, but also to turn both the law and political sentiments against unionists while justifying the employer’s own conduct and excusing its contempt for labor rights.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1974.
That was the day workers at the Dodge Truck plant in Warren, Michigan went out on a wildcat strike.
Workers were fed up with endless attacks from management and disappointing contract negotiations the year before.
Wildcats had become almost commonplace in Detroit area auto plants the previous summer.
Arbitrary discipline, deteriorating working conditions and frustration with the union’s response all led to the three-day walkout.
10 days earlier, 100 workers had staged a sick-in over working conditions.
When the company threatened firings, more workers dropped their tools.
Now four had been fired, including the second shift chief steward.
The response was immediate.
Within an hour, the plant was virtually shut down.
6000 workers voted to continue the strike.
Wildcat leaders noted that virtually all the routine antagonisms among workers, young vs. old, black vs. white, women vs. men, had melted away in solidarity.
Socialist and anarchist workers in the plant published their recollections in a commemorative pamphlet entitled Wildcat: Dodge Truck, June 1974.
In it they state, “We were excited by the collective decision of thousands of Chrysler employees to deny the authority of daily wage labor and, for even four days, to say no to the demands of the alarm clock, the production line, bosses, union bureaucrats, judges and cops… It was in fact, a total frustration with and rejection of, all the things, inside and outside the plant, which exercise control over our lives.”
By the time it was over, thirty strikers had been arrested, strike leaders were branded as communist agitators by the union, and area judges issued injunctions to end the picketing.
The wildcat may have failed but workers had pushed back against management offensives.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day striking steelworkers battled back-to-work forces at Newton Steel in Monroe, Michigan.
Steelworkers were on strike against three steel companies across five states in the push to organize ‘Little Steel.’
Of the three, Republic Steel sites had experienced brutal picket line violence, especially in South Chicago.
Republic had recently purchased Newton Rolling Mill.
Management there was bent on forcing the reopening of the plant.
John L. Lewis promised 8,000-10,000 workers from Detroit to bolster picket lines.
The Mayor of Monroe, Daniel Knaggs called upon all able-bodied men with military experience to enlist in a ‘citizen’s army’ to escort scabs back to work.
Police and hundreds of deputies set up check points on the outskirts of the city to stop suspected CIO supporters from entering Monroe.
Black SWOC organizer Leonides McDonald from Chicago had already been dragged from his car, beaten, and driven from town on foot by scabs earlier in the day.
At the same time, Mayor Knaggs, company officials as well as SWOC and company union organizers met in the state’s capitol with Governor Murphy to negotiate a settlement.
As they met, 200 more special police were sworn in and instructed in the use of side arms and tear gas.
Police, deputies, and scabs armed with guns, clubs and tear gas shattered the picket line that evening.
Then deputies seized strikers’ cars and drove them into the river!
18 strikers were hospitalized.
Outraged UAW supporters from Pontiac declared a labor holiday in protest and headed to Monroe.
But UAW officials ordered them to turn back in an effort to stem the anti-union violence.
The organizing drive had been dealt another serious setback.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day Consumers Power Company employees near Flint, Michigan shut off generators and turbines at the Zilwaukee power plant.
2000 workers organizing with the Public Utilities Union under the direction of the UAW, effectively cut power to everything except hospitals, city sanitation plants and dairies.
The company’s office workers joined the walkout, hanging a banner across the Flint District office building that read “Quit Stalling.”
The company had dragged its heels on an agreement promising union recognition, a closed shop, wage increases and an end to 24 hour scheduling of troubleshooters.
The strike cut power to an estimated 165,000 Flint residents.
It also forced the closing of six area General Motors plants and impacted industrial centers like Saginaw and Bay City.
The strike ended a temporary truce Governor Frank Murphy had forced between the UAW and Consumers Power, which ended a several hours long walkout at the power plant earlier in the month.
That strike paralyzed 13 counties across the Saginaw Valley.
When news of the second strike hit, Murphy put the National Guard on stand-by.
He snapped orders at UAW leader Homer Martin to “Get those lights back on! I’ll not stand by and see those people in darkness tonight!”
Top union officials insisted the strike was unauthorized and that a tentative settlement had been reached.
But workers demanded to see the actual terms of the agreement before they agreed to go back to work.
Though workers ratified the contract, tensions continued.
Governor Murphy demanded that county sheriffs organize a special force to prevent future utility strikes, while the UAW vowed to curb wildcat strikes through investigation and discipline.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917.
That was the day the Granite Mountain and Speculator Mines in Butte, Montana caught fire, killing 168 miners.
It is considered the worst underground hard-rock mining disaster in the nation’s history.
Just weeks after the United States had entered World War I, the demand for copper had surged.
Granite Mountain, like many of the nation’s mines, operated around the clock to meet war production needs.
In his book, Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917,Michael Punke notes the irony of the disaster, which began as an effort to improve safety.
A sprinkler system had just been installed.
The final task was the relocation of an electrical cable.
The cable was insulated with oil-soaked cloth, sheathed in lead.
Workers lost control of the three-ton cable as they lowered it into the mine and it fell to the bottom of the shaft.
Carrying a commonly used carbide-burning lamp, the night shift foreman accidently ignited the cable as he planned its removal.
The conflagration was virtually immediate and burned for more than three days.
At the time, 415 miners were at work on the overnight shift.
Smoke and gases quickly filled both mines.
With no alarm system in place, those that could not escape succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.
In 1996, a memorial plaza was dedicated to those who lost their lives.
It details a slice of Butte’s mining and labor history that culminated in tragedy.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1912.
That was the day Boston Carmen of local 589 voted to strike.
Workers had been fighting to organize for years.
They now demanded union recognition.
In the months before the strike, union representatives had attempted to meet with management, with no success.
The President of the L, in the days before it was called the T, went so far as to summarily fire 282 employees, claiming the need to maintain discipline.
Incensed at the union-busting maneuver, workers walked off the job in the early hours of the morning.
They began cutting trolley ropes, smashing train windows and removing handles on controller boxes.
In an effort to bust the strike, management formed a company union.
They also brought in over 700 professional strikebreakers, and provided housing for the scabs.
Over the course of several weeks, dozens of strikers were arrested on charges that ranged from calling strikebreakers scabs to trumped-up felony charges.
AFL president Samuel Gompers visited the picket lines in a show of solidarity.
Area labor unions provided financial and legal support.
The union filed charges with the State Board of Arbitration.
They argued management had caused the strike by firing hundreds of workers for union activity and coercing workers against joining the union.
Once the Board confirmed the union’s charges, the Governor and Mayor both pushed for resolution.
As well, Boston’s Central Labor Union threatened a general strike.
Union recognition finally came on July 28thand the first contract was signed a year later.
Since that time, local 589 has weathered more than a century of anti-union storms as it continues to fight for better wages, hours, and working conditions.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1989.
That was the day the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Environmental Protection Agency raided a Department of Energy facility just outside Denver, Colorado.
Rockwell International operated Rocky Flats plutonium-processing plant on behalf of the federal government.
From 1952 until 1989, workers there made plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads.
They reported procedurally unsafe working conditions and rare forms of cancer.
Workers also worried about disposal of radioactive material and the potential public-health threat the facility posed.
Just after 9 am. 90 FBI and EPA agents executed Operation Desert Glow, beginning their raid and investigation into potential environmental crimes at the 6000-plus acre facility.
According to Kristen Iversen, author of Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Shadow of Rocky Flats, evidence collected over the course of 18 days indicated that “for more than 30 years, spills, leaks and waste disposal practices have contaminated dozens of sites around the facility. The most significant public health issue is groundwater pollution… and more than 2,640 pounds of plutonium is missing.”
The 21-month Grand Jury investigation revealed that the facility had been burning radioactive and toxic waste in an incinerator for decades, despite regulations requiring its shutdown.
It also revealed secret dumping of radioactive waste into officially closed waste ponds.
Infuriated jurors wrote their own grand jury report when they learned a plea deal had been cut, with millions in fines, but that there would be no indictments.
Their report remains sealed.
Rocky Flats was eventually declared a Superfund site and years of clean up began.
In 2001, congress decided to turn most of the acreage into a wildlife refugee, with park trails for hiking and horseback riding.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1998.
That was the day GM workers in Flint, Michigan walked off the job.
9200 workers with UAW locals 659 and 651 had shut down a company, which at the time, accounted for one percent of the country’s economic output.
Production at GM plants throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico all came to a screeching halt.
Many noted that what began as a localized walkout became the most significant strike against GM since 1970.
Management had moved dies out of the Metal Center and shipped them to operations in Canada.
In an act of international solidarity, brothers and sisters in the CAW refused to handle the dies.
The seven-week strike was solid against a Wall St. attack on one of the last closed shops in the country.
The strike was also popular with autoworkers elsewhere, who confronted assembly line speedup, mandatory overtime and constant fear of plant closures.
It inspired GM workers in Indiana, Ohio and California to strike.
Even workers at the Tennessee-based Saturn plant, touted as a model in labor-management relations, voted to strike in response to threatened outsourcing.
But the strike essentially ended in a standoff.
The union had stopped GM from closing plants in Flint and Dayton, Ohio, at least for a while.
And GM agreed to invest millions in modernizing the Flint facilities.
But, weeks after the strike ended, GM bosses avowed more union-busting attacks.
They declared a two-pronged strategy: First, they intended to spin off the Delphi parts division as an independent operation.
Then, GM announced they planned to close existing U.S. plants in favor of new facilities that assembled pre-made parts, fabricated at non-union suppliers.
The war against the UAW had begun.
On this day in labor history the year was 1946.
That was the day the Detroit Free Press reported that a Grand Jury had been convened to investigate the severe beatings of four Briggs UAW local 212 officers over the previous 15 months.
Recording secretary Ken Morris had been the latest victim. He was brutally beaten May 31 behind his home.
Arthur Vega, leader of Local 212’s Flying Squadron was viciously attacked by thugs in March 1945 and suffered a broken arm and other injuries.
Next, Local 212 Sergeant-At-Arms Roy Snowden was clubbed on two separate occasions, suffering permanent injuries.
Then, in October 1945, Genora Dollinger, heroine of the 1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike and founder of the Women’s Emergency Brigades, was beaten so severely as she lay sleeping, that she was hospitalized in critical condition for weeks.
Since her Flint years, Dollinger had become active with Local 212.
She served as a leading member on the union committee established to investigate the earlier beatings.
Both the local and the international led investigations into the beatings and offered sizable rewards. Union militants noted the beatings benefited the company to be sure.
Briggs had fired all four victims at one point or another for union activity.
And strike preparations were underway when Morris’ wife found him with his head cracked open.
The UAW waited for the Grand Jury’s findings.
By years’ end, another local 212 shop steward had been beaten.
By 1951, union officials demanded a second Grand Jury investigation.
They accused Briggs of awarding a lucrative scrap contract to local mob boss Carl Renda in exchange for anti-union thuggery.
No charges were ever brought against the company, which insisted the violence stemmed from intra-union disputes.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day striking Toledo Auto-Lite workers ratified an agreement, securing a number of first gains.
Workers won union recognition, wage increases, mechanisms to arbitrate grievances and demands, and the rehiring of all workers.
National Guard troops were withdrawn two days later.
It was truly a breakthrough in industrial organizing. Victory was ensured by a number of factors
Certainly, the six-day running battles that killed two strikers and injured hundreds had a profound impact.
But by the end of May, 85 of the 103 unions affiliated with Toledo’s Central Labor Union had voted in favor of a general strike.
As well, the powerful Edison workers demanded raises and union recognition with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Their business agent led the Committee of 23 that sought to organize the general strike in Toledo.
On June 1, 40,000 trade unionists amassed for a rally at Lucas County Courthouse Square, ready to strike.
By then the AFL had already appealed to President Roosevelt to intervene.
Edison workers won big the next day with a 22% raise and union recognition.
And then the tentative agreement was reached between Auto-Lite and UAW local 18364.
Historian Bryan Palmer notes, “These victories wrote finis to any mobilization for a general strike, but they paved the way for ongoing union victories in the automobile industry.
Before the year was out, 19 more auto-parts plants in Toledo would fall to union organizers.
A General Motors plant was rocked with the first successful strike in the history of this corporate giant, the opening blow in what proved to be a long and taxing effort to establish trade-unionism in the open shop bastions of the automobile industry.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1952.
That was the day 650,000 steel workers walked off the job in an industry-wide strike.
The Supreme Court had just handed down a 6-3 ruling in the case of Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer.
The court decided that the President had no authority to seize private property on the grounds of national security without prior authorization from Congress.
On April 4, President Harry Truman had issued Executive Order 10340, ordering Commerce Secretary Charles Sawyer to seize the nation’s steel mills to ensure the continued production of steel, ostensibly for the war effort.
Seizure of the mills came after months of wrangling over wage increases and work rules between mill owners, the United Steelworkers and the Wage Stabilization Board.
Steel workers walked out just hours after the decision.
The impact was felt immediately. Lay-offs began at a number of steel-dependent industries.
By the end of the month, most defense industries and auto plants nationwide were completely shut down.
Consumer inventories of steel were almost totally depleted and exports ceased entirely.
The union’s ultimate goal was a master contract and the union shop.
They hoped to jump start negotiations by signing with the smaller companies first and forestall invoking of Taft-Hartley.
By July, the railroads began to suffer financial losses, as did California growers who lacked tin to can their crops.
After 53 days, mill owners and the union agreed to terms that were less than what the Wage Stabilization Board had recommended, far less than what the union had originally demanded, but much more than what the mill owners had been willing to concede.
More importantly, after 15 years of struggle, the United Steelworkers had finally won the union shop.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2000.
That was the day meatpackers at Dakota Premium Foods in St. Paul, Minnesota staged a seven-hour sit-down strike for health and safety.
They protested assembly line speed-up, being forced to work while injured and the dreaded “gang-time,” supervisors used to avoid paying overtime.
Remarkably, the organizing drive came after the workers took action on their own behalf.
The United Food and Commercial Workers had organized the plant briefly in the early 1990s.
They quickly lost ground when the company pressed a successful decertification campaign after refusing a first contract.
This time, workers found that as the assembly line pace increased, so did the rate of injuries.
Workers came into the plant that morning, resolved to make a stand.
Management bullied them for hours throughout the day to give up.
Finally they were forced to concede to many of the workers concerns, including observation of line speed changes and uniform hours of work.
Workers eagerly signed UFCW cards, while the company unleashed its propaganda campaign to scare workers away from the union.
Management claimed workers would have to pay outrageous sums in union dues, that they’d lose their medical benefits and that their names would be turned over to the federal government.
The undocumented among the workers, some of whom were the best union fighters in the plant, were unshaken by these threats.
Then the company began targeting the strike leaders with firings and endless job transfers.
Workers stood intransigent and the UFCW overwhelmingly won the NLRB election a month later.
The union successfully weathered years of continued harassment, threats and decertification campaigns, but could not survive the closing of the plant in 2014.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1921.
That was the day one of the worst race riots in American history began in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In a frenzy of anti-black violence, a white mob destroyed virtually the entire black neighborhood of Greenwood.
Over the course of two days, as many as 300, mostly black residents were killed. ‘Black Wall Street’ had been burned to the ground, leaving 10,000 homeless.
The day before, Dick Rowland, a young black man tripped as he boarded an elevator at his job.
He fell against the young white woman elevator operator.
When she shrieked, nearby department store employees assumed she had been assaulted.
Rowland was arrested and newspapers fanned the flames of race violence and vigilantism.
On this day, white racist mobs surrounded the Tulsa County Courthouse where Rowland was being held and demanded he be turned over to them.
Returning black veterans had become increasingly assertive about their rights as citizens.
They marched to the courthouse, armed in an attempt to prevent Rowland’s lynching.
When the vets refused to disarm in the face of demands by the white mob, gunfire ensued, touching off 16 hours of fighting that literally decimated the community black workers and professionals had built up over the course of decades.
The National Guard was called out, mainly to disarm and round up black residents of Greenwood. Witnesses reported that Greenwood was bombed from the air by police and by Sinclair Oil company planes.
The history of the riot was buried for more than half a century.
It would take until 1997 for the Oklahoma State Legislature to set up a commission to uncover the bloody details, produce a 200 plus page report and recommend millions in reparations.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day known as among the darkest days for Labor, the Memorial Day Massacre.
For days, strikers had suffered arrests and severe beatings at the hands of Chicago police, who physically prevented them from establishing picket lines at South Chicago’s Republic Steel.
Joined by supporters from practically all walks of life, strikers decided late in the afternoon to march to the gates, determined to picket.
For Michael Dennis, author of The Memorial Day Massacre and the Movement for Industrial Democracy,“Southeast Chicago became a crucible in which a wide spectrum of social and political alternatives became possible…
The Little Steel Strike was propelled by the realization that workers lived in a country dedicated to democratic freedom, but worked under conditions of near autocracy.”
Men, women, and children, black, white and Mexican workers all chanted “CIO! CIO!” as they marched down Green Bay Avenue.
The Chicago Police waited for them, armed with revolvers, nightsticks and blackjacks.
Strikers defended their right to picket as police once again formed a solid line, preventing their passage.
The police soon launched tear gas canisters and began firing into the crowd.
The picketers turned away in a futile attempt to escape the staggering brutality.
When the dust settled, ten were killed, thirty more shot, twenty-eight others hospitalized with eight suffering permanent disability and another 20-30 injured.
Virtually all those shot had wounds in the back or side.
Michael Dennis notes that the massacre “cast the die for the strike…
Collaboration between municipal officials, corporate leaders and the military in suppressing the strike would go uncontested by federal authorities and cheered by middle-class opinion.”
The campaign to organize Little Steel had suffered a crushing blow.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day five governmental agencies began independent investigations into the Little Steel strike, then in its third day.
The Labor and Justice Departments as well as the NLRB and Senator Robert LaFollette’s Civil Liberties Committee all inquired about Wagner Act violations.
Production at Republic, Inland and Youngstown Sheet and Tube steel mills was grinding to a halt.
Across five states, strike forces proved stronger than steel bosses had anticipated.
Subsidiaries across the Great Lakes region continued to shut down.
Weekend wrap-up reports of violent clashes on picket lines appeared in newspapers across the country.
Strikers had adopted a “Quit Work or Starve” policy against those who remained behind the gates.
They successfully turned away mail trucks and tore up railroad tracks in yards at Warren and Youngstown, Ohio facilities to stop food deliveries.
The strike was referred to as a grim siege as Republic was forced to drop food by airplane to hemmed-in scabs behind the lines.
At Inland Steel in East Chicago, Indiana, company police clubbed picketers as they stopped railroad cars headed into the plant.
In Buffalo, strikers stoned scab cars as they passed through the gates.
In Monroe, Michigan, strikers successfully prevented the night shift from crossing.
In South Chicago, three strikers were being held on conspiracy charges, following a pitched battle with police the day before that injured more than 20.
1000 strikers there had attempted to establish a picket line at Republic Steel gates. SWOC president Philip Murray demanded additional investigation against Republic, charging the company had been stockpiling ammunition and hired private gunmen.
His worries would be confirmed in the decisive battles that lay ahead.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1863.
That was the day the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry marched through the streets of Boston in a farewell parade and then boarded ships headed for Beaufort, South Carolina.
Thousands lined the streets for the send off, including prominent abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass.
It was the first Black regiment organized to fight in the Civil War.
Abolitionists had wrestled with Lincoln and others that the Civil War wasn’t just about preventing national disintegration but about ending the slave labor system.
They were emphatic that slaves and free black men had a right and a vested interest in fighting for their freedom and the freedom of their families.
Finally the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 codified that demand as it abolished the slave system.
The Union Army began accepting black enlistees and embarked on recruitment campaigns to enlist future black soldiers.
By May, over 1000 black men had enlisted from 24 states.
Others came from as far away as Canada and the Caribbean.
Fathers and sons enlisted together.
The Union Army was far from free of its own anti-black prejudices.
Secretary of War Edward Stanton determined white officers would lead all black regiments.
Nonetheless, black enlisted men were trained, armed and ready to fight.
A young Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was put in charge of the regiment.
Though Shaw and hundreds of troops would soon be killed in battle at Fort Wagner, the regiment forced the Confederacy to abandon the Fort altogether.
The “Swamp Angels” as they were called, would continue to exact justice throughout the South for the duration of the war.
They served as a model for other black regiments, whose fighting proved decisive for victory.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1943.
That was the day 50,000 striking rubber workers ended their 5-day walkout in Akron, Ohio.
It was World War II and the no-strike pledge was in full effect.
Bosses were awash in defense contract profits.
At the same time, they used the no-strike pledge to violate collective bargaining agreements, crank up assembly line production and ignore grievances.
As one sympathetic headline read, “Workers Forced to Strike in Defense of Their Living Standards Slashed by Soaring Prices, Taxes and Anti-Union Profiteers.”
Workers at Goodyear, Firestone and Goodrich had petitioned the War Labor Board for an 8 cent raise and shift differentials they were entitled to per the Little Steel Formula.
For a year, they waited patiently and were outraged when they learned the Board had only granted a 3-cent raise.
Firestone and Goodrich workers threw down their tools immediately and poured out of the factories.
Goodyear workers soon followed.
In a protest telegram to the Board, United Rubber Workers leaders pointed out that living costs had increased by 23% since January 1941.
They also noted that essential to maintaining the no-strike agreement was a just settlement of grievances and a $25,000 cap on executive salaries, neither of which had been adhered to.
The walkout was one of the first major challenges to the no-strike pledge.
Women took the lead as picket captains and dispatchers.
Their leadership was accepted without question.
Flying pickets cruised the city to enforce picket lines.
Black workers at Firestone, impressed by the union’s fight for equal rights, figured prominently in the strike.
Workers returned to the job with their spirits high, having forced the Board to reconsider their demands.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day the Steel Workers Organizing Committee or SWOC, called a nationwide strike against three of the four ‘Little Steel’ companies, Republic, Inland and Youngstown Sheet & Tube.
The drive to organize Little Steel came on the heels of an historic agreement with U.S. Steel and J&L earlier in the year.
In his book, The Last Great Strike, legal scholar Ahmed White points out that SWOC leaders established a three-pronged strategy in their organizing efforts: to breakdown racial and ethnic differences among workers, to use the Wagner Act and newly formed NLRB to their advantage whenever possible and to take over company unions where they existed.
They hoped Little Steel would follow earlier precedent.
But mill owners wouldn’t budge on union recognition.
Firing of organizers intensified and lockouts began.
Sheriffs departments began the swearing in of deputies.
Republic and Youngstown Sheet & Tube started shipping and stockpiling munitions, including machine guns and tear gas to mills throughout the Midwest and Northeast. Scattered walkouts and wildcats began throughout the latter part of May as SWOC continued to demand recognition and first contracts.
And on this day SWOC delegates from the Little Steel locals met in a Youngstown ‘war council’ to demand a strike.
The strike began late that evening with the shift change at 11 pm.
The mills were shut down tight.
Pitched battles between strikers, scabs and police continued throughout the summer with hundreds arrested.
Anti-union violence would explode with the Memorial Day Massacre in South Chicago and the Women’s Massacre in Youngstown the following month.
After five months, the strike collapsed. It would take until 1942 before recognition was finally won.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day trucking bosses and leading Teamsters in Minneapolis reached a tentative agreement after a tumultuous week of fighting in the City Market.
Strikers won many of their demands, including union recognition and reinstatement of all strikers.
Such thorough victory at the Battle of Deputies Run earlier in the week had shaken city elites to the core.
As the dust settled on the picket lines, Governor Floyd Olsen had called a 24-hour truce in an effort to organize negotiations.
The debacle of Ohio National Guardsmen attacking Toledo strikers had reached Minneapolis.
Fears of a growing ‘Red Menace’ fueled demands for a settlement, prompting Olsen to order National Guardsmen into the city’s armories, armed to the teeth.
Historian Bryan Palmer, author of Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers Strikes of 1934, observed that the May 25 deal settled the strike quickly enough, but final victory would be postponed.
Strike leaders had to choose which concessions to make under immense pressure from state politicians, intractable employers and federal mediators.
They also worked to avoid a potentially deadly confrontation with the National Guard.
Above all, they demanded union recognition, agreed to arbitration of future disputes and withdrew the demand for a closed shop.
There was no contract and the inclusion of inside workers proved contentious.
Palmer adds the gains were limited but real enough, as strike leaders spelled out: What had begun as a violent assault on strikers ended with workers fighting in their own interests, learning they had only their union to rely on.
The open shop offensive was defeated and union recognition was won. In the weeks ahead, it would become clear the fight was far from over.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1959. That was the day Operation Humanity marched in support of New York City hospital workers fighting for union recognition and bargaining rights at area voluntary hospitals.
Workers organizing with Local 1199 had been on strike since May 8 and called on the public to support them in their efforts. They pointed out that the 30,000 overwhelmingly black and Latino workers were fighting against economic exploitation and discrimination.
Striking workers condemned their paltry wages, which averaged $21 less a week than workers at city hospitals. They added they had no job security or benefits and were not even eligible for unemployment. The Central Labor Council, the NAACP and area civil rights activists all supported the march.
In their book, Upheaval in the Quiet Zone, Leon Fink and Brian Greenberg noted that “a union largely led by Jews had squared off against hospitals directed by the scions of the city’s Jewish Community…to the degree that it was a ‘family affair,’ the 1959 fight thus took on the bitterness of a civil war.”
As well, Catholic trade union leaders decried the anti-union fervor of the hospitals run by the Archdiocese. Fink and Greenberg illustrate the support of fiery Mike Quill, president of TWU local 100, who denounced hospital trustees as worse than famed segregationist Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas.
Weeks into the strike, area trade unions supplied reinforcements in the form of donations, loans and groceries. Local IBEW members assessed themselves $1 a week for the strikers. Many unions regularly joined picket lines in support.
Though the strike would fail to secure union recognition and collective bargaining rights, there were minimal gains. Solidarity galvanized the membership for future battles.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day the Lucas County Sheriff ordered an attack on thousands of Electric Auto-Lite strikers and Unemployed League supporters, touching off the six-day Battle of Toledo.
The Toledo Auto-Lite Strike was one of three historic strikes of 1934 that turned the tide favorably toward industrial organizing.
The Auto-Lite company had granted a wage increase but reneged on promises of a first contract that included seniority rights, a closed shop and more.
Workers walked off the job in mid-April.
As the strike was about to collapse, Unemployed League forces, organized by A.J. Muste’s American Workers Party, joined picket lines in support.
When legal wrangling failed to subdue the strike, scabs and deputized ‘specials’ were amassed.
On this day, the picket lines grew to as many as 10,000.
The deputies began arresting strike leaders and attacking picketers with fire hoses, tear and vomit gas.
Historian Bryan Palmer describes the scene this way: “Angry workers laid siege to the factory; 1500 strikebreakers were imprisoned.
The scene was one of almost medieval tumult: windows were smashed with stones and bricks, many of them launched from giant slingshots improvised from rubber inner-tubes…When every window in the factory had been smashed, one striker shouted: “now you have your open shop.”…
The next day, 900 Ohio National Guardsmen arrived on the scene… women jeered ‘the landing of the Marines,’ while soap-boxers, many of them veterans sporting First World War medals, offered impromptu lectures on how the troops were breaking the strike…
The strikers’ ranks faced a hail of Guardsmen bullets, which left two dead and scores wounded.”
The battle raged on until the end of May, when it was clear a general strike was imminent.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day known as the “Battle of Deputies’ Run.”
The Minneapolis Teamsters strike was in full swing.
For three days, the city was peacefully paralyzed.
The wealthiest had kept the city an open shop for decades through their ‘Citizens’ Alliance,’ and now assembled an army of strikebreakers.
Strikers had been seriously injured on Saturday the 19th at the City Market.
They fought police and deputized ‘specials’ in an attempt to keep produce trucks from moving out.
Later that evening, flying pickets were ambushed in Tribune Alley after having been dispatched by an agent provocateur.
Strikers were beaten mercilessly, including several from the women’s auxiliary.
The sight of the bloodied women enraged strikers.
Another fierce confrontation was inevitable.
Hundreds of strikers waited at the Central Labor Union near the Market until Monday, when scab trucks were expected.
Fighting continued throughout the morning.
No trucks moved.
Hundreds of women marched to the mayor’s office demanding, “Take your hired thugs away!”
Anti-union violence so outraged building tradesmen that 35,000 walked off the job in sympathy.
Electricians, painters and ironworkers all reported to strike headquarters.
Then, on this day, that Tuesday, the decisive battle began.
Tens of thousands amassed in the Market on the side of the Teamsters, as ‘deputies’ would attempt to move the produce trucks out.
Strike leader Farrell Dobbs noted, “It became a free-for-all.”
The police stayed back as strikers and deputies battled it out until finally, the deputies dropped their clubs, turned tail and fled.
Union forces cleared the Market of every last scab, cop and deputy.
Historian Bryan Palmer notes, “An intense and deadly confrontation was over in short order. And it left the union in command.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1984.
That was the day Toledo autoworkers at AP Parts plant battled police in an attempt to save their union.
The battle unfolded on the 50thanniversary of the historic Toledo Auto-Lite Strike.
400 members of UAW local 14 had been on strike against the parts plant since May 2.
The company imposed a final offer that stripped workers of their seniority rights, ended 30 and out pensions, and cut wages by 40%.
Then they laid off 175 workers and targeted the rest with a campaign of harassment and discipline.
Workers walked off the job when the NLRB dismissed the union’s unfair labor practice charges.
Local newspapers printed names and addresses of striking workers in a blatant attempt to blacklist them from area employers.
Strikers had had it with AP’s union-busting tactics, which included paying the hated private goon squad, Nuckols Security, $45,000 a week to escort scabs into the plant.
The final straw came with an injunction, restricting the number of pickets.
In an act of solidarity, area unions came together for a show of union strength.
Thousands of UAW people from area auto plants, joined with striking OCAW refinery workers at the main gate, to challenge the new injunction.
Police in full riot gear charged the crowd with tear gas, clubs and pellet guns, beating and arresting dozens of strikers.
A pitched battle ensued between workers and police that lasted up to eighteen hours until the company was finally forced to eject scabs from the plant.
While workers were jubilant, the strike served as a warning about the future of small parts plants.
The strike dragged on for months, ending in deep concessions and outsourcing.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1938.
That was the day unemployed workers began a sit-down strike at the post office in Vancouver, British Columbia.
They had been organized by the Communist–led Relief Project Workers Union during the Depression.
In Canada, federally funded works projects were being administered at the provincial level.
By late 1937 the Prime Minister began to cut funding.
Unable to financially sustain the projects alone, provincial premier Thomas Patullo ended the works projects for British Columbia.
Masses of unemployed men thrown off their jobs, some driven to homelessness, organized occupations of the Hotel Georgia, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the main post office to protest the cuts.
While hotel owners paid protesters to leave, the occupation at the gallery and the post office lasted for weeks.
Finally on Father’s Day, June 18th, gallery occupiers were driven out with tear gas.
The post office strikers were met with much more violence.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police led the assault with tear gas and forcible dragging of sit-downers out of the building.
Once evicted, they were met with the batons of local police.
Organizers were singled out for especially severe beatings and scores were hospitalized for their injuries.
One striker, Arthur Redseth had his eye knocked out while his fellow sit-downer had his jaw broken for asking authorities to call an ambulance for his friend.
Strike leader, Steve Brodie suffered permanent eye damage as well.
News of the terror spread throughout the city and by mid-afternoon 10-15,000 protesters gathered to express outrage at what became known as Bloody Sunday in Vancouver.
Premier Patullo denounced the strikers as having received too much sympathy.
He nonetheless used the debacle as an opportunity to get federal funds reinstated.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1950.
That was the day thirty-one dockworkers were killed and hundreds more injured in an explosion at the Raritan River Port in South Amboy, New Jersey.
Workers were loading ammunition from freight trains onto ships.
The freight’s ultimate destination was Pakistan.
Practically every structure in South Amboy suffered some form of serious or structural damage, with windows blown out everywhere, and debris reported as far as 25 miles away.
5800 more unexploded anti-personnel mines had been strewn about the port.
Demolition experts had to be called in for removal.
A subsequent fire at a nearby agricultural phosphorus plant complicated their work.
The blast was caused by the detonation of 150 tons of military explosives and gelatin dynamite.
The piers, equipment and railroad cars were all demolished, over a dozen nearby barges were either on fire or sank.
Emergency Operations went into effect and a state of emergency was declared.
Key industries in the immediate area were seriously damaged, including the International Smelting and Refining Company, Pennsylvania Railroad maintenance shops and the power plant for Jersey Power and Light.
According to a report by National Board of Fire Underwriters and the Fire Insurance Rating Organization of New Jersey, packing of the mines and fuses by the Kilgore Company was not in accordance with Army standards and labeling was confusing.
The shipped mines were labeled as M1A1 though all parts but the detonator were identical to M1 mines, discontinued by the army in 1942 for their apparent defective fuse, leading to accidental firing and explosions.
Their report refrained from drawing a certain cause or assigning blame.
Instead the underwriters offered a number of possible scenarios and recommendations for best practices to be implemented.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1933.
That was the day President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act.
The act created the TVA as a federal corporation and was tasked to address the resource development of the region, one of the poorest in the United States.
These included flood control and improved travel along the Tennessee River.
It also meant improved forestry to address soil erosion and facilitation of agricultural production.
Control of water resources required a series of dams, designed to navigate the river and reduce flooding.
Though Wilson Dam had been completed before the establishment of the TVA, the authority had embarked on the construction of sixteen more dams.
During the Depression, the TVA hired tens of thousands of workers for conservation, construction and development.
Historian Erik Loomis notes that though the TVA was one of the region’s largest employers of black workers, the authority also maintained rigid lines of segregation in its workforce.
He adds that though 14 AFL unions eventually worked on dam construction, the agency initially refused to recognize unions.
Workers would wait until 1940 to sign first contacts in the anti-union South.
Today the authority is most well known for its supply of electricity to nearby communities.
It is the nation’s largest public power company and serves about 80,000 square miles in the southeastern United States.
TVA capacity to generate electric power includes some 29 hydroelectric dams, 11 coal fired plants, 3 nuclear plants and several combustion-turbine installations.
It also has several solar and wind installations.
The authority produces more than 130 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year.
The TVA played a critical role in transforming the South by constructing infrastructure necessary for modernization and industrialization.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1980.
That was the day 4000 strikers and their supporters gathered for the March for Dignity and Respect in Laurel, Mississippi.
Over 200 mostly black women members of International Chemical Workers Union Local 882 had been on strike against Sanderson Farms chicken processing plant for 15 months.
Trade unionists from as far away as Cincinnati, Memphis and North Carolina came to march in support.
Sanderson Farms had cleared $58 million in profits but paid workers just $3 an hour.
The women demanded a contract that included more control over assembly line speed, overtime pay, and insurance.
They complained of desperately low wages, inhumane working conditions, and even the inability to use the bathroom when necessary!
Workers were given only gloves and an apron once a month, and a file to sharpen their often dull and rusty scissors and knives.
They often referred to the processing plant as the plantation, where sexual harassment was rampant.
Women workers often found themselves given dangerous assignments or even fired if they didn’t put up with sexual advances of their foremen.
Workers maintained that strikebreakers from the community were desperately poor and threatened with violence if they quit, by local Ku Klux Klansmen who worked as supervisors at the plant.
Some were known as having been involved in the murder and/or intimidation of civil rights workers in decades past.
The plant had been organized in 1972, but was extraordinarily weak.
Nonetheless, women strikers understood that the union still served as an invaluable resource in the midst of a largely unorganized South.
By the following February, the NLRB ruled that Sanderson had to resume contract negotiations and allow strikers to return to their jobs.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day Minneapolis Teamsters walked off the job.
It was an historic strike that coincided with the pivotal Toledo Auto-Lite and West Coast Waterfront strikes.
Local Teamsters, many of whom later founded the Socialist Workers Party, had been riding a wave of success, having organized the coal yards in February.
Especially important was the development of the ‘Cruising Picket Squad.’
It became a standard in later CIO battles.
That spring, union leaders were determined to organize all the truck drivers and warehouse workers in Minneapolis.
By May, Local 574 had over 5000 members.
The trucking bosses refused to deal with the union and so they walked.
The flying pickets toured the city and shut down all trucking.
Strikers enlisted the support of the unemployed councils.
They also provided the structure for a Women’s Auxiliary that produced important strike literature and bulletins, ran soup kitchens that fed thousands of strikers daily, fought scabs and police on the picket lines and drove picket trucks.
Historian Bryan Palmer, author of Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers’ Strikes of 1934,notes that strike leaders looked to the example of Illinois’ Progressive Miners of America when it came to building the women’s auxiliary.
They too sought to make women an integral part of the strike, thus “encroaching on the male world of waged work.”
Strike headquarters were established and as Palmer describes, was a beehive of activity on the eve of the strike “as union carpenters and plumbers installed stoves, sinks and serving counters. Union electricians installed communications wiring.”
Donations of money, food, vehicles, and gas rolled in as the strike revved up.
Local 574 was poised to make Minneapolis a union town.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1919.
That was the day the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council called a general strike.
It is considered one of the most important strikes in Canadian history.
Social tensions intensified as soldiers returned home in search of work, only to find skyrocketing unemployment and inflation.
In Winnipeg, building trades and metal workers attempted to organize and bargain as an umbrella organization.
They walked off the job at the beginning of May, appealing to the city’s unions for support.
On this day in 1919, some 30,000 workers walked off the job, starting with women telephone operators.
The general strike had begun.
Union and non-union workers alike heeded the call.
Factories shut down.
Public services came to a halt, including transit, mail service and utilities.
Having lost most of their workers to the strike, newspapers quickly branded strikers as Bolsheviks, depicting them as bomb throwers in cartoons.
Winnipeg’s bosses formed the Citizens Committee of 1000 and declared the general strike a conspiracy led by “alien scum.”
When the police sided with strikers, they were fired and replaced in their entirety by ‘Specials,’ used to break the strike.
Workers were intransigent and by the middle of June, the federal government ordered the arrest of strike leaders.
When tens of thousands of workers gathered on June 21 for a demonstration at Market Square, they were charged at by Royal Mounted Police, armed with clubs and guns.
Two strikers were killed and scores more were injured in what is known as Bloody Saturday.
Winnipeg was under military occupation and the strike ended in heavy losses for workers.
But many strike leaders won regional political elections the following year, defeating the very forces that smashed their strike.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1913.
That was the day Philadelphia longshoremen walked off the job.
Led by the Industrial Workers of the World, the strike was remarkable for its militancy, its industrial unionism and its interracial organizing.
The Wobblies had been fighting to organize workers in the city for years.
Unionizing efforts included amalgamated local 57, which organized workers across whole industries.
Attracted to the IWW’s message of interracial unionism, black longshoreman Ben Fletcher joined up readily and soon emerged as an early leader of local 57 and then longshoremen’s local 8.
In his book Wobblies on the Waterfront,historian Peter Cole notes the origins of the local started with striking sugar-refinery workers on the banks of the Delaware.
Dockers made contact with the IWW during the strike and drew up a list of grievances and demands.
By May 14, 1500 longshoreman struck for a leveling of the hourly wage for all workers regardless of skill, shorter hours and union recognition.
They held strike meetings every day and elected a committee of 15 with representatives from every ethnic and racial group.
Cole notes this was crucial, given the diversity of the docks’ 4000 workers.
More than a third were black, another third were immigrant.
The committee included Poles, Jews, Blacks, Irish and others.
Strikers took on their employers and also the police. Beatings, intimidation and arrests of strikers occurred daily and intensified as the ship owners attempted to herd in scabs.
1200 coal and iron ore handlers joined in the strike.
The port was solidly shut down and by the end of the month the shippers were forced to concede to most of the Wobblies’ demands. Industrial unionism and interracial solidarity won the day.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1975.
That was the day workers at Tolteca Foods in Richmond, California went on strike.
Many were undocumented Mexican women who helped organize the plant in 1969.
In his book, The Revolutionary Imaginations of Greater Mexico, historian Alan Eladio Gomez states that the women had grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of union response regarding “speed-ups, immigration raids, discretionary firings, substandard wages and unsafe working conditions and began to look elsewhere for support.”
They reached out to the organization CASA, which provided legal and social services for undocumented immigrants.
The women decided to strike without authorization form the Contra Costa Labor Council.
They packed the council’s emergency meeting, where they put their scarred bodies on display to attest to the dangerous and abusive working conditions and poor wages.
Just as the council sanctioned the strike, workers learned the company started removing machinery from the factory.
They packed the picket lines to stop the trucks from taking out the equipment.
The first driver stopped, the second plowed through several women.
The strike committee won an injunction to prevent removal of equipment and after three weeks, workers won their demands.
Gomez argues the strike was important for several reasons.
It demonstrated that a largely female and undocumented workforce could organize and win a strike against a transnational company, at a moment when unions were increasingly under attack.
They maintained a rank-and-file independence that built support for their demands from their union leaders and the broader community.
The women workers at La Tolteca fought for bread and butter issues.
They also worked to reshape their union to take on broader issues of social justice that included immigration rights and women’s rights.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2008.
That was the day Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents besieged the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa.
At the time, it was the largest immigration raid in U.S. history.
Nearly 400 workers, mostly from Guatemala and Mexico were rounded up, detained and arrested on charges of identity fraud and entering the United States illegally.
The raid was part of a nationwide campaign targeting suspected undocumented workers.
The raid essentially killed two birds with one stone.
It quashed the union organizing campaign the UFCW had been waging for over two years.
It also dashed the hopes of Department of Labor investigators looking into allegations of substantial abuses at the plant.
UFCW leaders noted the raid served to eliminate hundreds of witnesses to labor violations at the plant.
The raid did uncover at least 29 cases of child labor violations, with children as young as 13 working on the killing floor.
But Minneapolis UFCW organizers maintained that company agents routinely followed UFCW reps on home visits and threatened workers they spoke with.
They noted that “wages are extraordinarily low, basic worker safety and protection is miserable.
It’s intensified by the fact that this employer was able to come up with a more vulnerable workforce and abuse it over the long haul.”
These workers were quickly convicted, jailed and then deported.
They were soon replaced by a fresh wave of Somali refugees, who complained of the same low wages and poor working conditions.
The company was eventually fined for countless violations and its CEO arrested. It emerged from bankruptcy under new ownership and has yet to be organized.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1967.
That was the day the United Farm Workers’ Sons of Zapata joined with the Confederation of Mexican Workers in establishing an international picket line across the Rio Grande Valley.
A push to organize farm workers at six major growers began the year before, in the spring of 1966. Wages in Starr County ranged from 40-85 cents an hour.
Farm workers began their strike in June 1966 for wage increases and union recognition.
But growers would rather see their crops rot than recognize the union.
They did grant wage increases but immediately ran to the courts for injunctions.
One district judge outlawed all picketing, while police instructed county workers to spray strikers with insecticide.
That August, workers voted to organize with the United Farm Workers and began a pilgrimage march to the state capitol to popularize their cause.
15,000 workers and their supporters reached Austin on Labor Day to demand their right to organize.
They returned to Starr County to continue their strike.
The growers turned to Mexican commuters holding green cards to break the strike.
The UFW began picketing at the Roma and Rio Grande City bridges and were often successful in turning back green card workers.
By May 1967, melon harvest had begun.
After months of negotiations with the CTM, picket lines went up on both sides of the international bridges.
The picketing was 100% successful for two days.
But the Mexican government and Starr County Sheriff’s department soon intervened to break up the picket lines.
Texas Rangers were brought in to arrest and brutalize strikers.
The strike was broken but organizing continued throughout the region.
Picketing across borders was itself an important act of international solidarity.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2005.
That was the day United Airlines got the OK to ditch its pension obligations in federal bankruptcy court.
Workers were dragged through years of employee ownership schemes, massive layoffs and concessions, and the gambling away of hard-earned pensions on the stock market.
Then in 2002, United filed bankruptcy.
Many asked, how could this happen at an airline owned by its workers?
By 2005, creditors like Citigroup and J.P. Morgan were fully in control. ‘Employee ownership’ had meant trading billions of dollars in deep wage cuts and givebacks for stock ownership and a couple of seats on the board.
‘Controlling interest’ meant a six-year no-strike pledge, the slashing of tens of thousands of jobs and massive outsourcing.
By 2005 the stock was worthless.
Then United moved to weasel out of union contracts just 24 hours after the court ruled on the pension default!
Some 130,000 pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and ground service workers found their employee stock ownership plans empty.
United executives turned billions over to the federal government who then administered what was left through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
In most cases, those pensions were slashed in half and monthly retiree health insurance costs exploded by 700%.
One pilot stated: “I call it legalized crime. I lost almost all my United stock value in the bankruptcy, and here’s another part of the retirement I was promised that is gone. Where does it all end? You feel brutalized by the system.”
Somehow, the $6 million in benefits then CEO Glenn Tilton received, wasn’t affected by the default.
Now that United is swimming in hundreds of millions in profits, many retirees have demanded the restoration of their original pension plans.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day the West Coast Maritime strike began.
It was an historic strike that shut down the major ports along the Pacific coast.
The strike also coincided with the pivotal Minneapolis Teamsters Strike and Toledo Auto-Lite Strike.
From Seattle to San Diego, longshoreman walked off the job.
Harry Bridges led the Albion Hall caucus in San Francisco.
They demanded higher wages, shorter hours and union representation.
They also demanded a coast-wide agreement and a union hiring hall to replace the hated daily ‘shapeup.’
Longshoremen were fed up with the gangster-run, company union that controlled the arbitrary, day labor hiring on the docks.
From the pages of the Waterfront Worker newsletter, militant longshoremen took on the shippers, the government, craft unionism and racism of the union.
On the first day of the strike, dozens of black longshoremen joined the union and convinced others not to scab.
Soon all unions on the docks walked out in solidarity.
By May 15 all west coast ports were completely shut down and 25,000 were out on strike by the end of the month.
In his book, Workers on the Waterfront, Bruce Nelson notes the qualities that made the strike a success.
He points to the militancy and discipline required to stand up to the National Guard during the deadly, main battle of July 5, the workers solidarity across craft lines necessary for the San Francisco general strike that followed, a defiant rank-and-file independence, and the understanding that intensive red-baiting could only serve the bosses.
Though workers were forced back to work through arbitration, they were awarded their demands that fall.
It would take more job actions to make those awards a reality.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1877.
That was the day American socialist Mary Marcy was born.
Raised in Belleville, Illinois, Mary moved to Kansas City and joined the Socialist Party.
She found work as a secretary to meatpacking executives at Swift and then Armour.
Her 1904 investigative series, “Letters of a Pork-Packing Stenographer,” published in the International Socialist Review, revealed the inner workings of the “Big Five” trust.
Marcy described how the packinghouse bosses manipulated markets, set rates and prices, and created an industrial monopoly.
She also exposed low wages and dangerous working conditions in the industry.
Months later, she provided testimony and secret correspondence of executives to a Grand Jury investigation.
The case made a big splash in the press, though packers would win immunity from prosecution a year later.
Mary lost her job and hired on with the Associated Charities of Kansas City.
There she became critical of philanthropic forces that lectured the poor on morals rather than provide concrete aid.
She serialized her experiences in the fictional account, Out of the Dump.Returning to Chicago, Mary worked as assistant editor to the International Socialist Review.
Her wildly popular book, Shop Talks on Economics, served as a primer on socialism.
She continued to agitate against World War I, publishing articles like “You Have No Country!”
Mary threw her lot in with the IWW in 1918, though the split in the Socialist movement soon after affected her deeply.
She and her husband lost their home after mortgaging it to provide bail for numerous Wobblies, including Bill Haywood, then swept up in Red Scare conspiracy trials.
The period proved too much for her and in 1922 she took her own life.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937. That was the day animators struck Fleischer Studio in New York City. It was the industry’s first strike.
Creators of Popeye the Sailor Man and Betty Boop were fed up with working conditions at Fleischer. They were sick of long hours, low pay, no paid sick leave or even vacation time. Some had worked years without a day off. As well, they resented having to ask permission to use the bathroom.
Animation workers wanted better working conditions and medical insurance. Two animators had recently died of tuberculosis and workers linked their deaths to poor ventilation in the studio. They had been trying to organize with the Commercial Artists and Designers Union for over a year.
Two leading animators were fired for union activity a month earlier and another 13 were fired when CADU approached the studio demanding their reinstatement, union recognition, wage increases and benefits.
In his book, Drawing the Line, Tom Sito writes that picketers were soon marching on Broadway, singing, “We’re Popeye the Union Man, We’ll Fight to the Finish, Because We Can’t Live on Spinach.”
One picket sign read, “I make millions laugh but the real joke is my salary.” Strikers received support from the Screen Actors Guild. The musicians union refused to provide soundtracks for the studio and many union projectionists refused to show Fleischer cartoons across the country.
The AFL organized a boycott of Paramount Pictures, which financed the studio and area longshoremen frequently joined picket lines.
After five months, the studio finally caved, granting strikers demands. But the victory was short-lived. Fleischer made moves to relocate to Florida within a year, in part to bust the union.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1935.
That was the day President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 7034, establishing the Works Progress Administration.
The WPA employed millions in public works projects during the Great Depression.
As many as 8.5 million Americans worked for the WPA at some point, between the years 1935 and 1943.
At its height, over 3 million Americans were working WPA jobs.
These jobs included the construction of roads, bridges, utilities and parks.
It also meant the construction of new schools, libraries, public buildings and housing.
Many WPA jobs also employed musicians, artists and writers in literacy and art projects.
The program’s goals were to provide one job to every household suffering long-term unemployment.
Some of the most famous projects include LaGuardia Airport in New York City, Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smokey Mountain National Park.
Artists like Jacob Lawrence and Mark Rothko were employed at the Federal Arts Project.
Historian Erik Loomis notes that the Federal Writers Project began the field of oral history with extensive interviews of surviving ex-slaves.
The Household Service Demonstration Project trained tens of thousands of women for domestic employment.
The WPA also bolstered federal funding for school lunches.
The program was initially criticized for underemployment of African-Americans, who suffered disproportionately during the Depression.
But many black leaders later hailed the WPA as providing job opportunities to blacks and keeping race discrimination to a minimum, at least in the North.
The Right attacked the program as a hotbed for Communists and a scheme to build Democratic Party patronage.
By 1940, WPA projects shifted toward war preparation and defense-related projects.
When the country reached full employment in 1942, the WPA ceased to exist by July of 1943.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1886.
That was the day Wisconsin State Militia shot down workers striking for the eight-hour day in Milwaukee, killing seven.
It is known as the Bay View Massacre.
As cities across America erupted into strikes for the eight-hour day, municipal workers in Milwaukee had already won shorter working hours.
Many private employers had followed suit.
The Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor mobilized thousands in the campaign to bring the rest of the city’s employers into line.
Building tradesmen joined Polish, German and Native American laborers in strikes and marches across the city for nearly a week
They marched to area factories, calling out to workers to join the strike.
By May 3, every factory in town was shut down except for the Milwaukee Iron Company Rolling Mill in Bay View.
Workers marched to the mills and demanded workers join them.
At this point, Governor Rusk called out the militia.
They formed a line just inside the gates to prevent strikers from reaching mill workers.
As the events of Haymarket unfolded in Chicago that evening, area businessmen became increasingly fearful of upheaval brewing in the city.
Governor Rusk gave the ‘shoot to kill’ orders should any striker attempt to enter the mills.
The next morning, as 1500 strikers marched towards the mill, they were fired upon by the militia.
Seven were killed, many more injured.
Strikes for the eight-hour day ended abruptly.
Many union leaders were indicted and Polish workers were practically blacklisted from working in the city for their radicalism.
Though the massacre shattered hopes for the eight-hour day, Milwaukeeans responded by electing Populists and Socialists in local and regional elections for years to come.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1948.
That was the day United Electrical workers voted to strike at Univis Lens Company in Dayton, Ohio.
Univis made safety lenses and instrumental optics.
The UE was well established in area manufacturing plants.
Once organized, Univis fought the UE’s presence every chance they could.
When the contract expired at the end of April, Univis refused to negotiate.
First came the injunction limiting picketing.
This was followed by a vigorous decertification campaign
Foremen made intimidating, personal visits to workers’ homes, offering raises and personal loans to coerce ‘no’ votes.
When the UE lost the election in late July, the company announced wage increases for returning workers and firings for remaining strikers.
Workers stuck together and the strike continued.
By the 26th, police swarmed the picket lines, beating top UE organizers and arresting hundreds.
Two days later, the company offered a settlement for all but 11 strikers.
The members refused.
Then House Un-American Activities Committee came to town to begin a red baiting inquisition of the UE district.
The city’s unions were outraged at the beatings and arrests.
They walked off their jobs to bolster the picket lines and were met with tear gas.
Governor Herbert called in the National Guard on August 2.
1500 troops rolled into town in Sherman tanks with machine guns trained on the strikers.
Scabs were escorted through plant gates between rows of fixed bayonets.
Area residents, furious at the virtual martial law established, flooded the governor with angry protests until troops were finally withdrawn.
The strike ended in victory, with workers winning most of their demands.
All but five were reinstated and by the following April, the NLRB voided the decertification election.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1911.
That was the day the State of Wisconsin passed the Wisconsin Workmen’s Compensation Act.
The state became the first to “have a constitutional system for providing medical expenses, wage loss payments or death benefits to employees or their families.
The law is regarded as a pioneering act of social legislation and a major accomplishment of Wisconsin’s Progressive movement.”
Activist journalism exposed deadly and disfiguring working conditions in the country’s industries.
State industrial commissions were established to conduct factory inspections and demand reform legislation and regulations.
Upton Sinclair’s initial intent in writing The Jungle was to cultivate a public outcry for better and safer working conditions.
By 1907, the Russell Sage Foundation funded dozens of investigators to study industrial and social conditions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Two volumes of essays were produced, entitled The Pittsburgh District: Civic Frontage and Wage-Earning Pittsburgh.
The essay, Work-Accidents and the Law, written by Crystal Eastman, exposed the enormity of work-related accidents and deaths, and the failure of employers to compensate victims and their families.
Her investigation examined several industries, including railroads, steel and coal mining.
She noted, “There is no bright side to this situation. By Industrial accidents, Allegheny County loses more than 500 workmen every year of whom nearly half are American born, 70 percent are workmen of skill and training and 60 percent have not yet reached the prime of their working life. Youth, skill, strength, in a word, human power, is what we are losing.”
Eastman’s survey worked to shift the burden from workers to employers.
It is largely credited with the passage of workers compensation laws, though it would take decades for similar laws to be enacted in states throughout the country.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1968.
That was the day 4000 autoworkers at Chrysler’s Dodge Main plant in Hamtramck, Michigan walked out in a wildcat strike.
They protested assembly line speed-up but also racist foremen and the firings of seven coworkers.
The strike was significant for many reasons.
It injected Black Power politics within the union movement.
The CIO had made unprecedented gains in the 30s and 40s through interracial organizing and combating Jim Crow on the job.
However, racial discrimination persisted in industries across America.
The wildcat shocked the UAW leadership, having prided itself on its early and central involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
By 1968, many African-Americans grew frustrated with the slow pace of reform and found the militancy of the Black Power movement attractive.
According to historian Robert Weir, black autoworker activists considered many UAW officials “paternalistic, condescending and out of touch with changing urban realities.”
Many of their white coworkers joined them on the picket lines.
Black activists at Dodge Main condemned the UAW for failing to address the disproportionate racial discrimination they faced on the job.
They demanded a separate contract that spoke to the needs of black workers and the right to bargain directly with the company.
The wildcat immediately grew into the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and inspired similar groupings at area auto plants.
Those white workers who were initially sympathetic, worried that DRUM demands would serve to weaken and ultimately split the union movement along racial lines.
DRUM would continue to demand safer working conditions, shorter hours and higher wages, an end to the Vietnam War and more black union officials and supervisors.
The movement was short-lived but continues to be revered among Detroit activists today.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1919.
That was the day May Day celebrators in Cleveland, Ohio were attacked as they marched to protest the imprisonment of Socialist, Eugene V. Debs.
1919 was a year of massive upheaval, marked by countless strikes and protests, riots and bomb threats.
But much of the country was still caught up in the jingoism of the war.
Debs had just entered prison to serve a ten-year sentence.
He had been convicted in Cleveland of sedition for an anti-war speech he gave in Canton, Ohio the year before.
Thousands of trade unionists, anarchists, socialists and communists marched towards Public Square in downtown Cleveland.
Prominent Socialist Charles Ruthenberg led one of the contingents.
He planned to address the rally in defense of Debs and also to promote his candidacy in the upcoming mayoral elections.
May Day marchers carried Red flags and American flags, and banners reading “Workers of the World, Unite.”
Liberty Loan workers stopped them en route, demanding they lower their flags.
Marchers refused and attempted to proceed towards downtown.
Fighting broke out in the streets and lasted for hours until mounted police and army tanks charged the crowd.
Two were killed, at least 40 seriously injured and as many as 120 were arrested.
Ruthenberg was charged with “assault with intent to kill,” though charges were later dismissed.
Socialist Party headquarters were ransacked.
The city immediately moved to restrict parades and socialist meetings, and banned red flags.
Local newspapers were quick to scapegoat immigrants and their supposed Bolshevik sympathies for the riot.
The attack in Cleveland served as an early warning of the Red Scare that would fully erupt by the end of the year.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1952.
That was the day 100,000 oil refinery workers went on strike.
The work stoppage was called by a coalition of 22 unions, including AFL and CIO affiliates and independent unions.
They demanded a 25-cent hourly wage increase with shift differentials.
Shutdowns began at once and picket lines went up as soon as procedures were safely completed.
The strike threatened to cut production in half.
Union leaders called all but California refinery workers out, who were central to the war effort in Korea.
Oil barons had given refinery workers the run around for eight months during contract negotiations.
The union had even postponed the original strike date in March to give Federal Mediation a chance at effecting a settlement.
When this failed, President Truman brought the case to the Wage Stabilization Board, which issued a ruling favorable to the industry.
Eighty companies demanded separate hearings for all 200 bargaining units involved.
The union wanted one hearing for all.
Even after this victory for the oil companies, they then refused to attend the hearings!
When the Board threw up its hands in mid-April, the new strike deadline was set.
Eight days into the strike, the Board ordered oil workers back to work, which they flat out refused.
The Oil Workers Union stated “Strikers are fighting against a stacked deck… if corporation executives are permitted to ignore workers needs, then to manipulate the government so the right to strike is denied, collective bargaining will be destroyed.”
The Board then set a 15-cent an hour wage cap and shift differentials. Workers were back on the job by the end of the month, having avoided possible Taft-Hartley actions from President Truman.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1946.
That was the day 8,000 UAW workers at the Allis-Chalmers plant in Milwaukee voted overwhelmingly to walk off the job.
Close to 12,000 production and maintenance workers were on strike across the country.
Workers rode the post-war strike wave as whole industries moved to peacetime reconversion.
Historian Eric Fure-Slocum notes that UAW Local 248 had a historically militant left-wing leadership, was known for its support to housing desegregation campaigns in the city and was a central driving force of Milwaukee’s CIO Council.
They had built a strong shop steward and grievance structure at Allis-Chalmers and were sure victory was certain.
Local president Robert Buse insisted wage increases were not at issue but rather unresolved issues remained to be settled, now that the war was finally over.
Key points of contention were the company’s demand to eliminate maintenance of membership agreements that guaranteed the closed shop and union dues.
The company also wanted to stop paying stewards for time involved in grievance procedures.
The Allis-Chalmers strike was a harbinger of things to come.
Historian Martin Halpern states that company officials played a significant role in the crafting of Taft-Hartley legislation as the strike unfolded.
Allis-Chalmers was on a union-busting campaign and made no small effort to redbait union leaders for months in local newspapers.
By the fall, workers at the smaller plants had returned to work, but the Milwaukee local stood firm.
Area CIO workers joined picket lines in support only to be brutalized and arrested.
HUAC arrived in town to investigate the strike and the company instigated a vigorous back-to-work campaign.
After eleven months, the strike was called off with no contract and ninety-one union leaders were fired.
On this day in labor history the year was 1971. That was the day the Occupational Safety and Health Act went into effect.
At the time, it was estimated that 14,000 workers died annually on the job, 2.2 million workers were permanently or temporarily disabled and half a million developed occupational diseases each year.
It was estimated that at least 25 million serious injuries and deaths went unreported each year.
Many of the standards, regulations and enforcements OSHA now has, have come as a result of intense, continuous pressure waged by the labor movement.
The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) was the first to test out the new bill when they filed a complaint against Allied Chemical in Moundsville, West Virginia in May 1971.
Among the many hazards at the facility, pools of mercury on the shop floor were common occurrences.
OSHA issued its first citation against Allied Chemical under the General Duty clause.
The first OSHA standard issued came a year later, for asbestos.
Today, the AFL-CIO notes that for the year 2015, 4,836 workers were killed on the job, there is one OSHA inspector for every 76,000 workers and on average it would take OSHA 145 years to inspect every workplace once.
But new rules protecting workers from silica dust and beryllium have been established, as have strong reporting and recordkeeping standards.
There are stricter coal dust standards and anti-retaliation protections for workplace whistleblowers. The Trump administration is looking to overturn all of it.
You can take action this Workers Memorial Day to protect working conditions on the job.
Find an event in your area by going to: https://aflcio.org/issues/workplace-health-and-safety
On this day in labor history, the year was 1978.
That was the day a West Virginia cooling tower under construction collapsed, plunging 51 workers to their deaths.
It was considered the worst non-mining disaster in West Virginia and the worst accident in the history of the country’s construction industry.
Cooling towers were under construction at the Pleasants Power Station at Willow Island.
Union building tradesmen built up the walls of the tower from scaffolding bolted to it.
As each section was poured, the forms would be removed and the scaffolding raised and bolted to the new section.
The tower had reached about 168 feet when the previous day’s concrete walls began to peel away from the tower.
The scaffolding plummeted, as did the workers.
Many could only be identified by the contents of their wallets.
The Steele family was beyond devastated with the loss of 10 family members.
A 2008 retrospective by Ken Ward Jr., of the Charleston Gazette reported “…a mix of safety lapses combined to bring the tower crashing down.
Concrete in the previous day’s lift hadn’t hardened enough to hold the scaffolding.
Key bolts meant to attach the scaffolding to the tower were missing.
An elaborate concrete hoisting system was modified without proper engineering review.
Contactors were rushing to speed construction.”
Dr. Celeste Monforton of the Milken Institute School of Public Health noted that the case highlights still relevant issues: Inadequate OSHA penalties, no criminal sanctions, holding workers responsible for contractors mistakes, ignoring of previous warning signs and a disconnect between abstract calculations and real-world applications.
Ken Ward Jr. noted in his retrospective that in 2008, there was still no state public employee OSHA program in West Virginia.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1944.
That was the day the Army National Guard seized the Chicago property of Montgomery Ward and removed its chairman, Sewell Avery.
The Chicago-based company repeatedly refused to accept a National War Labor Board order to recognize the workers’ union and abide by Board-negotiated collective bargaining agreements.
After refusing the second Board order, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the Army National Guard to seize the company’s central mail order house, retail store and other related properties in the city.
Avery was physically carried out of his office.
Wartime no-strike pledges were in effect to avoid strikes or any disruptions in war production.
From a distance, it looked as if the President had triumphed the cause of labor in forcefully implementing the Wagner Act.
Workers of the CIO United Mail Order, Warehouse and Retail Employees Union had walked off the job over recognition issues April 12.
Montgomery Ward officials argued again, as they had two years earlier, that they were not engaged in war production, held no government contracts and that “the dispute is not one which might impede the prosecution of the war,” by the Board’s own terms.
But the government feared strike activity would only spread to other industries in Chicago and elsewhere.
Local Teamsters and Railway Brotherhoods all supported the strike and refused to handle shipments to and from Ward facilities.
The CIO union agreed to end the strike on the eve of the seizure.
Others in the labor movement called FDR’s move a hoax and a device to break strikes and get workers back on the job without any gains.
Roosevelt issued a third seizure of Ward’s facilities nationwide by year’s end.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1947.
That was the day hundreds of thousands of Detroit area autoworkers returned to their jobs after bringing car production to a complete standstill.
They walked off the job to protest the union-busting Taft-Hartley bill, then pending in Congress.
Chrysler, Ford, Hudson and Kaiser-Frazer Corporation were all shut down.
George Romney, head of the Automobile Manufacturers Association decried the work stoppage as a contract violation, costing the industry millions.
The UAW called 350,000 of its members out in protest the day before.
As many as a half-million area workers walked off the job.
Two marches were organized from the east and west sides of the city that brought as many as 275,000 workers, black and white, men and women, AFL and CIO converging onto Cadillac Square.
A reported 65,000 workers from the Ford River Rouge plant alone marched as a contingent to the rally.
Planes flew overhead, trailing banners that read “Oppose Anti-Labor Legislation in Washington,” “Down With Jim Crow Legislation,” and “Fight Repeal of the Wagner Act.”
UAW leaders addressed the crowd at the five-hour rally, stating, “the measures, if passed, would cut the heart of our unions into a thousand tattered, bloody pieces.”
They declared the anti-labor bills are “nothing more than proposals to punish the innocent and reward the guilty, for the record establishes that responsibility for recent major strikes rests without exception on the shoulder of industry.”
Briggs Local 212, which spearheaded the protest, marched with banners that demanded an independent labor party, while veteran autoworkers carried placards that read, “We Veterans Didn’t Fight For Union-Busting.”
The rally ended with the crowd singing ‘Solidarity’ and joining picket lines at nearby Bell Telephone, to support striking phone workers.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day a truce came in the Stockton cannery workers strike.
It was a pivotal moment that embodied the conflicts of the 1930s labor movement.
The AFL initially wrote agricultural workers off as unorganizable.
They soon raced to unionize California canneries ahead of the International Longshoremen’s Association’s march inland to organize warehouse workers.
By early April, Agricultural Workers Union 20221, representing five canneries demanded higher pay, better working conditions and a closed shop.
The canners and growers refused on the basis they had just granted a 25% raise to the workers.
They then attempted to spike union support among workers, whether AFL or CIO, by arguing, “one was dominated by Communists, the other by Racketeers, so take your choice.”
Soon they formed a Citizens Labor Investigating Committee to thwart the impending strike.
Picket lines went up in the early hours of April 15.
Growers and canners appealed to law enforcement to ‘do something’ and appealed to the public to enlist in the forcible reopening of the canneries.
Dubbed the pick handle army, anti-union forces joined the sheriff’s department in confronting strikers on the 23rd.
There they battled with picketers for over 3 hours in what is referred to as the ‘Spinach Riot.’
Picketers confronted scabs and spinach delivery trucks and were beaten, gassed and shot by sheriff’s forces, resulting in 1 death and 58 injuries of strikers.
Considered one of the worst labor battles in California’s history, the State Federation moved to strip the union of its charter once the truce was called.
They reorganized workers as Cannery Workers Union 20676 and won sole recognition.
But agricultural workers would remain unorganized for years to come.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day 1800 autoworkers sat down at the Ford Motor plant in Richmond, California.
It was the largest Ford plant on the West Coast.
The UAW organizing drive at Ford had just begun a few weeks earlier with a sit-down strike in Kansas City.
Company manager Clarence Bullwinkle, reported he had returned from lunch only to find the plant occupied and all power shut off.
Workers began their occupation after 12 workers with seniority rights had been transferred from the assembly plant to the loading department and then discharged.
Strikers voted to allow company officials and office workers to leave the plant but not to return.
Bullwinkle was told to “get out and stay out until you meet our demands.”
He refused to budge and holed up in his office.
Demands included recognition of the union, seniority rights and regular pay instead of discharge for workers who are out sick or injured on duty.
As the night shift arrived and then left, they passed their lunch buckets in solidarity to the striking workers.
Within 12 hours the strike was reportedly called off after Ford officials agreed to meet with strikers.
Seeing this as tantamount to winning union recognition, workers paraded through the streets in the early hours of Saturday morning.
But they hit the picket lines later that day, when Ford officials failed to appear.
By Monday, they were back on the job. Fearing another day’s loss of production, Ford officials met with union leaders.
While workers did not win formal recognition, they did win seniority rights and recognition of the shop stewards committee in a first step towards union recognition, which would come four years later.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1938.
That was the day Keen Mountain Coal mine exploded near Grundy, Virginia.
Described as a flame-belching volcano, the explosion killed 45 and injured three more.
It is considered one of the worst mining disasters in the history of Virginia.
One surviving miner described the scene: “I saw coal carrying cars, motors, slate and timber spouted as if from a cannon.”
The state mine inspector determined the miners had been killed instantly.
The mine had just opened the year before and produced 40 railroad cars of coal a day.
But the mine was also owned by the Red Jacket Coal Company.
In Mingo County, West Virginia years earlier, Red Jacket had been a key player in keeping the UMWA out, making its employees sign yellow dog contracts and winning injunctions against UMWA organizing.
As a member of the Williamson Coal Operators Association, Red Jacket contributed to the hostile, anti-union environment that created the conditions for the Matewan Massacre and the Battle of Blair Mountain in the early 20s.
They called in Baldwin Phelps detectives to start evicting Matewan strikers from company housing.
In the aftermath of the 1938 explosion, new mine safety regulations were demanded.
While inspectors were finally given the legal right to conduct inspections over the protests of mine owners in 1941, there was no power to enforce new regulations.
The Phipps Family commemorated the disaster in its 1965 song, Red Jacket Mine Explosion:
https://youtu.be/kfBSKSqmq6M
On this day in labor history, the year was 1967.
That was the day the Taylor Law went into effect in New York State.
It was celebrated for granting public employees the right to organize and elect union representation.
But it is also roundly criticized for stripping public sector workers of their right to strike.
It was crafted and enacted in response to the militant, victorious New York City transit strike of January 1966.
The Taylor Law amended key points of the 1947 Condon-Wadlin Act, which first prohibited public sector strikes in the aftermath of a teachers strike in Buffalo.
But strikes persisted and the Act was seen as largely unenforceable.
In the aftermath of the 1966 transit strike, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller appointed a committee, chaired by labor relations professor George Taylor to make “proposals for protecting the public against the disruption of vital public services by illegal strikes, while at the same time protecting the rights of public employees.”
In addition to granting the right to organize, the Taylor Act also establishes impasse procedures for dispute resolution, defines and prohibits improper practices, prohibits strikes by public employees; and established the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB).
But public sector unions argue the law gives no incentive for employers to settle disputes or negotiate contracts in a timely manner or in good faith.
While public sector unions have struck since its enactment, Transport Workers Union 100 was subjected to harsh fines in both the 1980 and 2005 transit strikes.
During the 2005 walkout, TWU 100 was issued a $1 million a day penalty, its automatic dues collection was suspended and its leader, Roger Toussaint was jailed for 10 days.
The union continues to push for changes to the law.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2010.That was the day the Deepwater Horizon oilrig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and injuring 17 more.
The rig experienced an initial blowout releasing an uncontrollable flow of oil and gas from the well.
Hydrocarbons then ignited, causing the explosion and fire.
It caused a massive offshore oil spill of over 4 billion barrels and is considered the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.
British Petroleum was the main operator responsible for the well design.
The drilling contractor, TransOcean owned and operated the rig.
A handful of smaller companies were also involved.
While company and governmental officials initially argued the explosion was unforeseeable and then subsequently blamed each other, there were warning signs in the months leading up to the explosion.
Multiple equipment failures, design deficiencies, poor preventative maintenance, bad engineering decisions and a chase for profits that emphasized low worker injuries at the expense of process safety, all combined to create the disaster.
As well, regulations and standards enforcement were weak in an almost totally deregulated industry.
One phrase used by investigators to characterize the explosion was the Normalization of Deviance.
From workers, to managers to executives, none saw the explosion coming.
There were dozens of contributing factors as the Chemical Safety Board investigation noted.
They listed 57 key technical, human and regulatory factors in their 2016 final report.
However, engineers had raised concerns about the potential failure of key equipment.
Workers were sensitive to the fact they could be fired for raising safety concerns that delayed drilling.
BP was found ultimately responsible and racked up over $70 billion in fines, clean up and settlement costs.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1989.
That was the day Edna Sauls and 38 women walked into the Virginia headquarters of the Pittston Coal Group, sat down in the lobby and sang “We Shall Not Be Moved.”
Their occupation lasted 36 hours.
The women were mostly relatives and friends of 1,700 UMWA miners, then on strike against Pittston.
The women, when questioned by police and the media, refused to give up their names.
They called themselves the Daughters of Mother Jones.
Though Sauls had never worked in the mines, six of her brothers and two of her sisters had.
She and many family members would sit down in front of Moss 3 Preparation plant just weeks later.
As the strike wore on, her husband Doug would be one of the UMW strikers who took over and occupied Pittston’s Moss 3 plant later that fall.
Sauls noted the high personal stakes at Pittston stating, “My husband is 42 years old.
He’s worked in the mines for 24 years. Who’s going to hire him for another job?”
Sauls also rose to local fame during the strike when she began writing strike solidarity songs.
One such song was “Let Me In,” also referred to as the Camo Song, for the strikers who wore camouflage.
Sauls composed the song after she found a child crying whose striking grandfather had been jailed.
In the song, the child asks to go to jail too.
The Daughters picketed Pittston offices twice a week and organized strike support that included housing, food drives and fundraising.
Their role inspired miners to occupy the mines and roads, persevere throughout the winter and eventually win back health benefits.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1908.
That was the day the song “We Have Fed You All A Thousand Years,” first appeared.
Originally titled “The Cry of Toil,” it was printed in the Industrial Workers of the World publication, the Industrial Union Bulletin.
It was initially attributed to British colonialist writer, Rudyard Kipling.
The song is now understood as an anonymous reworking of Kipling’s 1893 poem, “The Song of the Dead.”
The song was wildly popular and reprinted in many union journals.
‘We Have Fed You All’ was an early example of how the IWW used music and songs in its work. IWW songs projected labor history, struggles and politics.
From union organizing, to strike activity to defense cases, Wobblies sought to create a working class culture and community.
The IWW is well known for its ‘Little Red Song Book,’ which contains some of the most popular anthems of the labor movement.
The first verse of ‘We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years’ reads:
We have fed you all for a thousand years,
And you hail us still unfed,
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth.
But marks the workers' dead.
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool.
And if blood be the price of all your wealth,
Good God! We have paid in full!
On this day in labor history, the year was 2013.
That was the day the West Fertilizer Company in West, Texas caught fire and exploded, killing 15 and injuring more than 260.
Of those killed, 12 were emergency responders, many from local voluntary fire departments.
Three others were nearby residents.
40 to 60 tons of ammonium nitrate detonated at the fertilizer distribution facility.
It damaged more than 150 nearby buildings, including schools, residences and a nursing home.
It also damaged key city water supply infrastructure.
The Chemical Safety Board issued a number of findings and recommendations in its final report of January 2016.
Heat from the initial fire likely caused the ammonium nitrate to explode as it was stored in combustible material.
The facility had no fire detection or sprinkler systems and had not been inspected by OSHA since 1985.
West’s previous insurer did conduct inspections and dropped the company over its lack of a positive safety culture and its refusal to clean up several electrical hazards.
The Board also found local fire departments lacking in incident command systems and proper training in multiple areas.
The explosion revealed the lack of zoning regulations in many cities like West, which allowed for the construction of residences, schools and commercial buildings near such hazardous sites.
Recently, the Bureau of Alcohol, Fire and Tobacco ruled the incident an act of arson.
Former OSHA official, Jordan Barab argues there is no evidence of arson and regardless, the facility exploded due primarily to improper storage and management of combustible material.
He notes the BATF conclusion served to fuel industry opposition to President Obama’s Executive Order 13650, improving safety at Chemical facilities.
The EPA’s Scott Pruitt recently granted a 90-day stay of the final rule.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1854.
That was the day wealthy Populist and labor advocate Jacob Coxey was born.
He grew up in Danville, Pennsylvania and worked as a stationary engineer in an iron mill.
Soon, he moved to Ohio and opened a sand quarry.
He entered politics and initially campaigned as a candidate for the Greenback Party.
By the 1890s he had thrown his lot in with the Populists.
When the Panic of 1893 hit, workers flooded the industrial Midwest in search of jobs.
Cities across the country were overwhelmed with the newly unemployed, begging on the streets.
Coxey proposed a Good Works Bill, which demanded $500 million for federal jobs.
He supported paper currency, public works projects, transportation for rural areas and full employment.
He decided to take his proposal directly to Congress by organizing a protest march on behalf of the unemployed.
Hundreds joined him on his march from Ohio to Washington D.C., forming Coxey’s Army.
They set off from Massillon, Ohio on Easter Sunday 1894, supported by Populists and organized labor.
Estimates of marchers ranged into the tens of thousands.
His army was stopped along the way by court injunctions preventing them from commandeering trains and seizing railway lines as they traveled.
About 500 eventually reached Washington D.C.
As Coxey climbed the steps of the Capitol to demand the Good Jobs Bill, he and his Army were met by police forces, which attacked the crowd and beat them back from the Capitol steps.
Years later, his campaigning finally paid off and he was elected Mayor of Massillon.
In 1944, he was invited back to the Capitol to deliver his Good Jobs Bill, which by that time had become official policy.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1919.
That was the day the telephone girls, as they were called, walked out on strike against New England Bell, essentially crippling communications in five New England states.
It was considered the most massive strike of women workers since the ‘Uprising of the 20,000’ in 1909.
They were members of the all-women National Telephone Operators’ Department of the IBEW.
Historian Stephen Norwood devoted many pages to the strike in his book, Labor’s Flaming Youth.
The government had taken over the nation’s telephone and telegraph industry during World War I and placed it under the control of Postmaster General Albert Burleson.
Just days earlier, thousands of angry women who worked in the Boston exchanges packed Faneuil Hall, demanding immediate strike action.
Julia O’Connor, the leader of the telephone operator’s union, called the strike at 7 a.m.
The union demanded a 60% wage increase and full scale to be reached after four years instead of seven.
Union and non-union alike responded to the strike call and walked off the job, establishing 24 hour picketing.
On the second day of the strike, over 1000 striking telephone operators marched through the streets of Boston and were cheered on by returning soldiers.
O’Connor organized picketing around the Boston hotels where out-of-town strikebreakers were housed.
Unionized service workers across the city denied services to the strikebreakers.
Postmaster Burleson smeared the striking women as unpatriotic and threatened to replace them with returning soldiers.
The soldiers however, sided with the telephone operators.
After five days, the union won direct bargaining rights and a $4 a week raise.
The strike was considered one of the few postwar World War I strikes to end in victory.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1975.
That was the day union representatives at Bunker Hill Mining Company in Kellogg, Idaho were notified of a policy change.
The lead and zinc producer had decided to exclude fertile women from working in lead-exposed environments.
Women workers had to provide a doctor’s note stating they were infertile, post-menopausal or had been sterilized.
Otherwise they would be transferred to ‘safer’ departments at a substantial loss in pay.
Twenty-nine women took the transfer while at least 3 opted for sterilization.
During World War II, companies like Bunker Hill promised millions of women workers they would eliminate hazards through engineering controls.
In the 1970s, a new wave of women gained work in several industries that used occupational safety language to implement exclusionary policies like the one at Bunker Hill.
These took the form of outright bans on hiring of women, either altogether or in many departments considered too toxic for women of childbearing age.
It meant the real loss of well over 100,000 potential industrial jobs for women.
Employers could have provided actual protection through better medical coverage and benefits, installation of engineering controls or protections to include men’s reproductive health.
Instead, these policies served to rollback economic and civil rights of women workers, regardless of whether they were mothers or ever planned to be.
The women appealed to their union, state and federal commissions and OSHA but faced an uphill battle.
OSHA initially fined Bunker Hill for outstanding violations and its sterilization policy, but dropped the case once Ronald Reagan took office.
The women eventually won wage equivalency in their new jobs, but women working in heavy industry would continue to battle such policies for more than a decade.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1873. That was the day the single-most deadly incident of the Reconstruction Era occurred, known as the Colfax Massacre.
As many as 150 black Republicans in Colfax, Louisiana were slaughtered by white supremacists determined to destroy advances made by the formerly enslaved.
Results for the 1872 gubernatorial election in Louisiana had been hotly contested. President Ulysses S. Grant ordered federal troops in, to support the Republican winner, William Pitt Kellogg. A number of black Radical Republicans had also won or retained local and state political positions. William Ward, a black Civil War veteran and militia leader, had won a seat in the state legislature.
By the beginning of April, he and others were being threatened with attacks on the Grant Parish Courthouse in Colfax and lynchings by defeated white Southern Democrats. Desperate for back up, Ward and others left for New Orleans to appeal for federal reinforcement.
By Easter Sunday, April 13, ex-Confederates, Klansmen and Democrats rode into Colfax, armed with guns, rifles, knives and a cannon. 150 black Republicans were ready to defend the Courthouse. Fighting raged on for hours but eventually black Republicans were forced to retreat and then were massacred.
97 whites were indicted on federal conspiracy charges under the 1870 Enforcement Act, designed to enforce civil rights and root out Klan terror. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and resulted in the ruling United States v. Cruikshank, which essentially gutted the Enforcement Act.
Of the 97 indicted, nine were tried, and three were initially found guilty. The Cruikshank ruling eventually overturned their convictions and eventually marked the legal end of Reconstruction.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day the United States Supreme Court decided the case, National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation.
This case declared that the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was constitutional.
Also known as the Wagner Act, it is a key statute that provides the legal basis for private sector workers to organize, collectively bargain and strike.
Jones & Laughlin Steel, the fourth largest steel producer in the country at the time, had fired several workers trying to organize with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania in 1935.
The NLRB had originally ruled against the company and ordered the workers reinstated with full back pay.
But J&L refused, arguing that the Act was unconstitutional on the basis that the federal government did not have the right to regulate interstate commerce.
In a five to four decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that labor-management disputes did affect interstate commerce and thus, were subject to federal regulation.
Historian James Pope notes that the statute was upheld only after a “massive wave of worker militancy, punctuated by the spectacular six-week sit-down strike at General Motors’ plants in Flint Michigan, demonstrated what might have happened if the court decided the case differently.”
And in his book, The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, The CIO, and The Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America, legal scholar Ahmed White adds that “the case was decided only after two years of legal uncertainty… Before Jones & Laughlin was decided, CIO unions were already negotiating and signing collective bargaining agreements.”
Ruling the Wagner Act constitutional has nonetheless benefitted millions of workers for decades.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1980. That was the day New York City transit workers in TWU Local 100 ended their 11-day walkout.
The strike occurred in the context of hard times for New York City workers. The city had teetered on the edge of municipal bankruptcy just a few years earlier. Unrelenting inflation and austerity measures against municipal workers had taken its toll.
Years of recession meant freezes in hiring and promotions. It also meant increasingly dangerous working conditions. The MTA cutback funding for basic maintenance, investment and service. Derailments, accidents and fires were common and crime soared at stations and bus stops. Transit workers found themselves operating malfunctioning equipment and confronted by frustrated, angry riders.
With wages frozen, Cost of Living Adjustments, or COLA, capped and the establishment of a three-tier pension plan, workers had had enough. They walked out on the first of the month, demanding a 30% wage increase, quarterly COLA and increased vacation time.
Mayor Ed Koch opposed workers demands, fearing any victory for the union would ruin upcoming contract negotiations with the city’s 300,000 municipal workers. He also used the strike as an occasion to whip up anti-union sentiment more generally.
While the contract was voted up by a three to one margin, labor historian Joshua Freeman notes that, “the 1980 strike ended up in victory that many transit workers saw as a defeat.” Workers won a 17% wage increase over two years, a 3% cost of living adjustment and increased contributions to the health and welfare fund. But they also had to concede to reduced breaks, two-tiered wages, and increased job duties across classifications.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917.
That was the day as many as 139 workers, mostly women, were killed in an explosion at the Eddystone artillery shell plant, just outside Philadelphia.
The plant, owned by Baldwin Locomotive works, opened in 1916 and produced munitions for the Russian Army.
Baldwin also manufactured Enfield rifles and armored tanks for American forces.
The United States had just entered World War I days before.
Munitions production soared along with the number of new hires.
About 400 women worked in the F building at Eddystone, which was blown to bits.
F building was where powder fuses were manufactured, loaded into artillery shells and then inspected.
On this fateful morning, about 18 tons of black powder ignited, setting off thousands of shrapnel shells.
This caused a series of detonations felt as far as 10 miles away.
The blast blew some workers through the roof.
Others were found nearby in the Delaware River.
Of the dead, 55 were never identified.
Hundreds more survived, and were badly burned or seriously injured.
Immediately, German and then Russian immigrants were scapegoated as responsible for the blast.
The press shrieked in hysteria over alleged sabotage by German agents opposed to U.S. entry into the war.
Others charged that Russian Revolutionaries at odds with the Russian White Army were at fault.
However, a guard testified that in fact there had been problems with electrically powered powder-loading devices that had been malfunctioning for some time.
He claimed the wires must have short-circuited and caused the spark.
One woman worker insisted, as she lay dying that a shell hit the powder and sparked the explosion.
The cause of the explosion remains a mystery to this day.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1865.
That was the day Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.
Grant’s Union army successfully cut off Confederate forces at the village of Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
Historians agree the terms were generous to the Confederacy.
The surrender marked the beginning of the end of the Civil War, with three more key surrenders before the end of May.
Half the country was in ruins, with as many as 750,000 dead.
In the North alone, millions more lay seriously injured.
At least 40,000 formerly enslaved blacks died fighting for their freedom.
It was considered the country’s turning point.
The Civil War ended the slave system, forged a centralized federal government and created a national structure for the institutional development of public health, veteran care and aid programs.
The Era of Reconstruction ushered in a period of hope and opportunity for black freedom, equality and prosperity.
But historian Gregory Downs argues in his book, After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War that the war did not really end in 1865.
The South was essentially under military occupation until at least 1871.
Downs states “By severing the war’s conflict from the Reconstruction that followed, it drains meaning from the Civil War and turns it into a family feud, a fight that ended with regional reconciliation… Once white Southern Democrats overthrew Reconstruction, they utilized the Appomattox myth to erase the connection between the popular, neatly concluded Civil War and the continuing battles of Reconstruction.”
For Eric Foner, the period was one of revolution and counterrevolution, “a massive experiment in interracial democracy without precedent.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day sparring between Henry Ford and John L. Lewis spilled over into the press.
The CIO formally declared their organizing drive of some 150,000 workers at Ford Motor Company.
John L. Lewis addressed a crowd of 25,000 the night before at the Detroit State Fair Grounds Coliseum, celebrating the recent organizing victory at Chrysler.
Lewis thundered, “Henry Ford will change his mind.”
He added that victories at Chrysler and General Motors came as a result of workers dissatisfaction with their conditions.
Lewis also noted that Ford Motor Company prevented workers from joining unions through a system of intimidation and coercion.
Ford insisted he would never recognize the UAW or any other union in response to sit-downs at Ford plants in Kansas City and St. Louis.
Notoriously anti-Semitic, he then alleged that international banking interests financed CIO organizing drives.
Ford maintained workers had no reason to celebrate organizing victories, claiming workers had lost through joining unions.
“They’ve had their freedom taken away. They pay money to the unions and get nothing in return.”
But Ford was also one of the few industrial employers that hired blacks. Organizing at Ford meant organizing black workers.
It meant bringing black workers on as organizers and staffers in the UAW.
The UAW waged a pointed campaign to attract black workers at Ford and concentrated efforts at the massive River Rouge Complex.
UAW leaders Homer Martin and Wyndham Mortimer urged black workers to join up with them.
“We must solve together, not pitted against one another, all discrimination.”
It would take more than four years to finally organize at Ford, but black workers were at the forefront of that struggle.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1803.
That was the day Utopian Socialist and women’s rights activist Flora Tristan was born.
She is also remembered as the grandmother of painter, Paul Gauguin. Mario Vargas Llosa most recently popularized her life in the 2003 novel, The Way to Paradise.
Her family was aristocratic but she grew up in poverty outside Paris.
The young Flora found work in an engraving shop and married the shop artisan, Andre Chazal.
Together they had three children.
When the marriage became violent, she left him, though divorce was impossible.
By some accounts, she became a maid for the wealthy and traveled Europe.
It was through her travels that she became a socialist.
She witnessed abject poverty and inequality in too many countries and was drawn to the works of the Utopian Socialists.
Tristan campaigned for the right of divorce and wrote at length of workers struggles on the cusp of industrialization.
Her novels, which confronted women’s inequality and workers rights, appeared in the late 1830s.
She regularly visited feminist and socialist salons in Paris where ideas linking social transformation and women’s rights were popular.
Her most well known work of non-fiction is The Workers’ Union, which appeared in 1843.
In it, Tristan argues that craft guilds could no longer adequately represent workers in an era of industrialization.
She envisioned an international union of workers that organized regardless of skill level, a union that took on broader issues of social justice.
Tristan also tied the advancement of women to the advancement of workers.
She believed that discrimination against women only strengthened anti-worker forces.
Workers and women had to take up each other’s causes in order to win true justice.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1882.
That was the day trade union leader and suffragist Rose Schneiderman was born.
She arrived from Poland and settled in New York City with her family as a child.
Her father died soon after, and Rose entered the workforce at the age of 13.
She sewed caps and organized with the United Cloth and Cap Makers.
Rose became a chief organizer with the New York Women’s Trade Union League and played a prominent role in the 1909 Uprising of the 20,000.
While touring Ohio to rally support for women’s suffrage in 1912, Schneiderman said “What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist–the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art.
You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.”
She grew frustrated with the privileged middle class women of the New York WTUL and began organizing with ILGWU.
But she soon quit, aggravated by the leadership’s indifference toward organizing women workers.
Schneiderman devoted her energies to women’s suffrage.
She would soon return to the WTUL.
By 1926, she served as its national president and became close friends with Eleanor Roosevelt.
President Roosevelt appointed her to the National Advisory Board where she wrote NRA codes for industries with women workers.
Labor historian Annelise Orleck noted “Schneiderman attacked sexual segregation in the workplace, tried to unionize women… called for state regulation of working conditions… She argued for comparable worth laws, government-funded childcare, and maternity insurance... Those ideas and dreams are the legacy of Rose Schneiderman.”
Today marks the anniversary of the Upper Big Branch disaster.
This is the second of two parts commemorating that moment in labor history in 2010.
Accumulation of explosive methane gas was so pronounced that the mine had to be evacuated several times leading up to the disaster.
A 126 page Governor’s Independent Investigation Panel report detailed the systemic failures of safety systems and at governmental agencies to enforce regulations. Lack of proper ventilation, adherence to rock dusting standards and proper maintenance of machinery were main factors.
The panel also held MSHA responsible for “disregarding the documented risk of methane outbursts at the mine, overlooking the deadly potential of a precarious ventilation system, neglecting to use its regulatory authority to force technological improvements, and allowing the U.S. mine safety system to atrophy.”
They determined MSHA could have issued flagrant violation citations and had the authority to shut the mines down, but didn’t. The report noted the cozy relations between mine owners, politicians, judges and regulators, specifically “the ease with which state mine officials move from employment with industry to government and back.”
Despised union-busting CEO Don Blankenship, who was tried and convicted to one year in jail, insisted his mines were safe. He cited three Sentinels of Safety awards received from MSHA in 2009. These awards went to surface mining and coal processing plant operations.
The company consistently contested violations and attempted to control the state’s political system in order to defeat oversight agencies. Blankenship even blamed MSHA for the explosion because the agency demanded changes in UBB’s ventilation system.
A union safety committee could have shut down the mine before methane gas and coal dust combined to cause the explosion. If only there had been a union.
Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster.
This is the first of two parts commemorating that moment in labor history.
The year was 2010.
A massive explosion ripped through Massey Energy’s mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia.
The explosion killed 29 miners.
It was the deadliest in decades.
The explosion at UBB revealed the ruthlessness of profit-driven mine executives
Raking in $104 million in profits the year before, they callously insisted the explosion had been an act of God.
The explosion also exposed the immense pressures on federal and state regulators to look the other way or go easy on enforcement.
And it demonstrated just how deep the ties go between industry, regulators and those in seats of political power.
The UBB mine explosion served as a testament to the increasingly unsafe and non-union nature of the industry.
35 years ago, 95% of the state’s mines were union.
Walkouts over health and safety were common.
Now, less than 25% are, and workers risk their livelihoods if they dare to speak up about safety.
As well, over 70% of those autopsied from UBB were found to have black lung disease, entirely preventable with proper ventilation.
Massey executives routinely violated safety rules as a cost of doing business.
American University’s detailed study of Massey’s safety record for the years 2000-2010 concluded that no other U.S. coal company had a worse fatality record.
A total of 54 workers, including those at UBB had been killed during that time period.
They also found that Massey had been cited for 62,923 violations including 25,612 considered ‘significant and substantial.’
At the time, MSHA had proposed close to $50 million in fines.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day over 1000 autoworkers at the Ford assembly plant in Kansas City, Missouri began their occupation.
The sit-down was the first strike by the UAW against Ford. UAW president, Homer Martin vowed to organize the entire company.
The strike had been called the previous evening, when workers learned 350 of their coworkers had been laid off at the end of the day shift.
They demanded reinstatement, higher wages, better working conditions and recognition of the union.
Workers spent a good part of the early morning hours welding the gates shut to the railroad yards and parking lots surrounding the plant.
Then, they selected an 18-man committee to direct the strike.
One leader, O.W. Penney stated: “… When the company forced the strike on us by unfairly laying off men because of union membership (some with 12 years on the job), everybody joined up with us.
We signed 200 outside the plant and they’re signing others inside.” Penney added, “The pay here is not as good as at either Chevrolet or Chrysler plants… The boys there have better sanitary facilities and a cafeteria, while we have to eat our lunches sitting on the floor.”
Strikers lowered a banner from the top floor of the plant that read, “Lincoln Freed the Slaves. Ford Brought Them Back.”
Ford insisted he would never allow his plants to be organized.
But company representatives spent the weekend negotiating a settlement with the UAW to rescind the layoffs.
By Monday, April 5 workers were back on the line.
Strike authorizations would flare up just two weeks later when Penney and another UAW organizer were beaten at the hands of company thugs.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.That was the day workers sat down at the Hershey chocolate plant in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
CIO organizers for the new United Chocolate Workers Union reported that anywhere from 2000-2400 workers were on strike.
Hershey was a company town, where streets were named Chocolate and Cocoa Avenue.
Housing was built for workers and the company funded public education and transit service.
But the company also sought to monitor and control workers behavior on their off-time and showed favoritism in hiring and wages.
The Great Depression created dire conditions even in Candy Land. Hours and bonuses had been cut.
Workers grew increasingly frustrated with production speed-up and unpredictable work schedules.
All while Hershey still drew handsome profits.
The company initially raised wages after meeting with the union but then laid off organizers three months later.
That’s when workers shut off their machines and occupied the plant.
The company refused to negotiate unless workers left.
By April 7, dairy farmers became incensed at the loss of income.
They mobilized with anti-union company forces to storm the factory and drive the strikers out.
Organizers had agreed to end the strike in order to resume negotiations and avert violence.
But the anti-union forces attacked the sit-downers with bats, whips, clubs and hammers.
Three CIO organizers were singled out and severely beaten.
Governor George Earle condemned the attack and blamed the County Sheriff for suppressing labor rather than preventing mob rule.
The strike was smashed. Attempts at installing a company union failed soon after.
Hershey’s would be one of the first candy companies to be organized when the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union won recognition two years later.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1946.
That was the day 400,000 bituminous coal miners walked off the job in 26 states.
They demanded higher wages, better health benefits and safety regulations.
The strike began to cripple industrial operations nationwide.
By May 22, President Truman seized the mines. Miners returned to work a week later.
John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, signed an agreement with Secretary of the Interior, Julius Krug.
It included $wage increases and vacation pay, the five day workweek and contributions to a retirement fund.
The strike led to “The Promise of 1946,” otherwise known as the Krug-Lewis Agreement.
It created the UMWA Health and Retirement Funds.
It is this fund that is often referred to in present day discussion concerning the loss of retiree health and pension benefits.
According to Robert Hartley and David Kenney, authors of Death Underground: The Centralia and West Frankfort Mine Disasters, “the welfare program was to provide medical care, rehabilitation treatment and death benefits.
It provided the authority for the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines to establish a Federal Mine Safety Code… to enforce mine safety regulations and provided the first legal authority for federal inspectors to close mines found to be dangerous.”
Lack of enforcement would prove deadly for miners in Centralia and West Frankfort. The Health and Welfare Funds, however, provided relief and security for miners for decades.
But in recent years, many companies have gone out of business and found legal loopholes to shed their retirement responsibilities.
Those miners affected are today fighting for the passage of the Miners Protection Act, which would provide access and funding to shore up the pension plan.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1969.
That was the day Dr. Ralph Abernathy, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference arrived in Charleston, South Carolina to address striking hospital workers and their supporters.
More than 400 black hospital workers at Medical College Hospital and Charleston County Hospital had walked off the job earlier in the month.
They demanded an end to racial harassment and discrimination, wage increases, union recognition and reinstatement of fired coworkers.
It was yet another instance where workers’ struggles embodied the broader social debates of the day.
Struggles for racial and gender equality as well as the rights of public sector workers to organize, especially in the South all converged in Charleston.
Workers at both hospitals sought out Local 1199, which had already organized hospital workers in New York City.
Local 1199B was soon chartered and Mary Moultrie, a licensed nurse from Medical College Hospital was elected president.
Twelve workers were fired when the new union demanded recognition.
That’s when they voted to go on strike. Picketers were met with injunctions and arrests.
The president of MCH, William McCord stated he would not “turn a 25 million dollar complex over to a bunch of people who don’t have a grammar school education.”
He and Governor, Robert McNair cited the state’s right to work law as justification for refusal to recognize the union.
The SCLC arrived in Charleston to lend its support. Speaking to 1500 workers and their supporters Abernathy linked the struggles of Local 1199B to those of meat packers and sanitation workers.
He also charged that Congress would rather spend millions on war than to “stand people on their feet in Charleston.”
On this day in labor history the year was 1870.
That was the day the Fifteenth Amendment was adopted into the United States Constitution.
It was the third of the Reconstruction amendments.
It prohibited voting restrictions on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude.
Premier historian Eric Foner states that the Reconstruction Amendments reflected “a newly empowered national state and the idea of a national citizenry enjoying equality before the law.
These legal changes also arose from the militant demands for equal rights from the former slaves themselves.”
The bulk of Southern states refused to ratify but then capitulated. Interestingly, New York sought and failed to revoke its early ratification.
The amendment split the women’s suffrage movement for its failure to codify women’s voting rights.
Some Radical Republicans also abstained on the basis that it did not also prohibit poll taxes or literacy tests. Immediately, the 15th amendment came under attack.
The Ku Klux Klan terrorized black voters and Reconstruction governments for years.
One of the most extreme examples was the 1873 Colfax massacre.
After the Compromise of 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes refused to enforce civil rights protections.
The rise of discriminatory Jim Crow laws effectively disenfranchised Southern blacks for nearly a century.
Congress would finally enforce the 15th amendment fully through the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.
However, the Act has come under attack most recently, as in the 2013 case, Shelby County v. Holder.
Jurisdictions with histories of voter restrictions no longer have to obtain preclearance before implementing changes to voting laws and practices.
Over 150 years after the end of the Civil War, African-Americans are still fighting to protect their right to vote.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling on the case, West Coast Hotel v. Parrish.
The ruling upheld a Progressive-era Washington state law that established minimum wages for women.
An example of protective legislation, it intended to guard the health, safety and morals of women workers.
Elsie Parrish had been a chambermaid at the Cascadian Hotel in Wenatchee, Washington until 1935.
She sued and won at the State level after she was paid far below the minimum wage.
The parent company, West Coast Hotel, appealed to the Supreme Court.
They argued the Progressive-era law violated the constitutional right of individuals to freely contract with one another.
This interpretation was common during the Court’s Lochner era.
The 1905 Lochner v. New York ruling against maximum hours for bakers ushered in a period of anti-labor Supreme Court rulings.
Parrish is considered the landmark case that brought an end to that era.
The Court argued that the Constitution does not speak of freedom of contract and added “the exploitation of a class of workers who are in an unequal position with respect to bargaining power… is not only detrimental to their health and wellbeing, but casts a direct burden for their support upon the community.
What these workers lose in wages, the taxpayers are called upon to pay.”
The case is also considered instrumental in “the switch in time that saved nine.”
It was a reference to Justice Owen Roberts’ surprising shift in favor of Parrish. This occurred just as President Roosevelt finalized plans to increase the number of Supreme Court justices to 15.
Though Parrish did not overturn Lochner, it did mark a period of pro-labor rulings.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1979.
That was the day The Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor partially melted down near Middleton, Pennsylvania.
A combination of equipment failure and human error has long been attributed as the cause of the meltdown.
An initial overheating and reactor shut down had occurred.
But a pressure valve remained stuck open, allowing coolant to escape.
Design flaws in control equipment failed to indicate the position of the valve.
Workers then mistook the increased pressure as a result of excessive coolant.
They shut off the emergency water system that could have cooled the core.
Fears of radiation release and hydrogen bubbles led to voluntary evacuations that included over 140,000 residents.
Authorities assured the public that the partial meltdown had been contained.
President Carter convened a commission to investigate the causes.
It concluded that while the operators took inappropriate actions, the training they received was inadequate as were the procedures they were required to follow.
Plant designers, Babcock and Wilcox were held responsible for poor design.
The company failed to notify operators of repeated valve failure and a previous near duplicate of the potential catastrophe at the Davis-Besse plant.
Metropolitan Edison, General Public Utilities and the NRC were also held responsible for poor quality control, poor maintenance, communication lapses and poor training.
Fears regarding public health and safety intensified, fueling health studies of those exposed and the anti-nuclear power movement.
The aftermath brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factors engineering, radiation protection, and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations.
It also caused the NRC to tighten and heighten its regulatory oversight. All of these changes significantly enhanced U.S. reactor safety.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1941.
That was the day Indiana State Police began cracking heads of picketers in front of the Richmond International Harvester plant.
The Farm Equipment Workers Organizing Committee, or FEWOC, called a strike at six Midwestern plants earlier in the year.
14,000 workers walked out, demanding an elimination of piecework, wage increases, reemployment guarantees for draftees and union recognition.
Lucy Parsons addressed strikers in Chicago.
She reminded them of her husband’s frame-up and murder in 1886.
She added that the McCormicks and International Harvester had continued their unending war against labor for over 50 years.
In Richmond, workers voted 5 to 1 for a strike.
By March 27, Harvester officials there planned to reopen the plant with members of the ‘independent union.’ FEWOC battled these so-called unions at all the plants.
They were the rehashed old company unions the National Labor Relations Board had ordered disbanded.
Reports varied widely as to the number of workers ready to betray the strike at the Richmond plant.
When they marched towards the gate that morning, strikers closed ranks and sang, “Solidarity Forever.”
The battle began as strikers, armed with bricks and bats, fought police to prevent the scabbing.
More than 80 strikers were arrested on charges ranging from assault and battery to attempted murder.
The State Police and Richmond officers then raided strike headquarters and downtown CIO offices.
Records and correspondence were seized and furniture demolished. FEWOC leader Cliff Kerr avowed, “They are not going to get away with this brutal, undemocratic attack on the workers.
The union intends to fight. The combined efforts of the city… the police… and the Harvester Company are not going to break this strike.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1946.
That was the day Pennsylvania State Police attacked striking UE members at the gates of Westinghouse in East Pittsburgh.
200,000 UE members went on an industry-wide strike January 15 for a $2 a day raise.
They were on strike against the Big Three: GE, Westinghouse and the electric division at GM.
It was part of the post-war strike wave that brought millions out onto the picket lines nationwide.
By the middle of March, the UE had settled with GM and GE.
But 75,000 Westinghouse workers were still out on strike.
Westinghouse initially refused to negotiate at all.
When they made a first offer, they falsely claimed theirs matched the GE and GM agreements.
Federal mediators withdrew from the case in frustration, stating the company had made negotiations impossible.
Then on March 26, Alleghany County Sheriff Walter Monaghan and Governor Edward Martin called in 800 state troops.
Some were on horseback, others on foot detail. Many troops arrived in cars with machine guns and tear gas.
They patrolled the picket lines and nearby streets and set up roadblocks leading to the Westinghouse gates.
They began to forcibly disperse the crowd of 1000 picketers.
Then they ushered through several hundred non-production workers.
Some were pelted with eggs.
Others were struck in the face by some of the women strikers.
Three UE leaders were arrested for refusing to shut down their sound system they used to blast staffers for crossing picket lines.
The State Police stayed for the duration of the strike to enforce injunctions against mass picketing and ensure the crossing of picket lines.
The strike finally ended after 115 days with strikers winning an 18-cent an hour raise.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1947.
That was the day Centralia Coal Mine #5 exploded, killing 111 miners in Centralia, IL
The explosion occurred just as the day shift was ending.
Those not killed instantly were trapped and died from their burns or the afterdamp.
Words scrawled on the walls of the mine read, “Look in our pockets. We all have notes. Please give them to our wives.”
State inspectors had been forewarning mine owners about the dangers of accumulated, combustible coal dust for years before the explosion, but were ignored.
Illinois Mine Inspector Driscoll Scanlan had been filing reports since 1942 about deteriorating conditions.
The demand for coal during wartime had increased production at the expense of safety.
In the aftermath of the explosion, John L. Lewis, president of the UMWA, called a work stoppage in memory of the dead miners.
He also held Secretary of the Interior, Julius Krug, guilty of criminal negligence.
Lewis accused Krug of having failed to enforce existing mine regulations.
In response, Krug ordered that 518 mines remain closed for inspection.
The House and Senate proceeded to organize hearings on mine safety.
They demanded that the Bureau of Mines continue to pass inspection findings onto the proper state agencies.
Given the power mine owners held at the state level, these instructions ensured no improvements in mine safety would occur.
It would be another 22 years before any real change occurred at the federal level.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1989.
That was the day the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spilled 10.8 million gallons of oil in Prince William’s Sound, off the coast of Alaska.
The ship ran aground and collided with Bligh’s Reef.
Most people remember the captain was held primarily responsible for the spill.
By his own admission, he had passed out after a night of heavy drinking.
But a number of factors also contributed to the environmental disaster.
The National Transportation Safety Board issued its final report over a year later.
In it, the Board concluded that fatigue, reduced crews and problems with regulations and procedures regarding Exxon’s drug and alcohol program, all contributed to the spill.
Union officials reported great concern regarding chronic fatigue of its members on merchant ships, reduced crews due to greater automation and reduced scheduled ship maintenance.
Crewmembers on the Exxon Valdez routinely worked 20 or more hours a day during routine cargo handling operations.
The NTSB also concluded that Vessel Traffic Service under the U.S. Coast Guard failed to properly track the Exxon Valdez.
They had the ability to select a higher radar scale but didn’t.
The Coast Guard suffered from reduced crews burdened with increased job duties as well.
They also found that remote communications sites were inoperative on the night of the spill.
The equipment was old, deteriorating from harsh weather conditions.
Requested funding for new equipment had not been forthcoming.
The Alyeska Pipeline Company for its part, failed to have an oil spill barge loaded and ready.
Major cleanup efforts were conducted during spring and summer months through 1992.
But marine life and the environments were devastated.
Long-term efforts at monitoring and cleanup continue today.
On this day in labor history the year was 2005.
That was the day 15 workers were killed and another 170 were seriously injured in an explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas.
Workers were re-starting a unit down for repairs.
As they filled a tower with gasoline, it overflowed, sending a geyser into the air.
The igniting hydrogen vapor cloud created a chain of explosions that destroyed the nearby trailers, housing temporary contract workers.
The explosion shed light on many key problems throughout the industry: the increasing use of contract workers, safety short cuts and qualitative lack of industrial process controls.
A 2007 Chemical Safety Board report found that “years of cost-cutting, poor worker training and a safety culture with “serious deficiencies” left the plant ‘vulnerable to catastrophe,’ but company leaders ignored the warning signs.”
OSHA fined BP $21.3 million and more, but ultimately settled for $13 million.
For years, the catastrophe was studied closely to eliminate the hazards.
But 10 years later, a 2015 joint investigative series by The Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle found that “there is little evidence that the 15 lives lost on that March day bought much of anything: The death toll at U.S. refineries has barely slowed… At least 64 energy company employees and contractors were killed in the decade before the blast. At least 58 have died in the 10 years since…
The Department of Energy has tracked nearly 350 fires at refineries in the last eight years — almost one every week.
Refinery workers have gone on strike demanding, among other issues, an increased emphasis on safety.”
For the United Steelworkers, it is a daily fight to implement the critical safety actions the union developed in the aftermath of the blast.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1972.
That was the day the Equal Rights Amendment passed the Senate and moved to the states for ratification.
It had passed the House the previous fall.
Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman of the National Women’s Party first wrote the ERA in the 1920s.
It was introduced to Congress in 1923.
The revised version that Congress passed in 1971 and 1972 stated simply “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
The amendment needed 38 states to ratify by March 1979, in order to pass.
35 states ratified the amendment, but 5 states later rescinded ratification.
The 38-state requirement was never met.
The decades long debate among women’s rights advocates often centered on formal equality vs. protective legislation for women workers.
But an amendment establishing equality meant the end to restrictive, discriminatory laws.
These included: laws imposing restrictions on a woman's right to buy or sell property or to conduct a business; the age at which women could marry; differing admissions standards for boys and girls in tax-supported educational institutions; laws establishing different jail sentences, by sex, for identical crimes; regulations denying unemployment compensation payments to pregnant women who are still able and willing to work and much more.
The far Right and religious fundamentalists of all faiths fiercely opposed the ERA, fearing it would erode traditional gender roles.
Many Progressives and the labor movement also opposed it for many years on the basis that hard-won protective legislation would be lost.
It is striking that as of 2017, there is still no clear legal codification of women’s equal status to men.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1947.
That was the day President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9835.
It is commonly referred to as the ‘loyalty order.’
It required the screening of millions of federal civil servants and applicants.
9835 is considered one of the key preconditions for the rise of the McCarthyite Red Scare.
It established the criteria for investigation, review and dismissal.
These included a Loyalty Review Board, a master index of those investigated and definitions determining alleged disloyalty.
Disloyalty could mean sedition, espionage, or advocating revolution.
It could also mean membership or sympathetic association with movements considered totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive.
Soon, the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations was published.
It amounted to a black list.
In their book, The Fifties, Douglas Miller and Marion Nowack comment: “Between the launching of his security program in March 1947 and December 1952, some 6.6 million persons were investigated. Not a single case of espionage was uncovered, though about 500 persons were dismissed in dubious cases of ‘questionable loyalty.’ All of this was conducted with secret evidence, secret and often paid informers, and neither judge nor jury. Despite the failure to find subversion, the broad scope of the official Red hunt gave popular credence to the notion that the government was riddled with spies.”
President Dwight Eisenhower would revoke 9835 with his Executive Order 10450.
But this order dismantled the Loyalty Boards by transferring power to federal agencies.
It also expanded investigations to include those engaged in “immoral” or “disgraceful” behavior.
This included what it considered sexual deviance and led to the witch hunting of and discrimination against gays and lesbians in the civil service.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1905.
That was the day a boiler explosion destroyed the R.B. Grover Shoe Factory in Brockton, Massachusetts.
The boiler exploded as workers arrived for the day shift.
58 workers were killed and another 150 were injured.
The boiler reportedly shot up through all three floors, and the roof of the building.
The floors collapsed and walls caved in.
Those who survived the initial explosion were fatally trapped by debris and machinery.
Fires spread rapidly throughout the plant, ignited by broken gas lines and industrial solvents.
The entire block, including nearby homes and businesses were leveled to the ground.
Many of the dead were never positively identified.
The leatherworkers union provided financial assistance.
So did civic leaders and R.B Grover, who was ruined financially by the disaster.
Boiler inspectors concluded the explosion was caused by a manufacturing defect that was virtually impossible to detect.
The courts held no one liable.
By 1890 over 100,000 boilers providing steam heat were in use.
Over 2000 had exploded during the 1880s alone.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers had been in existence for some 25 years by the time the boiler exploded at Grover.
They had released some guidelines.
But it was clear that inspections were rare and standards were needed.
The public outcry only grew in Massachusetts after another industrial boiler explosion occurred the next year.
The state passed measures establishing rules of operation.
By 1914, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers had successfully pushed back against manufacturers and railroad managers who opposed boiler regulations.
They published the first edition of the National Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code.
A national board of inspectors soon followed.
Since then, regulations ensuring safe operation and maintenance have saved countless lives.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917
That was the day the United States Supreme Court upheld the Adamson Act.
The Act had initially been passed and signed into law the previous September to avoid a nationwide railway strike.
It established the eight-hour day and overtime pay for interstate railroad workers.
The four railroad brotherhoods--the Engineers, Fireman, Brakemen and Conductors had been pushing for these terms since at least 1915.
When the railroads refused to budge, the unions prepared to strike.
It was the first federal law that sought to determine minimum wages and maximum hours for private industry.
The railroads were furious with President Woodrow Wilson for demanding quick passage of the law.
They filed the case, Wilson v. New, which challenged the constitutionality of the Act.
The railroads refused to abide by the new law while they waited for their case to be heard, ultimately by the Supreme Court.
The four railroad brotherhoods grew tired of waiting and organized for another strike.
The Court rejected the railroad’s claims and upheld the Act.
President Wilson had hoped to ensure labor peace, as the United States was on the cusp of entering World War I.
Seen as a powerful victory for the unions, other railway employees pressed for similar demands.
When the industry looked as though it was headed for yet another strike, President Wilson exercised the Army Appropriations Act and issued an executive order at the end of 1917 that placed the railroads under federal control.
This nationalized the railroad industry into three divisions under the newly established United States Railroad Administration between the years 1917 and 1920.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1918.
That was the day workers at Wagner Electric in St. Louis ended their twelve-day walkout, in exchange for promised negotiations regarding union recognition, higher wages and fewer work hours.
Wagner held defense contracts to provide detonators and firing pins for munitions.
With the U.S entrance into World War I, the orders increased, as did the labor shortage.
In this instance, more women entered the workforce.
Wagner was no exception.
During this period, nearly a quarter of the St. Louis factory workers were female.
Yet the unionized industries made no attempt to organize them.
Amid a strike wave that rocked the city, about 1000 men and women struck Wagner on March 6.
They demanded the reinstatement of coworkers who had been fired for attending a Machinist’s Union meeting.
A week later, close to 2700 workers were on strike.
The male workers at Wagner made less than half of their counterparts in the unionized industries, while their women coworkers made half of that!
Workers contended that Wagner violated federal contracts by refusing to honor the eight-hour day and equal pay for equal work.
Historian Rosemary Feurer notes the Ordnance Department reached a tentative deal to get workers back to the job and then spiked negotiations by smearing strikers as unpatriotic.
The company refused to address longstanding grievances.
According to Katharine Corbett, Wagner Electric also “required workers to sign loyalty pledges to the company.”
Over half the workforce would walkout the following month, with the support of Mother Jones.
Workers appealed to a more sympathetic War Labor Board, but found they could not get the agreements they demanded until the years of industrial organizing in the 1930s.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1960. That was the day five Italian immigrant workers were killed in Toronto, Ontario in what is known as the Hoggs Hollow Tragedy.
Referred to as sandhogs, workers sought to connect a pumping station to the water distribution network.
They were building a water main in a tunnel under the Don River.
The project was already far behind schedule and over budget.
Workers were welding in a compression chamber when smoke began to overwhelm the main shaft.
Some workers made it out.
Firefighters were prevented from releasing water into the tunnel to extinguish the fire over concerns that it would cause a collapse.
There was no backup safety equipment at street level.
The tragedy shed light on the appalling wage and working conditions immigrant workers faced just outside the city borders.
The persistent public outcry prompted exposes and investigations that revealed just how bad conditions were.
It was truly a tale of two cities.
Within the city, union requirements guaranteed breaks and enforcement of safety regulations.
But just outside it was a different story.
According to Jamie Bradburn, who wrote for the Toronto Historicist in 2010, “workers on suburban projects faced conditions that included lack of proper sanitation, poor safety inspections, illegal withholding of vacation pay, unpaid overtime, cheques that often bounced, and groundless threats of deportation. The coroner’s inquest determined that callous management, incompetent foremen, inexperienced workers, a disorganized rescue, and inefficiency at the Department of Labour caused the disaster... Though no criminal charges were ultimately laid, the sacrifice of the five men at Hogg’s Hollow brought about improvements in the conditions that had led to their demise.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1911.
That was the day Big Bill Haywood of the Industrial Workers of the World gave his speech on “The General Strike.”
He presented it in New York City, at a fundraiser for the Buccafori Defense Fund.
Vincent Buccafori was the shop representative for his union.
He faced repeated harassment and discharge by his foreman for executing his union duties.
Finally, as witnesses described, the foreman fired Buccafori and punched him, drawing blood.
Then, he came at Buccafori with a heavy object.
Buccafori shot and killed him in self-defense.
He was charged with manslaughter, convicted and sentenced to ten years at Sing Sing prison.
The IWW raised money for his defense and fought for his acquittal and release.
Haywood arrived at the fundraiser to deliver a key speech titled, “The General Strike.”
In it, he reviewed the rich history of workers actions since the days of the Paris Commune in 1871.
He also raged against electoral reform.
He stated: “…the broadest interpretation of political power comes through the industrial organization; it gives the vote to women, it reenfranchises the black man and places the ballot in the hands of every boy and girl employed in a shop, makes them eligible to take part in the general strike, makes them eligible to legislate for themselves where they are most interested in changing conditions, namely, in the place where they work…”
He continued, “You have all the industries in your own hands at the present time. There is this justification for political action, and that is, to control the forces of the capitalists that they use against us. That is the reason that you should fully understand the power of the ballot.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1940. That was the day The Grapes of Wrath opened in movie theaters.
Adapted from John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, John Ford directed the film, which starred Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. Pleased with the adaptation, Steinbeck stated, “it pulled no punches and was in fact harsher than the book.”
It is considered one of the greatest films of all time. Like the book, the film focused on the plight of poor white tenant farmers fleeing Oklahoma for a better life in California.
The Joads were devastated by dust bowl conditions, bank foreclosure and mechanization during the Great Depression. They joined thousands of other families heading west on Route 66 to advertised farm jobs that never materialized.
The family gets stuck in New Deal Resettlement Administration camps and ends up on both sides of agricultural workers struggles. They narrowly escape starvation and state police.
At the time of its release, The Grapes of Wrath was critically acclaimed for its depiction of the poor. But the Associated Farmers of California condemned it as Communist propaganda.
Steinbeck visited resettlement camps as part of his research. Union organizing and police violence unfolded during the Salinas Lettuce Strike, which began as he wrote. Woody Guthrie’s classic “Ballad of Tom Joad,” soon followed the movie release.
Recent critics contend that Agricultural Adjustment Administration policies were more to blame than banks. Others assert it presents a sympathetic portrayal of white tenant farmers at the expense of black sharecroppers.
Historian Erik Loomis adds that Steinbeck and Ford both disappear the plight of the non-white, exploited labor already in California. Nonetheless, the film and movie both provide a deep look into the misery created by the Great Depression.
From 2015:
https://laborhistoryin2.podbean.com/e/march-15-the-painters-union-is-founded/
From 2016:
https://laborhistoryin2.podbean.com/e/march-15-2016-bruce/
From 2017:
https://laborhistoryin2.podbean.com/e/march-15-the-grapes-of-wrath-opens-in-theaters/
On this day in labor history, the year was 1915.
That was the day British socialist illustrator Walter Crane died.
You have probably seen his Art Nouveau style illustrations.
Many celebrate International May Day, memorialize the Haymarket Martyrs of Chicago or commemorate the Paris Commune.
He also published a series of illustrations titled, “Cartoons for the Cause.”
That series was produced to commemorate the International Socialist Trade Union Congress of 1896.
Born in 1845, Crane apprenticed with the Chartist radical, William James Linton.
He started his career illustrating children’s books, nursery rhymes and fairy tales.
He later traveled to Italy with his wife, Mary, to continue with book illustrations and portraiture.
Upon his return to Britain, he became friends with artist William Morris, whose pamphlet, Art & Socialism deeply impacted him.
Crane soon joined the Art Workers’ Guild and the Arts and Crafts Society.
Together, he and Morris joined the Social Democratic Federation.
Crane provided illustrations for its journal Justice.
From there, he helped to found the Socialist League and illustrated its journal, The Commonweal.
When the League failed to gain popularity, he moved on to the Fabian Society, whose members included George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and Sidney and Beatrice Webb.
Crane produced wildly popular images like the Angel of Freedom, and published The Claims of Decorative Art.
In it, he asserted, “art could not flourish in a world where wealth was so unfairly distributed… Only under Socialism could Use and Beauty be united.”
He continued to publish and became principal of the Royal College of Art in 1898.
A strong critic of the British Empire, Crane supported the Labour Party and produced posters each year to celebrate May Day.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1963.
That was the day Transport Workers Union Local 260 negotiated its first contract with the Pioneer Bus Company in Houston Texas.
It came after months of fighting to build an integrated union there.
The local had learned the previous year that Pioneer was organized by an “independent union” that maintained Jim Crow bargaining units.
The Drivers, Dispatchers and Shop Employees Union maintained separate and unequal bargaining units, one for white workers and one for black workers.
They also had separate seniority lists, representation and levels of promotion.
The TWU filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board, against the drivers union.
They demanded an election.
The existing union argued that collective bargaining agreements already existed, which precluded any possibility of holding a new election for representation.
The TWU pushed back.
They contended that the contract-bar rule could not apply to discriminatory agreements that divided workers along racial lines.
The TWU also argued that it would be unconstitutional for the Board to uphold Jim Crow contracts.
The Board agreed with the TWU and threatened to decertify the drivers union on the basis of racial discrimination.
They concluded that, “Where the bargaining representative of employees in an appropriate unit executes separate contracts, or even a single contract, discriminating between Negro and white employees on racial lines, the Board will not deem such contracts as a bar to an election.”
In the days before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Board drew from Brown v. Board of Education to issue its ruling, which came in December 1962.
The TWU won the election by a 3-1 margin and championed the end of Jim Crow at Pioneer.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2012.
That was the day OSHA released its memorandum titled, “Employer Safety Incentive and Disincentive Practices.”
It addressed compliance officers and whistleblower investigators.
It touched on employer practices that discourage the reporting of injuries and illnesses on the job.
The memorandum stated that employee reporting is a protected right.
It also asserted that employer discouragement could constitute a violation of whistleblower statutes like Section 11(c) of the OSH Act and recordkeeping regulations.
OSHA emphasized that the likelihood of discouragement and discrimination increases when safety programs are linked to lower reported injuries and illnesses.
The memorandum outlines four common scenarios:
1) When an employer disciplines workers injured on the job. Employees must have a way to report injuries and illnesses.
2) When an employer disciplines workers for the time or manner in which they report an injury.
3) When a worker is disciplined for an injury as a result of violating a safety rule. OSHA asks: does the employer monitor the workplace regularly for safety compliance? Does the employer mete out discipline equally, regardless of injury?
And finally, the memorandum stresses the need to examine the kind of safety program implemented.
Does the program provide incentives to dissuade workers from reporting injuries and illnesses?
Are prizes or bonuses awarded when reported injuries decrease?
Discouraging and disciplining workers for reporting could be considered unlawfully discriminatory.
It also violates the employer’s obligation to document injuries and illnesses.
OSHA notes there are positive ways to implement safety practices.
Examples include rewarding workers who identify hazards, participate in investigations, and offer suggestions on how to make the job safer or complete safety training.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1950.
That was the day 4600 baggage handlers, mechanics and store personnel ended their strike against American Airlines.
The 11-day strike affected airports in 34 cities, crippling 80% of American’s operations.
Transport Workers Union leader Mike Quill demanded wage increases, job-security and guarantees against the subcontracting out of maintenance work.
TWU had been locked into negotiations and mediation for months leading up to the strike at the beginning of March.
In her book, On the Ground: Labor Struggle in the American Airline Industry, Liesl Miller Orenic notes that the strike was an example of cross skill solidarity within the union.
Union baggage handlers were the first to walk out.
Quill hoped to garner support by emphasizing that the planes were improperly maintained.
He demanded that President Truman take over the airlines on the basis that “the planes were unsafe for public transportation.”
Support for the strike remained strong in larger cities.
But in smaller cities, strikers looked to return to work. Miller Orenic adds the strike victory resulted in industry firsts: “A severance package for laid-off workers and a company policy pledging only to subcontract mechanical work that American Airlines employees did not have time to do.”
Though they did not gain wage raises, they did win significant increases in sick leave, three weeks paid vacation after 12 years of service instead of 15, and paid mealtime for night shift workers.
TWU members at PanAM were inspired to strike over similar demands two months later.
The victory at American spurred national mediators to hammer out a settlement in favor of PanAm strikers some 17 hours after the strike was called.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1925.
That was the day the first civil suit for damages was filed on behalf of the ‘Radium Girls.’
During the 1910s and 20s, Radium was all the rage.
It was considered a medical cure-all for everything from blindness to asthma.
The U.S Radium Corporation employed hundreds of young women in New Jersey and Illinois to paint radium onto watch dials and military instruments.
Women workers were instructed to shape the paintbrushes to a fine point with their lips in order to paint the numbers onto watch faces.
They soon fell ill. Many complained of losing scores of teeth and shattered and rotting jaws.
The death toll began to rise. U.S Radium and other related companies initially tried to smear the women as suffering from syphilis.
Katherine Wiley of the New Jersey Consumers League began investigating the use of radium by dial painters.
She was also concerned about how emissions affected the community surrounding the plant.
Wiley enlisted the help of Alice Hamilton, mother of industrial medicine and occupational toxicology.
The Chief Medical Examiner of Essex County determined the women suffered from radium exposure. They were exhaling radon gas.
The findings were earth shattering for the industry.
Case proceedings were highly publicized in the press.
Extremely frail and sick young women appeared in court, barely able to walk or testify.
The company agreed to settle the case: $10,000 for each woman, a $400 a year pension, and medical care.
Women at the Ottawa plant suffered for years before they finally learned the truth about their job related illnesses.
The case impacted fields related to occupational safety and health.
It also fundamentally broadened scientific understanding of radioactive elements.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1910.
That was the day miners in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania struck for union recognition and the eight-hour day.
They hoped to beat back deep wage cuts and out-of–pocket costs for safety equipment and explosives.
As many as 15,000 miners were on strike against 65 mines.
Thousands were immediately evicted from company housing.
The UMWA helped set up tent cities.
Area coal companies all imported immigrant strikebreakers who had little understanding of English or why they were hired.
When they tried to quit and leave company housing, coal company police beat them back to work, refusing to let them leave until they paid the cost of relocation.
The situation was so bad that the House Committee on Labor held hearings as to whether workers were being forced into peonage.
Injunctions were enforced against strikers picketing on public property near the mines.
Many were arrested for simply traveling along public roads.
Strikers were also denied access to many municipal services, whose facilities were on coal company property.
Hundreds of strikers were arrested for trespassing and their leaders held on charges of conspiracy and intimidation.
They were routinely harassed, beaten and fired upon by Sheriff’s deputies, State Troops or the Coal and Iron police.
Over the course of the strike, more than a dozen strikers and their family members were killed at the hands of security and police forces.
The strike wore on through the brutal winter of 1910-11.
Hunger and disease spread throughout the tent cities.
After 15 months, the UMWA called off the strike.
The union was broke from the disbursement of strike funds.
Many blacklisted strikers had to leave the state to find work.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2007.
That was the day that seven thousand workers at the Northrop Grumman, a shipyard company in Pascagoula, Mississippi went out on strike.
Grumman is one of the largest defense contractors in the world.
The workers were members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 733 and the Pascagoula Metal Trades Council.
They were still reeling from the ravages of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.
The hurricane had devastated the Mississippi gulf coast and sent prices for housing skyrocketing.
But while workers suffered, Katrina brought $3 billion in federal contracts to Northrop Grumman to repair hurricane damage.
Despite this, Grumman proposed a four-year contract for the workers with no raises and increased health care costs. For many workers this did not sit well.
They knew the company had received massive government contracts, but still was not willing to treat workers fairly at the bargaining table.
The union members rejected the offer and voted to strike.
The company came back with a proposal offering small raises, which did not keep pace with the cost of living.
The strike was called.
For four weeks workers marched and manned the picket lines.
During the strike the company cut off the worker’s health care coverage.
The company offered slightly higher wages and reduced the increases to health care coverage.
Although the proposal was not enough to keep up with the soaring local cost of living, union members voted to end the strike and accept the offer.
Labor History in 2:00https://feed.podbean.com/laborhistoryin2/feed.xml
A daily, pocket-sized history of America's working people, brought to you by The Rick Smith Show team.
March 7 - Work Faster! Work Faster!Sunday Mar 07, 2021
On this day in labor history, the year was 1974.
That was the day workers at Farah Manufacturing finally ratified a first contract.
Workers went on strike in May 1972 demanding union recognition.
Owner Willie Farah had said he’d rather die than have his company go union.
It was said he rode his bicycle through the plant screaming “Work Faster! Work Faster!”
Management had imposed increasingly unattainable production quotas that bred dangerous working conditions, until finally workers had had enough.
The organizing drive to bring in the American Clothing Workers of America began in 1969.
It spread to five plants throughout El Paso, Texas. Workers often met in secret.
Though male cutters had initially sought out representation with the ACWA, the workforce was overwhelmingly comprised of Mexican-American women.
They became some of the union’s best leaders.
Workers staged a walkout in March 1972 and many were fired on the spot.
By May 1972, the firing of workers at the San Antonio plant for union activity prompted the strike.
Declared an unfair labor practice strike, the AFL-CIO began a national boycott campaign of Farah products.
The ACWA organized public support and strike relief.
Women strikers embarked on nationwide speaking tours as part of the Justice for Farah Strikers Committee, to build the boycott and public support.
By early 1974, the NLRB ordered reinstatement and union organizing.
The contract included wage increases, seniority rights and job security, and grievance procedures.
But long-term lessons of the strike proved that the work of organizing could never stop with winning recognition and a first contract.
Workers continued to battle for years against quotas, firings and weak representation in a historically Right-to-Work state.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1930.
That was the day hundreds of thousands of activists and unemployed poured into the streets worldwide for International Unemployed Day.
It was a coordinated campaign to protest conditions created by the stock market crash just four months earlier.
Workers and the poor were the first to feel the most devastating impacts of what was quickly becoming the Great Depression.
Organized primarily by Communists, the day’s actions highlighted the work of the newly formed Unemployed Councils and had a mass appeal.
The Unemployed Councils worked to distribute food, prevent evictions, secure utilities and link the needs of the unemployed to the trade unions.
The councils mobilized the unemployed in support during strikes as a way to stop scabbing. They organized hunger marches and protests at relief offices.
Tens of thousands came out in every city for Unemployed Day demonstrations.
In North America, cities like Boston, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Seattle and San Francisco all drew massive crowds estimated at 40,000 to 50,000 each.
Protesters demanded jobs and unemployment insurance.
In Chicago, tens of thousands overwhelmed the streets for over twelve hours.
In Detroit, and New York City, competing organizers challenged crowd estimates, with as many as 100,000 turning out in each city.
Confrontations broke out between protestors and police in both cities. Across the country, many of the unemployed were arrested or hospitalized.
In New York City, outraged communist activists asserted that protesters were met with water hoses, tear gas and guns as they marched down Broadway to City Hall.
Critics argued that crowd estimates were wildly exaggerated.
But the day of action forced governments around the world to acknowledge deteriorating conditions and devastating impact of the Great Depression.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1972.
That was the day autoworkers at GM’s Chevy Vega plant in Lordstown, Ohio walked out on strike.
The strike lasted for 18 days.
The issues that fueled it were reminiscent of the sit-downs and wildcats that built the UAW in the 30s and 40s.
Workers at Lordstown wanted greater control over the production process.
The young, integrated workforce of the 1960s social protest era was fed-up with long days, forced overtime, increased automation and dangerous speedup on the assembly line.
Long-standing grievances numbered in the thousands and disciplinary firings were common. Absenteeism was rampant.
Morale was so low that cars left the assembly line incomplete or vandalized.
By the time the strike ended, many felt it was called to simply allow workers to blow off steam.
There was no real change to the production process.
But jobs eliminated in the 1970 contract were restored and some 1400 disciplinary layoffs were dropped.
The worker malaise suffered there came to be known as the “Lordstown Syndrome.”
In his book Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, Jefferson Cowie notes that the strike compelled the Senate to hold hearings on alienation at work.
Its’ committee produced the report Work in America.
This report confirmed, “many workers at all occupational levels feel locked in, their mobility blocked, the opportunity to grow lacking in their jobs, challenge missing from their tasks.”
Cowie concludes that the strike and report “initiated the quality of work life movement that sought to redesign work, introduce automation differently and invest in ‘human relations’ strategies, most of which continued to empower management, not workers—albeit with a gentler hand.”
On this day in labor history the year was 1989.
That was the day Machinists struck Eastern Airlines.
After bankrupting Continental Airlines to void union contracts there, the much-hated Frank Lorenzo hoped for a repeat at Eastern Airlines.
Lorenzo bought Eastern with junk bonds and then bled the airline’s profits dry to finance the debt of his holding company, Texas Air.
12,000 jobs were lost at Eastern in just two years under Lorenzo.
Machinists had every reason to believe wages would be cut in half in the next contract.
In the weeks building up to the strike, management made its union busting clear by firing dozens of shop stewards at airports across the country.
Machinists walked out at Miami airport a month earlier over forced overtime.
Nationwide, many complained they were forced to work anywhere between 24-36 hours straight.
Five days into the strike, Lorenzo filed for bankruptcy.
Picket lines were solid and the strike was popular.
Many trade unionists joined picket lines in support.
The strike against Eastern symbolized a fight to take back everything lost during the Reagan years.
The Air Line Pilot’s Association and Flight Attendants organized by TWU voted to walk out in solidarity.
They stayed out for more than eight months with striking machinists.
But when the pilots and flight attendants went back to work, it left machinists isolated.
Many argued that with contracts expiring at many airlines soon after the walkout, an industry wide strike could only bolster chances for machinists at Eastern to win.
But by early 1991, the strike had become a devastating loss.
Eastern ceased operations altogether in January and its assets were liquidated.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1945.
National headlines feared the growing wildcat strikes at Chrysler and Briggs auto plants in Detroit.
As of March 3, the wildcats had increased to 35,000 strikers and idled workers at two Chrysler plants and seven Briggs plants.
The strike wave started a week earlier at the Dodge Main plant in Detroit.
Eight of the union’s best leaders had been discharged for refusing to go along with production line speed-up.
Briggs management followed Chrysler’s union-busting campaign by firing seven UAW officers at the Mack Avenue plant.
Three days later, Briggs fired another eight committeemen and stewards, which then provoked the walkout.
Company officials and the War Labor Board were outraged at the halt in war production of tanks, B-29 Super Fortresses, anti-aircraft guns, ambulances, rockets, and trucks.
The Michigan legislature introduced a bill to define as a felony, any strike participation that violated a labor relations contract.
As well, the War Labor Board demanded that both sides meet in Washington to end the walkout.
Strike leaders defied the wartime no-strike pledge and ignored the International’s threats of disciplinary action.
Strikers had the full backing of local UAW presidents.
The UAW executive board conceded that management provoked the wildcatting through indiscriminate firings.
Workers argued that if the War Labor Board prioritized production over union busting, they would order the reinstatements of discharged leaders.
The Flint Labor Council passed a resolution demanding that all CIO and other union representatives resign immediately from the War Labor Board.
It considered the board as stacked against Labor.
Workers at Chrysler and Briggs would soon end their walkout with guarantees of arbitration for reinstatement of fired militants.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1990.
That was the day 9,300 workers walked out at Greyhound Bus Lines.
The 1980s devastated Greyhound workers.
First, the industry had been rocked by President Carter’s deregulation of the transportation industry.
Then, a bitter 1983 strike ended in defeat for workers. Concessionary contracts, deep wage cuts and a two-tier system were firmly established by the time contract negotiations started in early 1990.
The Amalgamated Transit Union negotiated terms closer to what was lost over the past decade, but new owners at Greyhound wouldn’t have it.
They claimed $300 million in debt.
The ATU insisted the company had been turning handsome profits.
Pickets went up at depots and garages around the country, while hundreds of scab drivers were hired.
With a week’s worth of training, they were soon operating 10-ton buses unsafely.
Riders complained of replacement drivers falling asleep at the wheel.
The strike soon turned violent and deadly.
There were reports of sniper fire and bomb threats.
Many charged these were fake stories, meant to spike public support for the strike.
Early on, 59-year old Robert Waterhouse was run down by a scab driver while on the picket line in Redding, California.
Waterhouse had 30 years as a driver with the company and had planed his retirement for that summer, when he was killed.
ATU reported many more picket line injuries.
Within a month, the company was operating with 2400 replacement drivers.
The company filed for bankruptcy in June.
After three years, they would finally agree to $22 million in back pay, reinstate hundreds of drivers and raise wages.
But the number of drivers was cut in half. It would take the ATU years to rebuild its strength.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1936.
That was the day Hoover Dam was formally turned over to the federal government.
It was a massive undertaking.
Approved by the Coolidge Administration in 1928, work began to divert and then dam the Colorado River in 1931, creating Lake Mead.
Thousands of unemployed flocked to the area in search of jobs.
More than 21,000 were employed over the course of 5 years, with as many as 5200 working on any given day.
Workers were paid an average of 50 cents an hour with higher pay for skilled work.
Governmental hiring terms included preference to veterans and no hiring of Asians.
The Colored Citizens Labor and Protective Association of Las Vegas protested de facto hiring discrimination against blacks.
Their eventual representation among the employed totaled and estimated 24 to 30 for the duration of the project.
A few Native Americans were hired as high scalers to remove loose rock with jackhammers and dynamite.
Estimated fatalities ranged from 96 to over 150.
Many died from falls, heat-related illnesses, falling debris, heavy equipment and carbon monoxide poisoning from tunnel work.
The project was rocked by at least two documented strikes.
The Industrial Workers of the World attempted to organize there. Workers struck over wage cuts and working conditions.
They repeatedly demanded flushing toilets and cold, clean running water, especially in temperatures as high as 120 degrees in the summertime.
At the time Hoover Dam was turned over to the government, it was the tallest dam and the largest hydroelectric station.
It currently generates about 4 billion-kilowatt hours of hydroelectric power for Nevada, Arizona and California.
Today in Labor History, February 28, the year was
On this day in Labor History the year was 1942.
That was the day that Sue Cowan Williams filed a lawsuit for equal pay for black school teachers in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Eighty-six black teachers worked in the city’s segregated school system.
They were all members of the Little Rock Class Room Teachers Association.
In 1941 the teachers formed a Salary Adjustment Committee to look into pay discrimination.
They found there was a wide gap between black and white salaries.
The average white elementary school teacher made $526 a year, while black teachers earned only $321.
White high school teachers brought home $856, but black teachers made only $567.
Backed with this research, the committee presented a petition to the School Board demanding an end to the pay discrimination.
The board tabled the petition, and that summer passed another round of unequal pay raises.
The teachers then approached the NAACP and asked them to handle their case.
Thurgood Marshall agreed to take up the lawsuit.
Marshall would go on to become the first black US Supreme Court Justice.
Sue Cowan Williams, the head of the English Department at Dunbar High School was selected as the plaintiff for the case.
The teachers lost their lawsuit, and then won on appeal.
But Williams paid a price for her involvement.
The next year the school district did not renew her contract.
She was finally rehired to teach at Dunbar a decade later.
But first the School Superintendent called Williams to ask if she had “learned her lesson.”
It was a lesson that many workers have learned—that there is often a high personal cost for standing up for justice on the job.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day whistles blowing and the call to strike could be heard through the aisles of Woolworth in downtown Detroit.
108 saleswomen walked away from their workstations and cash registers.
The eight-day sit-down had begun.
The young women saw from the experience in Flint that sit-down strikes could win.
They evicted management, barricaded the doors and found 200 or so customers still inside the store, wanting to join them.
The strikers issued their demands: a 10 cent an hour raise, an eight-hour day, union recognition and a union hiring hall, free uniforms and laundering and more.
Kresge department stores immediately gave their workers a raise in order to prevent similar stoppages.
The striking women at Woolworth made themselves comfortable and the sit-down soon spread to a second store.
Leaders from Local 705 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees threatened a national strike if demands were not met.
Union cooks provided meals and union musicians provided entertainment. Hotel workers from across the city picketed in front of the store to show solidarity.
After seven days, Woolworth’s management caved and agreed to most of the strikers demands.
High turnover in the workforce would undo contract gains at area Woolworth stores soon after the sit-down.
But the victory electrified retail workers across the country.
The sit-down spread to retailers in St. Louis, New York, San Francisco, Minnesota and Washington.
In Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit of Labor’s Last Century, Dana Frank notes that, “over 60 years later, unions today in department stores all over the country owe their existence in part to the Woolworth strike.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1941.
That was the day “The Battle at Bethlehem” began. 14,000 workers at Bethlehem Steel’s Lackawanna Mill in Buffalo, N.Y., walked out on strike.
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee, or SWOC, had been fighting to organize Little Steel for years.
‘Little Steel’ was a general term that referred to the smaller mills like Republic, Inland, Bethlehem and Youngstown Sheet & Tube.
At Bethlehem, SWOC was still waiting on a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals about the company union Bethlehem refused to give up, in defiance of the Wagner Act.
As a defense industry, Bethlehem had $1.5 billion worth of armament orders to fill.
And yet, they wouldn’t even pay the legal minimum wage mandated for government contracts.
Retired steel worker, Mitchell Scheffer recalled in a 1991 interview, "I went to work there in the late 1930s swinging a 20-pound sledgehammer to break iron billets," says the 81-year-old. "I got 40 cents an hour, six days a week, no vacations"
The last straw was when Bethlehem fired over 1000 workers.
Bethlehem claimed these particular workers damaged coke ovens when they engaged in a work stoppage.
Workers immediately formed solid picket lines at seven gates that stretched two miles.
They successfully beat back attempts by police to scab herd.
After 38 hours, Bethlehem quickly agreed to reinstate the 1000 workers.
They soon resumed talks regarding wage increases, grievance procedures and union recognition.
But a month later, Bethlehem decided to go back on their promises.
They started organizing elections for collective bargaining representatives through their company union.
The stage was set for the next big strike at Bethlehem in March that would finally win union recognition.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1913.
That was the day some 24,000 workers in Paterson, New Jersey walked out of 300 silk mills and dye houses to demand the eight hour day, better working conditions and a return to the two loom system.
Mill owners attempted to introduce a reduction of the workforce by doubling the number of looms workers ran, from two to four.
Descendants of strikers recalled a 55 hour workweek and children as young as nine working in the mills.
The strike started in late January at Doherty Mills and soon spread to become a general strike.
Leaders from the Industrial Workers of the World like Big Bill Haywood, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Carlo Tresca organized rallies, strike support and food pantries for the silk workers.
The police routinely attacked picket lines and as many as 1,850 workers were arrested during the course of the strike.
Socialists like John Reed put on a play at New York City’s Madison Square Garden that reenacted the strike to raise relief funds.
35,000 turned out to hear Upton Sinclair address the strikers.
Having stockpiled surplus product, manufacturers were able to outlast workers, who by July, were practically starving.
A main cause of the strike’s failure was the introduction of labor saving technology that served to reduce the need for highly skilled workers and drive down wages.
The strike may have failed in many of its demands but silk workers were able to beat back implementation of the four-loom system for almost a decade.
They would finally win the eight-hour day in 1919.
Importantly, the strike succeeded in uniting male and female workers across national and craft lines.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1908.
That was the day the United States Supreme Court decided the case, Muller v. Oregon.
It was a landmark decision in the realm of protective labor legislation.
It restricted the workday to 10 hours for women.
Laundry owner, Curt Muller, required his female employees to work more than 10 hours a day, against Oregon labor laws.
The Supreme Court upheld his conviction and fine.
Protective labor legislation was a product of the reform social movements of the Progressive Era.
Reformers like Jane Addams worked to protect women from industrial dangers that bred physical and moral harm to women.
The decision drove a class-based wedge within the women’s movement that lasted for much of the 20th century.
Working class women generally supported protective labor legislation like Muller.
But Equal Rights Advocates like Alice Paul opposed it.
They argued that protective legislation like Muller rested on stereotypes regarding differences between men and women.
These differences often fueled anti-woman discrimination, state control and financial dependency.
As well, critics remarked the ruling set a precedent for women’s biology as child-bearers, as a basis for separate legislation.
Only later would working class critics note that the ruling did not cover domestics, agricultural workers, or white-collar workers.
The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act would supplant some parts of Muller with its guarantees for workers of both sexes.
Many working class women later welcomed the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in 1965, which prohibited employment discrimination.
Some would concede the many flaws of protective labor legislation that held women back.
But women’s rights advocates would continue to debate protective legislation and the Equal Rights Amendment well into the 1970s.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1969.
That was the day black food workers went on strike at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Their strike intersected many points central to the social upheaval of the period, including rights of public sector workers.
Besides extremely low wages, workers complained of racial abuse and discrimination on the job.
When the administration ignored their demands, the cafeteria workers sat down at the tables and refused to return to the kitchens.
Black women workers like Mary Smith and Elizabeth Brooks organized protests and rallies to build public support on and off campus.
As the strike wore on, many students rallied to their defense.
The Black Student Movement was the first campus group to support the cafeteria workers.
Noting the lag of desegregation on Southern campuses and in the South generally, black students added their own demands to those of the workers.
They included the expansion of black student aid programs and black studies programs.
Clashes escalated between students at Lenoir Hall a few weeks later when opposing white students attacked integrated groups of students sympathetic to the strike, forcing the closure of the cafeteria hall.
Governor Robert Scott ordered the National Guard on standby.
Finally, workers formed a union and won many of their demands.
This benefitted 5000 other state employees as well.
But a month later, the UNC administration betrayed them by contracting out food service.
Many were laid off or fired for union activity.
By the end of the year, the now AFSCME organized workforce struck again over many of the same issues.
When renewed student strike support was threatened, management quickly caved and the strike ended in victory.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2004.
That was the day Secretary of Education, Rod Paige stated he considered the National Education Association to be a terrorist organization.
He made the remarks during a meeting with governors who were visiting the White House.
His apology a few hours later was just as inflammatory.
There he expressed his frustration at the "obstructionist scare tactics the NEA’s Washington lobbyists have employed against No Child Left Behind’s historic reforms.”
Representing almost three million educators, the NEA had been fighting many aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act, passed by Congress in 2001.
The teachers’ unions had initially supported the measure.
But they came to realize that the act was designed to undermine public education in favor of charter, private and religious schools.
‘No Child Left Behind’ mandated regular, standardized testing of students.
It also threatened financial penalties and school closures.
Governors on board with the goals of the Act soon grew frustrated.
The Bush administration reneged on federal funding necessary for its implementation.
The union movement was outraged at Paige’s smear.
John Sweeney, then president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said, ''The Bush administration would like to label all those who disagree with it as terrorists in order to cover up its policies, which are harmful to working families, and to divert attention from its inability to create good jobs.''
By 2015, the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ had received so much criticism from every corner, that the ‘Every Student Succeeds Act’ replaced it.
This Act retains Common Core standards but transfers school accountability to the states.
It is now pending review under President Trump’s regulatory freeze directive.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1846.
That was the day Sarah Bagley became the first female telegraph operator.
She was hired at the office in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Sarah spent weeks studying the electrical theory behind the new technology and began her job in earnest.
She soon quit in protest after learning her pay was far less than her male counterparts.
Bagley was no stranger to labor struggles.
She was among the many Lowell textile workers who struck in 1842.
Bagley was one of the founders of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association.
She fought for the 10-hour day and better working conditions in the mills.
Sarah also helped to found the labor paper, The Voice of Industry.
When the Reform Association demanded state investigations into working conditions at area mills, she stated, “Is anyone such a fool as to suppose that out of six thousand girls in Lowell, sixty would be there if they could help it? Whenever I raise the point that it is immoral to shut us up in a room twelve hours a day… I am told that we have come to the mills voluntarily and we can leave when we will. Voluntarily! … the whip which brings us to Lowell is necessity. We must have money; a father’s debts are to be paid, an aged mother to be supported, a brother’s ambition to be aided and so the factories are supplied. Is this to act from free will? Is this freedom? To my mind it is slavery.”
Bagley returned to Lowell’s Hamilton mills after she quit the telegraph office.
She briefly continued her activism until she married and moved to Brooklyn.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1805.
That was the day abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Angelina Grimke was born.
Her parents were slaveholders and among the wealthiest in Charleston, South Carolina.
As a young woman, she denounced slavery and together with her sister, Sarah, moved north to Philadelphia to join the Quakers.
There she became a teacher but grew frustrated with how the Quakers approached abolitionism.
She quickly gravitated towards radical abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and became active in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.
She became prominent in abolitionist circles in 1835 after Garrison published her letter condemning pro-slavery riots in Boston.
The next year, she published an open letter to Southern women demanding they condemn the institution of slavery.
Angelina and Sarah embarked on abolitionist speaking tours and the organizing of women’s anti-slavery societies.
Having grown up in the South, the Grimke sisters held an especial authority among Northern abolitionists.
They could testify to the severity and inhumanity of the slave system.
They did so in the book, American Slavery As It Is, written together with Angelina’s husband abolitionist Theodore Weld.
Controversy intensified against Angelina and her sister as their popularity grew.
Religious leaders and abolitionists alike bristled at the idea of women engaged in public speaking and political work.
Undeterred, the sisters defended their right to be on equal footing with men in the abolitionist movement.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s sister, Catherine, a leading educator, was among those who decried women’s public activism.
Angelina responded that all humans are moral beings worthy of human rights, regardless of gender.
Her response served as an early contribution to the women’s rights movement in the 19th century.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1910.
That was the day streetcar workers in Philadelphia walked off the job just as garment workers were ending their victorious strike.
The walkout soon turned into a general strike.
The Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees Local 477 had been trying to negotiate fewer hours, higher wages and union recognition for almost a year.
Philadelphia Rapid Transit broke off negotiations in mid-February, fired 173 union members and imported scab replacements from New York City.
The Amalgamated called workers out. Strikers pulled apart buildings under construction and used the materials to block tracks and build strike shelters.
Many trolley cars were badly damaged when PRT attempted to resume service.
Scab drivers fared as badly as the trains they attempted to run.
The mayor called for citizens to serve police duty after strikers loaded dynamite onto tracks in Germantown.
The union offered up its members to preserve order but the Mayor refused.
Then the PRT brought in an additional 600 scabs and National Guardsmen to protect them.
Area workers were infuriated at this latest move, as were small businesses and religious groups.
On March 5, the Central Federated Union called a general strike.
More than 75,000 workers stayed off the job, to protest PRT’s anti-worker assaults.
Though the general strike was called off at the end of March, transit workers stayed out until April 19.
They won wage increases, rehiring of strikers and mediation for the initial 173 fired workers.
They could not secure exclusive union recognition.
But the strike solidified solidarity among area workers and demonstrated the capacity of labor to organize work actions across industrial lines.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1688.
That was the day Germantown Quakers gathered to petition against slavery, in the first documented anti-slavery protest in America.
Quaker colonists in Barbados began to question slavery in the 1670s.
By 1688, founder of Germantown, Francis Daniel Pastorius and three other Quakers met at Thones Kunder’s house to craft a petition.
They urged their fellow congregants to abolish slavery.
The petition detailed its opposition to the importation, sale, and ownership of slaves.
Rooted in the Golden Rule, ”Do Unto Others as They Would Do Unto You,” the men questioned why Christians would own slaves when they would not own each other.
They argued that slaves had broad universal rights, including the right to engage in slave revolts in order to assure their freedom.
The petition traveled its way through the Quaker network but many felt it was “too weighty” a matter on which to take a position.
Those Germantown settlers who felt strongly about ending slavery left the Quaker community for the Mennonites.
Over the course of the next century, Quakers in Germantown would craft stronger anti-slavery petitions that influenced the broader Quaker community in Philadelphia to take a formal stand.
By the time of the American Revolution, Philadelphia Quakers published numerous attacks on the institution in Benjamin Franklin’s newspaper.
They formally banned the ownership of slaves at their Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1776.
Throughout the region, Quakers routinely raised funds for those who had escaped bondage, to start new lives and helped them integrate into Quaker communities.
Quakers would continue to play a prominent and active role in the Abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1936.
That was the day more rubber workers sat down in Akron, Ohio.
Tire builders in Goodyear’s Plant 2, Department 251-A sat down when 700 coworkers were laid off. Goodyear had been running four, six-hour shifts.
They hoped to reduce the workforce by implementing three, eight-hour shifts with no increase in pay. Management moved quickly to fire all of the strikers.
By the 17th, all 4000 workers at Goodyear voted to strike over the layoffs and firings, speed-up and the new shift hours and pay.
The enormous, 11-mile facility was immediately shut down.
In his book, Strike! historian Jeremy Brecher indicates that few if any were union members.
The United Rubber Workers was hesitant to associate itself with the sit-down.
Rubber workers organized themselves.
They set up 24-hour pickets at dozens of gates, built striker shanties and set their demands.
After six days, the URW sanctioned the strike.
Brecher describes the scene: “The company…secured an injunction against mass picketing. 10,000 trades people from across the city gathered with lead pipe and baseball bats to stop 150 sheriffs’ deputies from opening the plants.
The Summit County Central Labor Council guaranteed a general strike if Law and Order League vigilantes carried out a threatened March 18 attack on picket lines.
The vigilante movement was paralyzed. Federal mediators demanded a return to work and arbitration.
Workers responded, "No, no, a thousand times no, I'd rather die than say yes."
Finally, Goodyear capitulated on most of the demands, except formal recognition of the union.
Rubber workers returned to work largely victorious.”
After renewed struggles, workers finally won union recognition a year later.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2011.
That was the day Madison Public School teachers held a sickout, in opposition to Governor Scott Walker’s anti-labor assaults.
Walker had introduced Assembly Bill 11.
Later known as Act 10, this union-busting bill proposed the elimination of collective bargaining rights for public sector workers regarding health and pension benefits, limited wage increases, eliminated dues collection and mandated annual union recertification.
Immediately, tens of thousands of protesters descended on the state capitol, chanting, “Kill the Bill,” and took part in hearings to voice their opposition.
Area schools remained closed for days as protests continued to grow throughout the spring.
While parts of Act 10 have been ruled unconstitutional in the years since, the legislation has nonetheless wreaked havoc.
A recent series in Milwaukee’s Journal-Sentinel, titled “Act 10 at Five,” examined how public school teachers have fared since the Madison Uprising.
They found that 75% of school districts are losing teachers, retirements have surged, less are entering the profession and most job-hop to the highest salary offers.
Teachers’ unions like MTEA and WEAC report major losses.
MTEA notes that membership is down by 30%. WEAC reports that membership and dues collections were cut in half and there are difficulties in organizing new teachers.
Seniority rights have evaporated and layoffs are increasingly tied to performance.
Annual salary growth has slowed, stopped or reversed.
Teacher morale is low in many districts.
Teachers often complain of additional unpaid duties, larger class sizes and more performance reviews.
There are new restrictions on attire, speech and political activities.
If there is any good news, it is that unions survive annual recertification and remaining members are more active and engaged in union work.
Labor History in 2:00https://feed.podbean.com/laborhistoryin2/feed.xml
A daily, pocket-sized history of America's working people, brought to you by The Rick Smith Show team.
February 15 -The Uprising of the 20,000 Comes to a CloseMonday Feb 15, 2021
On this day in labor history, the year was 1910.
That was the day the ‘Uprising of the 20,000’ officially ended in New York City.
As many as 30,000 young, predominantly immigrant Jewish women went back to work after a bitter 11-week strike.
They faced down their bosses, police and the courts. Arrests and fines drained much of the union’s funds.
Young union leaders like Clara Lemlich had been arrested 17 times and suffered 6 broken ribs.
Women garment workers spent most of the winter running to union meetings, handing out leaflets, walking picket lines, raising funds and distributing strike benefits.
Many smaller shops settled in workers’ favor early on in the strike.
By mid-February, closed shop demands kept many workers on the picket lines.
The strike ended with partial, but real victories. Garment workers won the 52-hour workweek, 4 paid holidays, employer-paid tools and materials, collectively bargained wages and more.
The ILGWU started the strike with 100 members and had 20,000 by the end.
All but 14 of the city’s 353 shops signed contracts.
But many garment workers continued to face unsafe working conditions like locked doors and flimsy or non-functioning fire escapes.
Safety-related demands would not be addressed until after the 60,000 strong cloak makers strike the following summer.
One of the largest factories and worst offenders was Triangle ShirtWaist.
Workers there went back with no agreement.
147 would die a year later in a tragic fire.
In the aftermath, basic fire safety principles were finally established and implemented in New York State workplaces.
These formed the foundations for many modern day fire safety practices, like exit signs and doors, better ventilation and sprinkler systems, fire alarms and drills.
Labor History in 2:00https://feed.podbean.com/laborhistoryin2/feed.xml
A daily, pocket-sized history of America's working people, brought to you by The Rick Smith Show team.
February 14 - Kansas City Laundresses Walk Off the JobSunday Feb 14, 2021
On this day in labor history, the year was 1918.
That was the day 300 commercial laundresses in Kansas City walked off the job, demanding a union.
Male laundry delivery drivers successfully organized the previous summer.
They soon joined the women on the picket lines.
The Employers’ Association had financed an open-shop drive since the beginning of the war.
The laundry companies refused to grant wage increases to the drivers.
They also refused to acknowledge the women’s demand for a union.
The Women’s Trade Union League tried to hold hearings about the strike at the Hotel Muehlebach.
But the Hotel refused to allow striking black workers into the building.
As a result, their white coworkers refused to testify.
When the hearings were finally moved, the women told of intolerable conditions.
Laundresses complained of filthy workplaces and potential firetraps.
They reported that laundry owners had put together their own private police force.
These guns for hire assaulted women strikers, breaking one’s arm, another’s wrist and injuring many more in hopes of deterring them from pressing on with their demands.
In the 6th week of the strike, 25,000 more workers of Kansas City called a general strike.
According to historian Maurine Weiner Greenwald, “they supported the laundry workers’ demands for increased wages, union recognition and enforcement of state regulations regarding hours and working conditions.”
Greenwald notes the general strike was relatively peaceful until the Kansas City Railway attempted to run streetcars with scab labor.
Finally, the laundry companies agreed to union recognition and later promised wage increases.
They soon reneged. But the show of solidarity among workers provided key lessons for future labor struggles in Kansas City.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day Indiana Governor, M. Clifford Townsend, dispatched State National Guard troops to Anderson, Indiana.
The national strike against GM had just ended in victory for the union two days earlier.
UAW forces were emboldened by the militancy, solidarity and public support for the union in Flint. But Anderson was a company town.
It was home to GM’s Guide Lamp and Delco-Remy divisions.
GM employed over 11,000 of the town’s 40,000 residents.
Guide Lamp workers struck in late December and Delco-Remy plants closed to prevent sit-downs.
Foremen visited workers in their homes, demanding signatures for back-to-work petitions.
The Citizens League for Industrial Security whipped almost half the town into an anti-union frenzy.
The entire month of January was so marred by anti-union violence and intimidation, the strike had to be abandoned.
When the national strike ended, the UAW organized a victory meeting.
It was held virtually under siege by an anti-union mob.
Victor Reuther recalled he aged 10 years that night.
Anti-union violence broke out the next evening at the Gold Band Tavern.
The bar owner shot and wounded at least 10 UAW members.
Union backup headed to Anderson. Fearing UAW forces, the Indiana National Guard was deployed and Madison County was placed under martial law for 10 days.
In the classic history of the Flint Sit-Down, Sidney Fine explains that anti-union sentiment began to break down once workers learned GM had been forced to eliminate incentive pay.
The union newspaper proclaimed: “The men and women who fought on the picket line; who withstood the terror of the vigilantes; who kept their faith under trying conditions; these people changed the conditions in the shops.”
Labor History in 2:00https://feed.podbean.com/laborhistoryin2/feed.xml
A daily, pocket-sized history of America's working people, brought to you by The Rick Smith Show team.
February 12 - The NAACP is FoundedFriday Feb 12, 2021
On this day in labor history, the year was 1909.
That was the day the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded.
During the early years of the 20thcentury, the NAACP developed legal strategies to challenge anti-Black violence and segregation.
W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, Archibald Grimke and Florence Kelley were just a few of the white and black intellectuals and activists who founded the organization.
They sensed the urgency for a civil rights organization in the wake of the 1908 Race Riot in Springfield, IL.
They hoped to combat the rapid growth of lynchings and Jim Crow statutes.
Membership ballooned to almost 90,000 in less than 10 years, with more than 50 branches nationwide.
These leaders opposed the gradualism of Booker T. Washington and fought to convince whites of the need for racial equality.
The NAACP investigated lynchings and targeted disfranchisement and segregation through a series of lawsuits.
They established a Legal Defense Fund that organized support for the Scottsboro Boys and similar cases.
They undertook the campaign to overturn the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson.
This resulted in the 1954 landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education.
The NAACP played a central role in the Civil Rights movement with Rosa Parks as its secretary.
They helped to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott, were centrally involved in the campaign to integrate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, and mobilized for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
They also worked successfully towards the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The NAACP continues its important advocacy work today with some 425,000 members.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1981.
That was the day at least eight workers at Sequoyah I nuclear reactor in Tennessee were exposed to radioactive coolant.
The reactor was part of the vast Tennessee Valley Authority that provided electrical power to the region.
Sequoyah I had just been commissioned and was already off to a bad start.
First, on January 19, 1981, a generator tube malfunctioned, forcing a complete shut down.
Then on February 11, an operator error triggered an emergency alert.
An Auxiliary Unit Operator was working his first day on the new job without proper training.
He inadvertently opened the wrong valve during a safety test.
The operator misunderstood his instructions and recognized his mistake immediately.
But when he tried to alert the control room, they were too busy responding to the developing crisis to answer his call.
Reactor water sprayed for 10 minutes before it was finally shut off.
As many as 14 workers were contaminated by the coolant.
Some scientists contend that the release of reactor vessel water was inadvertent and part of the design of the cooling system.
Others argue that, in order to cut costs, management had decided to use radioactively contaminated water as emergency coolant rather than the more expensive fresh, uncontaminated water.
Steam leaks, tube malfunctions and overflowing drainage tanks were just some of the reported failures at the plant in the following years.
Between 1985 and 1988, Sequoyah was forced to shut down again after an independent review concluded that the plant did not comply with current safety standards.
Today the plant supplies electricity to more than 1.3 million homes.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1973.
That was the day the worst industrial disaster in Staten Island took place.
Staten Island housed the world’s largest Liquefied Natural Gas storage tank.
The Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation owned the tank and operated a pipeline system that stretched from Texas to the East Coast.
The tank measured 272 feet across and was as tall as an 11-story building.
When leaks were suspected, the company had the tank emptied and shut down.
Workers had been repairing the torn Mylar insulation in the tank’s liner for months.
But then, vapors released during the repair process ignited the lining.
This created extreme temperature and pressure rise, which caused an explosion inside the tank.
The entire 6” thick concrete dome covering the tank immediately crumbled and rained down on workers inside.
Concrete and Excavating Laborers Local 731 reported that 40 workers and 3 safety inspectors were inside at the time.
None of them survived.
The explosion caused a massive crater.
Smoke billowed out for over five hours.
Investigations revealed that nitrogen, Freon 11 and oxygen, and not LNG, caused the explosion. But the cause was never determined.
Some 25 years later, the New York Planning Board began re-evaluating a moratorium on LNG facilities, in place since 1978.
They concluded that: "The government regulations and industry operating practices now in place would prevent a replication of this accident.
The fire involved combustible construction materials and a tank design that are now prohibited.
Although the exact causes may never be known, it is certain that LNG was not involved in the accident and the surrounding areas outside the facility were not exposed to risk."
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day Sheriff Theodore Middleton and his deputies in Harlan County shot into the house of UMWA organizer Marshall Musick, killing his 15 year-old son, Bennett.
Musick organized for UMWA’s District 19.
He traveled all over Harlan County. As a district organizer, he was beaten, arrested, and evicted from company housing repeatedly.
Some of the mines were organized in Harlan County but barely.
Many coal operators controlled area sheriff departments and restricted daily life of miners and their union representatives.
Organizing drives started in January 1937.
Union men faced extreme physical violence.
Organizers were tear gassed in early January.
Their cars were dynamited later that month.
Musick and his wife were shot at and warned repeatedly to leave town.
Another organizer had his door busted down by deputies and his house ransacked.
Musick finally agreed to leave town to keep his family safe.
When he arrived in Pineville on February 9, he learned his son had been killed in a firestorm of bullets shot into his house.
On March 22, the LaFollette Committee on Civil Liberties opened hearings into Bloody Harlan.
It lasted for six weeks.
The high court drama appeared every day in the Courier Journal.
The Justice Department indicted 69 Harlan County Coal Operators and law officers for criminal conspiracy to violate the Wagner Act.
Meanwhile, the new National Labor Relations Board answered UMWA charges and found in the union’s favor.
The Board issued a cease and desist order against interference with union activity and ordered the reinstatement of 60 coal miners.
Union membership soared to 9000.
The UMWA would continue for decades to fight to keep Harlan County organized.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1919.
That was the day copper miners in Butte, Montana went on strike.
Mine owners announced a $1 a day wage cut when copper prices slumped in financial markets.
Swayed by the power of the Seattle General Strike then in progress, miners associated with the IWW and the Metal Mine Workers Union, Local 800 formed their own Soldiers’, Sailors’, and Workers’ Council.
They issued a call for a general strike.
For days, area trade unionists honored picket lines, left their jobs and held meetings to debate joining a general strike.
The streetcar workers shut down public transportation for five days.
Soldiers returning from the war helped man picket lines.
The labor paper, Butte Daily Bulletinreported the post-war economy left returning war heroes penniless and working in dangerous mines.
While solidarity was unanimous among workers, their unions had yet to pass formal resolutions.
Immediately, Montana’s governor, Sam V. Stewart, called in the 44th Infantry to crush the strike. Infantrymen bayoneted nine strikers, when they tried to stop the anti-labor Butte Daily Post from being distributed.
Spirits were high by the end of the first week as official voting began.
The streetcar men went back to work, citing no grievances with their employer.
Then the engineers followed. Finally the IBEW caved.
They worried the engineers would take their jobs, as they had done in a 1917 strike.
The IWW and local 800 called off the strike, fearing continuation would be fatal.
Though most of the troops were soon withdrawn, one company stayed to ensure labor peace at the local water and electric works.
Butte would remain under federal military occupation until the end of 1920.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1894.
That was the day, gold miners in Cripple Creek, Colorado walked out on strike.
Mine owners increased the workday from 8 to 10 hours.
They refused to increase workers pay accordingly.
Workers immediately affiliated with the Western Federation of Miners. Local 19 leader, John Calderwood demanded a return to the 8-hour day at the previous wage, but the mine owners refused.
About 6 weeks into the strike, the larger gold mines imported scabs.
Violence soon followed.
The El Paso county sheriff demanded the governor call out the state militia.
But Colorado’s governor, Davis Waite was Populist. He recalled the troops upon learning they would be used as strike breakers.
Soon the mine owners raised their own private army of 100 troops, which grew to over 1200.
By May, miners armed themselves.
They took over a mine in Victor and blew it up when deputies arrived with scabs.
Governor Waite ordered the owners’ private army disbanded and called the militia out to defend strikers.
The mine owners agreed to return to the 8-hour workday at no loss in pay, but refused to disband their army.
They arrested and beat hundreds of miners.
The owners finally disbanded the forces when the governor threatened the militia’s presence in Victor for a month to keep the scab army immobilized.
It was the first and probably only time a state militia was called out in defense of striking workers.
According to Erik Loomis, “It was arguably organized labor’s biggest win in the Gilded Age.” Waite lost the next election.
But the victory meant enormous organizing gains for the WFM throughout the Rocky Mountain region.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1910. That was the day Philadelphia Garment workers ended their strike in victory. The strike began just five days before Christmas. 7,000 young women walked out of area factories when they learned their shops were receiving orders from struck shops in New York City.
Often referred to as the ‘Uprising of the 20,000,’ striking New York City garment workers had rocked the industry.
The number of strikers in Philadelphia soon grew to over 15,000.
The young women crafted their own demands.
They wanted shorter workdays, uniform wages, better pay and union recognition.
Close to 300 arrests were made in the first weeks of the strike.
Labor leaders like Big Bill Haywood and Mother Jones addressed picketers, walked the lines and offered financial support.
Mother Jones declared, “Let us live together or starve together. We will let New York know that we can also fight. We will march up and down the streets of Philadelphia in solid ranks until victory is ours.”
Strikers marched throughout the area to call out workers in many of the smaller shops.
Tragically, at least 7 were killed and a dozen or more seriously injured in a fire at a smaller shop that continued to operate throughout the strike.
When manufacturers agreed to some concessions but refused union recognition, the women would not settle, stating, “We will go back to work as a union or starve.”
Historian Daniel Sidorick notes the gains won “demonstrated the resolute determination of the strikers to see their struggle through to victory, even in defiance of their union leaders, when necessary, and to the amazement of almost all observers.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1900.
That was the day the newly formed Building Contractors Council locked out 40,000 building tradesmen in Chicago.
The Contractors Council was founded in opposition to the power of the Building Trades Council.
Solidarity among the trades galvanized their ability to determine wages and working conditions throughout the city.
Hard-won gains included use of sympathy strikes, restriction of laborsaving machinery and apprentices, and work pace and production limits.
In 1899, citywide building trades contracts expired.
Backed by financiers, manufacturers and engineers, the new council demanded the unions abandon these gains and cut all ties with the Building Trades Council.
The contractors cited the more than 20 walkouts at the Montgomery Ward construction site as but one example.
The bosses’ were driven to destroy what historian Andrew Wender Cohen refers to as ‘craft governance’ in the city.
Incredulous, the crafts refused to recognize the contractors council or its demands.
The contractors locked them out.
They brought in 6000 scabs to continue construction work throughout the city.
Pitched battles continued daily in the streets between locked out tradesmen and scabs.
Many contractors brought in cots and food to non-union workers, keeping them on job sites until completion.
Labor-friendly Mayor Carter Harrison II offered to mediate, but refused police protection of scabs.
The contractors built up their own private force.
Then they injected an added racial dimension to the conflict.
Among the non-union workers, some were black tradesmen, briefly hired as construction workers and job site guards.
The lockout ended in a 1901 defeat for the Building Trades, whose ranks were decimated by 90%.
The building trades bounced back and were soon a formidable force in Chicago.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day victorious West Coast Maritime Workers ended their 99-day strike.
40,000 members of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific reasserted control of hiring halls, and won greater union recognition and wage increases.
The Federation was a short-lived coalition to unite longshoremen and seamen that anticipated the rise of the ILWU.
Since the 1934 strike, ship owners aimed to break the authority of union leader, Harry Bridges.
They engaged in relentless red baiting and deportation drives against Bridges.
In the weeks leading up to the strike, the ship owners looked to smash the solidarity among seamen and longshoremen through a planned lockout the previous September.
They stockpiled their warehouses, built up additional funds and promoted anti-union hysteria up and down the coast.
They entered into talks with the Federation during the summer of 1936, hoping to renegotiate terms originally set by arbitration awards soon to expire.
Three main West Coast shipping companies, Matson, Dollar and American-Hawaiian wanted to reverse earlier agreements regarding control of the hiring halls.
The unions stood strong against this attack on what was a cornerstone of union power.
They voted overwhelmingly to strike and walked out October 30.
As in 1934, the unions fought to defend its right to control the hiring hall.
This kind of control was the only mechanism that could prevent favoritism, discrimination, corruption and pay-offs in hiring.
In Irving Bernstein’s Turbulent Years, he notes that in addition to retention of control of hiring halls, the federation gained coast-wide uniformity in working conditions, in load limits and standardized rates.
The Federation may have been short-lived, but the roots of lasting ILWU power were firmly established.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1908.
That was the day the Supreme Court ruled on the Loewe V. Lawlor case, also known as the Danbury Hatter’s Case.
In 1902, the United Hatters of North America attempted to organize the fur hat company, D.E. Loewe & Company.
Loewe refused to meet with the union.
The union struck and called for a nationwide boycott of Loewe hats.
The AFL assisted in popularizing the boycott.
They worked to convince retailers and customers not to buy from Loewe.
The company sued the union’s business agent and hundreds of its members.
Loewe claimed the union violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by interfering with interstate commerce.
The Sherman Act had been designed to control business monopolies, trusts and cartels, like Standard Oil company.
An 1893 case, United States v. Workingmen’s Amalgamated Council of New Orleans, established that the Sherman Act applied to labor unions as well.
In the Danbury Hatter’s Case, the Supreme Court ruled that the union combined to restrain trade or commerce among several states.
The union countered by arguing that the union did not interfere with the transportation of hats and were not themselves engaged in interstate commerce.
But the union lost.
In addition to violating the Sherman Act, the Court argued that individual union members could be held personally liable for damages incurred by their union.
The union was eventually held liable in damages amounting to about $235,000.
The AFL pushed back, demanding reforms in the Sherman Act.
Partial reforms came with the Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914.
But it would be another 20 years before the Norris-LaGuardia Act would exempt organized labor from antitrust injunctions.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1848.That was the day the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed.
It signaled the end of the Mexican-American War.
The war began in May 1846 when the United States sought to expand its annexation of Texas.
It immediately became a partisan issue between pro- and anti-slavery forces.
Southern Democrats and slave plantation owners favored war with Mexico.
They hoped to undercut rising Northern industrial power with the expansion of slave territory.
Whigs and Northern abolitionists opposed the war for the same reason.
After almost two years of fighting, the war ended.
In exchange for $15 million, the United States gained 525,000 square miles of land.
This territory included all or parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Mexico gave up all claims to Texas and the Rio Grande was established as the border.
The initial Treaty promised protection of land and civil rights, and full citizenship for those Mexicans who stayed on the newly acquired territory.
These guarantees were deleted from the final ratification.
Expansionist aims reignited debates about the extension of slavery.
The newly formed Free Soil Party gained traction with its campaign “to limit, localize and discourage slavery.”
Their banner read “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men.”
Antagonisms were briefly tempered with the Compromise of 1850.
This allowed California to be admitted as a free state.
It also prevented the outlawing of slavery in the new territories.
The slave trade was banned in the District of Columbia.
But a new and more stringent Fugitive Slave Law was enacted.
Debates regarding expansion of slavery would rage on throughout the 1850s, culminating in the Civil War.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That day marked a pivotal moment in the continuing Flint sit-down strike.
The nationwide strike against GM started in Flint in late December.
By late January, UAW organizers agreed that nearby Chevrolet Engine Plant #4 had to be shut down.
It was a massive facility.
It employed 4000 workers on two shifts
The plant superintendant had been firing union activists.
Armed guards patrolled every inch of the facility to prevent a sit-down.
Union organizers knew there were company spies in their ranks.
They planned the takeover by staging distracting job actions at nearby Chevrolet plants #9 and then #6.
This would draw the guards away from plant #4.
And so, on this day, just as the day shift was ending, workers sat down at Chevy plant #9.
The company guards were ready to launch an attack.
They began beating and gassing the sit-downers.
The Women’s Emergency Brigade smashed plant windows to dissipate the gas.
The diversion worked. Guards left Chevy #4 unattended.
Workers there turned off all the machines and barricaded themselves in.
The plant guards tried to reenter and were met with pistons, connector rods and fire hoses.
The Women’s Emergency Brigade gathered outside the plant and locked arms.
UAW organizer Joe Sayen announced, “We want the whole world to understand what we are fighting for. We are fighting for freedom and life and liberty. This is our one great opportunity. What if we should be defeated? What if we should be killed? We have only one life. That’s all we can lose and we might as well die like heroes than like slaves.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 2006.
That was the day 7,000 teachers and staff at the Orleans Parish School District in New Orleans, Louisiana were fired.
The public schools were considered some of the worst in the country.
The school district was also bankrupt.
It was unable to account for $71 million dollars in federal funds.
After Hurricane Katrina, the school district lost nearly its entire tax base.
The district cancelled all pay and health insurance for its teachers and staff.
Then, the state of Louisiana seized control of most of the city’s 128 schools.
A majority were either closed or turned over to charter school operators.
The school district fired its remaining teachers and staff.
It was a union-busting maneuver against the United Teachers of New Orleans.
The union was an AFT affiliate.
Organized in 1972, it was the first integrated education union in the South.
Its membership overwhelmingly consisted of African-American women.
After the schools were turned over to the charters, they were replaced by inexperienced Teach for America workers.
Many of these new teachers did not have any teacher certification.
A class-action lawsuit followed.
In 2014, Louisiana’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that teachers and staff were not given due process and had the right to be rehired as schools reopened after Katrina.
The damages could amount to $1.5 billion.
Ten years after Katrina, a New York Times article asked, “Was Hurricane Katrina ‘the best thing that ever happened to the education system in New Orleans,’ as Education Secretary Arne Duncan once said?”
The answer has been resounding, no.
In the years since, the union has fought successfully to organize many of the charter schools in New Orleans.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2011.
That was the day California first celebrated its state holiday, known as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution.
Born on January 30, 1919, Fred Korematsu was among those victimized by President Roosevelt’s wartime Executive Order 9066, mandating Japanese-American internment.
Born in Oakland, California, Korematsu worked as a shipyard welder.
He was arrested and eventually convicted after refusing to report to authorities for internment.
The ACLU took his case, hoping to test the legality of 9066.
Korematsu and his family were relocated to the Central Utah Wars Relocation Center in Topaz, Utah.
There he worked eight hours a day for $12 a month and waited for his case to travel through the legal system.
It eventually reached the Supreme Court.
In Korematsu v. United States, the Court held that compulsory exclusion, though constitutionally suspect, is justified during circumstances of "emergency and peril.”
After his release, Korematsu worked odd jobs, and faced discrimination and wage theft.
He eventually resettled in Oakland with his wife and children.
In 1983, Korematsu’s conviction was finally vacated.
Fifteen years later, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He became a tireless activist for civil liberties and worked to ensure internment could never happen again.
Before his death in 2005, he served on the Constitution Project’s Liberty and Security Committee.
He warned, "No one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy.”
Fred Korematsu Day is also celebrated in Hawaii, Virginia and Florida.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1912.
That was the day striking worker, Anna LoPizzo was shot and killed by local police during the pivotal Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
In what is considered one of the most important strikes in American labor history.
The Industrial Workers of the World had organized a strike that brought out more than 30,000 textile mill workers at the American Woolen Company.
Workers had been on strike for most of the month, picketing, marching, giving speeches and stopping scabs.
Their banners demanded a living wage and dignity: Bread and Roses.
That day, there were workers parades among pitched battles between strikers, police and scabs.
Gunfire erupted.
According to Big Bill Haywood, nineteen witnesses saw Police Officer Oscar Benoit shoot Anna LoPizzo.
But the shooting provided the mill owners with an opportunity to crack down on the strike.
Martial law was instituted and all public meetings and marches were banned.
The leading IWW strike organizers, John Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti were arrested for her murder, despite the fact that they were two miles away from the scene.
Though they were eventually acquitted, their imprisonment removed them from directing the day-to-day work of the strike.
But who was Anna LoPizzo?
According to Bruce Watson, author of Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream, “If America had a Tomb of the Unknown immigrant paying tribute to the millions of immigrants known only to God and distant cousins compiling family trees, Anna LoPizzo would be a prime candidate to lie in it.”
And indeed she was for 88 years until retired IBEW 2321 business manager, David Morris worked to get a headstone, decorated with the Bread and Roses symbol–grain stalks and a rose, for her pauper’s grave.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917.
That was the day Carmelita Torres led the Bath Riots at the El Paso/ Juarez border.
Mexican workers traveled daily across the Sante Fe Bridge from Juarez, Mexico into El Paso, Texas for work.
As a condition of entry, workers were required to strip naked and be sprayed with a toxic mixture of chemicals.
U.S. Health officials insisted they were stopping the spread of typhus through this type of delousing campaign.
They were just as motivated by racist typecasting of Mexicans as dirty.
David Dorado Romo, author of Ringside to a Revolution, tells the story of 17-year old Carmelita Torres.
Amid rumors that health workers secretly photographed and then distributed photos of the naked women as they were being sprayed, Carmelita crossed into El Paso everyday where she worked as a maid.
On this day, instead of stripping down, she refused fumigation and convinced the other women to demonstrate with her against this humiliating, daily procedure.
Within an hour, she and 200 other women had blocked all traffic coming into El Paso.
Newspaper reports claimed several thousand protesters by the end of the day.
The women marched to the disinfection camp, hoping to convince those undergoing “disinfection” to join them.
When health officials tried to disperse the crowd, they were met with rocks and bottles.
The women then laid down on the trolley car tracks to stop the delivery of more workers and wrestled with motormen for control of the cars.
The riots lasted for three days, but the spraying of Mexican workers with DDT and other toxic chemicals continued for more than 40 years.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1908.
That was the day the United States Supreme Court ruled that bans on “yellow-dog” contracts were unconstitutional in the case, Adair v United States.
The case served to nullify the Erdman Act of 1898, which had banned such contracts for those who worked on moving trains in the railroad industry.
The Erdman Act had been a response to the 1894 Pullman strike.
At that time, the federal government smashed workers striking against deep wage cuts and for union recognition with Eugene V. Debs’ American Railway Union.
Seeking to prevent any disruption along the railroads, the Erdman Act banned any contracts that required workers to renounce unions in order to gain employment, recognized the right of union organizations as a means of collective bargaining and established mechanisms for the arbitration of grievances.
In 1906, William Adair, a supervisor with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad fired a member of the Order of Locomotive Firemen for his membership.
Adair was indicted under the Erdman Act, found guilty and fined.
He then appealed to the Supreme Court and won.
The Supreme Court ruled that the Erdman Act violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment and served to supersede the Commerce Clause in the Constitution.
The court argued that the railroads’ employment decisions were a protected right so long as they did not injure the public interest.
Congress could not criminalize the firing of an employee because of union membership.
Dissenting opinion centered on the potential for renewed labor conflict.
Workers would have to wait almost 25 years for yellow-dog contracts to be banned in all industries with the passage of the 1932 Norris-LaGuardia Act.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1921.
That was the day Sid Hatfield and 22 other defendants went on trial for the murder of detective Albert Felts.
Hatfield was Chief of Police in Matewan, West Virginia when the United Mine Workers came to Mingo County to organize coal miners.
The Stone Mountain Coal Company moved to smash union activity.
They brought in Baldwin-Felts detectives to evict union miners from company housing.
Hatfield supported the miners’ right to organize and urged locals to arm themselves.
He confronted the detectives at the train depot as they were leaving town for the evening about the evictions they had just carried out.
The detectives presented Hatfield with a phony arrest warrant.
Surrounded by armed miners, a gun battle ensued, leaving at least 7 detectives and 4 townspeople dead, in what is referred to as the Matewan Massacre.
The trial was set in the Mingo County seat of Williamson, where Baldwin-Felts agents lined the streets to intimidate those sympathetic to Hatfield and the others.
The prosecution hoped to prove that Felts’ murder was premeditated and used the testimony of paid spies who had previously attempted to gain Hatfield’s trust and friendship.
According to historian James Green, author of The Devil Is Here In These Hills,“the ACLU had advised defense attorneys to turn the trial into a prosecution of the coal operators by introducing in evidence the entire record of their conspiracy to deny the citizens of West Virginia of their legal rights.”
The defense successfully discredited these paid agents and won acquittal.
When Hatfield and his deputies arrived back in Matewan, they were greeted as heroes by the entire town.
Hatfield however had a target on his back and would be gunned down a year later, sparking a coal war which ended with The Battle of Blair Mountain.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day workers at the Kent Avenue Power Plant in New York City struck at Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit.
The power plant served as the sole source of electrical power for the entire New York City subway system.
Transport Workers Union Local 100 had been trying to beat back the company’s push to form a company union through an educational organizing drive there.
Out of the 505 workers at the plant, only 35 were TWU members.
On this day, two boiler room engineers with 10 years on the job each were fired for their union activity and given 3 minutes to leave the plant.
Inspired by the Flint sit-down strike then in progress, TWU president Mike Quill called for a sit-down to protest the dismissals.
31 workers locked themselves in and Quill announced that if the two fired workers were not reinstated by 6 am the next morning, all switches would be pulled, shutting down the entire transit system.
He insisted that the BMT had long abused its workforce and was in violation of the new Wagner Act.
Newspaper headlines screamed of a workers insurrection at the power plant and the BMT quickly called in company goons to threaten the hundreds of picketers surrounding the plant.
Workers stood their ground and prevented strikebreaking forces from breaking through the barricaded entrances.
They organized food brigades and gained support even from the newspaper reporters who helped with food deliveries.
By 5:30 the next morning, the BMT gave in to the demands of Quill and the TWU and reinstated the fired workers.
Impressed by the victory of the job action, the power plant was fully organized two days later.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1874.
That was the day Arturo Alfonso Schomburg was born.
Schomburg was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance.
He is also considered a premier historian and collector of material on black life in America.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he arrived in the United States in 1891 and soon settled into the Cuban and Puerto Rican working class neighborhoods of New York City.
Schomburg initially involved himself in the Cuban and Puerto Rican Independence movements.
When he traveled to New Orleans, he experienced Jim Crow discrimination and witnessed black disenfranchisement firsthand.
He reacted strongly to the increased racial tensions, lynchings and race riots of the period and believed that “history must restore what slavery took away.”
In 1911, Schomburg and his friend, John Edward Bruce founded the Negro Society for Historical Research and established lasting friendships with intellectuals like W.E.B. DuBois.
He worked for the inclusion of black history into the educational system and continued to amass a wide collection of literature, art, books, pamphlets and manuscripts on black life and history.
His collection spanned material from across the world.
It included letters of Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture, poetry by Phyllis Wheatley, artifacts from Fredrick Douglass and other black leaders.
Schomburg’s private collection became the basis for the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library’s Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints, which opened in 1925.
The division served as a pivotal resource for Harlem Renaissance writers, poets and artists.
Known today as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, it is recognized as a leading repository for materials and artifacts on black cultural life.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1933.
That was the day 6,000 workers at Briggs Manufacturing in Detroit walked off the job and sparked a strike wave of 15,000 auto body workers.
Briggs made auto bodies for Ford, Chrysler and Hudson in four Detroit-area plants.
Their pay and working conditions were considered among the worst in the nation, inspiring the adage, “if poison doesn’t work, try Briggs.”
Earlier in the month, workers at the Waterloo plant, under the leadership of the short-lived Automobile Workers Union, struck against company-wide wage cuts and won.
Their victory encouraged workers at the Highland Park and Mack Avenue Briggs plants to walk out over additional demands, which they joined in solidarity.
Workers demanded the recognition of shop committees and pushed back against starvation wages.
They also protested the hated “dead-time” policy, which required workers to stay on the job, unpaid, waiting for material or production lines.
They wanted an end to pay deductions for tools and a worthless health insurance policy that left some with bi-weekly pay as low as 49 cents!
Briggs quickly conceded to a wage increase and the end of “dead-time.”
But they would not budge on recognizing the union.
As the strike dragged on, strikebreaking under police escort increased, as did the redbaiting of union organizers.
Workers gained nothing more and ended their walkout in early May.
According to historian Joyce Shaw Peterson, the walkout had been the most significant auto strike up to that point.
Worker militancy and public support were impressive.
As one worker recalled, after the Ford Hunger March the year before, workers took to the picket lines, facing down fears of physical injury or even death to fight for a better life.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1959.
That was the day the Susquehanna River flooded several mines throughout the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania.
It marked the virtual end to coal mining in the Northern Anthracite Region, whose coalmines provided some 11,000 jobs.
Knox Coal Company, owned by reputed mobster, John Sciandra, ordered workers to illegally excavate underneath the river to get at new coal seams, near Port Griffith.
The company hit the jackpot, and mined rich new veins.
Even though state regulations mandated a rock cover of 35 feet when tunneling underneath a waterway, theirs was only about six feet thick.
The roof of Knox Coal’s River Slope Mine soon collapsed and a reported 10 billion gallons of water, ice and debris from the river came smashing through.
The collapse created a whirlpool and dams were built to divert the river.
81 miners were trapped and many desperately searched for hours for an escape.
Some were able to get out through an abandoned airshaft.
The bodies of another 12 miners were never recovered.
Audrey Baloga Calvey recalled in an interview that her father, a miner who died in the flooding, predicted trouble at the mine before his death.
Saying "When the water would get high, he'd say, 'God, if that river ever breaks in, we'll be drowned like rats,.
Ten were indicted, including the mine’s president, Louis Fabrizio, Knox’s superintendent, and incredibly, UMWA District 1 president AND secret partner in the mine, August Lippi.
Several would serve prison time.
Four owners were convicted of tax evasion and four local union 8005 officials were convicted of taking bribes in sweetheart deal contracts, including Lippi.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1973.
That was the day Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers struck Shell Oil over health and safety issues.
OCAW had been involved in lobbying for the passage of OSHA and other environmentally related Acts.
Their members worked in some of the most dangerous, most toxic industries in the country.
By 1972, they demanded contract language for health and safety committees on the job.
The oil companies countered with accusations that improved safety proved too expensive and that OCAW used the issue to assert union control over the production process.
The other oil companies eventually settled in OCAW’s favor.
But Shell would not budge.
And so, the OCAW called a strike at eight facilities and a boycott of all Shell products.
They also successfully enlisted the support of environmental organizations by stressing toxic chemical exposure and hazards faced by workers and the public alike.
Picket lines were solid and thousands honored the boycott.
Sales for Shell fell by 25%.
After four months, the strike fund was nearly drained.
Shell exploited internal divisions among members at a Texas plant and negotiated a separate settlement.
What health and safety language Shell agreed to, was non-binding.
The union was broke and the strike ended in compromise in early June.
Despite this, as historian Robert Gordon notes, OCAW was able to “gain strong health and safety language at all other oil companies for the first time, heightened public awareness of health hazards confronting millions of workers…and pressured OSHA into adopting stricter standards. Perhaps more importantly, the strike solidified the tentative labor-environmental alliance.”
Having merged with the United Steelworkers, the union continues to secure safe working conditions through contracts and alliances today.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That was the day the Flint Women’s Emergency Brigades was founded.
Genora Johnson, a socialist, was a main leader of the Women’s Auxiliary Number 10 throughout the strike.
A different kind of auxiliary, it built the leadership skills of women through classes in labor history and public speaking.
It also set up a first-aid station and child-care center, raised strike funds and walked picket lines.
According to Janice Hassett, “the women moved beyond supporting the strike to participating in it.”
Fifty women signed up the next day.
By the end of the strike, over 300 women would join.
The women adopted an official uniform of red berets and red armbands.
They were armed with clubs to smash factory windows when police gassed sit-downers.
Their participation in the strike was heroic and their work continued after victory.
They sought to represent the interests of women autoworkers, who often found coworkers less than welcoming and experienced sexual harassment and occupational discrimination at the hands of supervision.
Many women autoworkers formed the core leadership of several chapters.
Historian Nancy Gabin notes that this was not always the appropriate arena for advocacy saying; “By encouraging women workers to participate in the auxiliaries, the UAW abdicated its responsibility to these workers.”
However, Johnson emphasized, “It was a radical change.... To give women a right to participate in discussions with their husbands, with other union members, with other women, to express their views... that was a radical change for those women at that time.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1909.
That was the day Lewis Hine photographed child workers standing on spinning frames to mend threads and replace empty bobbins at the Bibb Mill No.1 in Macon, GA.
It was just one example of the appalling use of children in industrial labor.
Hine built his career on photographic portraits of young miners and mill workers, child cotton pickers and factory workers.
In 1908, he was hired by the National Child Labor Committee to document child laborers across the country.
For the next fifteen years, Hine would contribute over 5000 photographs to the cause of ending child labor.
Photo historian Daile Kaplan described the ways in which Hines captured these images writing: “…Hine the gentleman actor and mimic assumed a variety of personas--including Bible salesman, postcard salesman, and industrial photographer making a record of factory machinery--to gain entrance to the workplace. When unable to deflect his confrontations with management, he simply waited outside the canneries, mines, factories, farms, and sweatshops with his fifty pounds of photographic equipment and photographed children as they entered and exited the workplace.”
NCLC investigators referenced the photographs in reports on particular industries and locations.
The NCLC used the photos to illustrate its own publications and succeeded in placing them in newspapers, progressive publications and exhibits.
One NCLC poster that featured Hine’s portraits read, “Making Human Junk: Shall Industry Be Allowed To Put This Cost On Society?”
By 1912, the NCLC persuaded Congress to create a United States Children’s Bureau.
The two organizations worked together to investigate abuses of child laborers.
Years of legislative and judicial battles followed, until finally in 1938 Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act.
On this day in labor history the year was 1909.
That was the day the United States Supreme Court decided the case of Moyers v. Peabody.
The case grew out of the Colorado Labor Wars, a series of back-to-back strikes in 1903 and 1904 in precious metals mines and ore mills.
The Colorado National Guard meted out violent assaults, arrests and deportations against strikers, often on orders from Governor James Peabody.
The state militia routinely rounded up strikers and union leaders, detained them for weeks in bullpens and ignored habeas corpus petitions.
Western Federation of Miners president, Charles Moyer arrived in Telluride during a strike to find these repressive conditions.
He signed a poster that read, “Is Colorado in America?”
The poster included an image listing the many violations of basic democratic rights on the American flag.
Moyer was arrested in March 1904 for desecration of the American flag on the poster.
He was detained on the grounds of military necessity, even after the courts ordered his release.
His case traveled through the state and federal courts until the Supreme Court ruled.
They held that “the governor and officers of a state National Guard, acting in good faith and under authority of law, may imprison without probable cause a citizen of the United States in a time of insurrection and deny that citizen the right of habeas corpus.”
The ruling radicalized the labor movement.
Many concluded there could be no justice through the court system.
A later case successfully challenged the ruling on the basis that claims of insurrection were subject to judicial review.
The ruling, however controversial, still stands and was invoked after 9/11 in the 2004 ruling Hamdi v Rumsfeld.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1971.
That was the day that the state police stormed Attica Correctional Facility in New York.
Four days earlier the inmates had taken over the prison.
One guard was killed.
The guards were members of AFSCME Council 82.
The prisoners demanded improvements to their brutal living conditions in the overcrowded prison.
Police retook most of the prison.
But the inmates held guards hostage in Cell Block D.
One of the prisoners, Elliot James Barkley explained the takeover.
“We are men. We are not beasts and we do not depend to be beaten or driven as such. The entire prison populace, that means each and every one of us here, have set forth to change forever the ruthless brutalization and disregard for the lives of the prisoners here and throughout the United States.”
When the state police stormed the prison they dropped tear gas from helicopters.
They fired 3,000 rounds, firing on the prisoners and hostages indiscriminately.
They killed 29 inmates and 10 hostages.
The police claimed the prisoners had killed the hostages.
They also accused the inmates of committing atrocities against the guards.
Public outrage swelled against the inmates, including racially-charged hate directed at the black prisoners.
But autopsies proved that all those killed had been felled by police bullets.
Attica became rallying cry for those concerned about prison conditions.
It has been referenced by many in movies andsongs, including John Lennon’s Attica State
On this day in Labor History the year was 1997.
That was the day that Union Square in New York City was named a National Historic Landmark.
Republican Governor George Pataki explained the importance of the park in a press release.
“It is only fitting that the National Parks Service should recognize Union Square Park’s long history as a focal point for political expression. New York is proud that the first Labor Day Parade took place here in Union Square Park more than a hundred years ago, establishing a tradition that spread across the nation.”
Although the park was very important to the labor movement—that is not why it is known as “Union Square.”
The park got its name because it was the place of intersection, or union, of two busy New York roads—what are today Broadway and Fourth Avenue.
In 1831 the open space at the intersection was declared a public space.
The space became an important location for labor rallies and political demonstrations.
In 1882, the first Labor Day parade in U.S. history marched through the square.
10,000 workers waiving their banners high. In 1911, Union workers again gathered in Union Square to protest after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed 146 mostly young women and girls, some garment worker as young as 11 and 14 years old.
In the later 1920s the park was demolished for the construction of the New York Subway.
But the space continued be important to the city’s union movement.
In 2002, a series of twenty-two bronze plaques were dedicated at the park to tell the history of Union Square.
One of those plaques tells of the first Labor Day parade.
Another is a collage of images of labor demonstrations and sheet music of labor songs.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1851. That was the day that a Maryland planter named Edward Gorsuch was killed in Christiana, Pennsylvania. Gorsuch had come to Pennsylvania to try and recapture three black men that had escaped from slavery on his farm outside of Baltimore two years earlier. A year after the men escaped, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. This penalized helping those who had escaped slavery, with a $1,000 fine and up to six months’ jail time. Emboldened by the law, slave catchers chased those who had made the journey to freedom in the north. Gorsuch received news that the men he was looking for were in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Two of the escaped slaves were at the farm of William Parker, a black man who had also escaped slavery in Maryland. Located just north of the Mason-Dixon line, Lancaster had a well-established underground railroad network. An armed black self-defense group had developed to stand against the slave catchers. Gorsuch and his son gathered a group of men and headed north. At the Parker farm they were confronted by a group of at least fifty black men armed with guns and pitchforks. Gorsuch refused to leave, and a gun battle erupted. Gorsuch was shot and killed in the exchange of fire. Parker, his family, and the three formerly enslaved men fled to Canada. Thirty-eight others who were there that day were charged with treason for taking part in the confrontation. This included Castner Hanway a white man who had tried to defuse the standoff. None of the charged were ever convicted. In the south, slave owners were outraged that no one was punished. Tensions between the North and South sharpened. As a result, the country moved closer to Civil War, the bloody conflict that finally ended slave labor.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1859. That was the day that the St. Anthony and Minneapolis Typographical Union Number 42 was founded in Minnesota. It was one of the oldest unions on record in the state. Three years’ earlier, printers in St. Paul had formed a union, Local 30, with a dinner to honor Benjamin Franklin’s birthday. At the time just over 6,000 white people lived in Minnesota. Typographical workers were very important to the early labor movement in the United States. These printers were vital to spreading the word about the cause of labor to other workers in the era before radio, television or computers. In Minnesota, eight journeymen printers joined together to form Local 42. According the “History of Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis” published in 1881, “The Union was prosperous, having at one time on its list every journeyman printer within its jurisdiction. The war of the rebellion practically dissolved the organization, five of its members entering the Union Army.” Like it did for many fledgling unions, the Civil War took its toll on the typographical union local Number 42. One member H.M. Metcalfe was killed in battle. The union was disbanded during the Civil War, reforming a decade later. Although the Civil War had disrupted labor organizing across the north, the years following the conflict saw a surge in labor activity. Wages stagnated during the war, while prices for goods soared. Workers banded together to demand fair pay and against the exploitation that grew along with increasing industrialization. These early labor unions were predominantly made up of skilled workers like the printers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1924. Sixteen striking Filipino sugar workers on the Hawaiian island of Kauaiwere killed by police. This incident is known as the Hanapepe Massacre. Filipinos began immigrating to Hawaii to work on sugar plantations in 1906.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941. The ravages of World War II had swept across Europe. German troops had invaded Norway in April of 1940. The conditions of the Nazi occupation grew increasingly harsher. The Nazis began rationing milk, and important part of the diet of Norwegian children and workers. The rationing however did not apply to the German occupiers. Angered shipyard workers in Oslo walked off the docks in protest. Workers from other industries joined them. 20,000 workers from 50 factories and work sites participated in the strike. The Nazi response to the uprising was predictably swift and brutal. 200 labor leaders were arrested and new Nazi chosen leaders put in their places. Twenty-seven of the arrested labor leaders and strikers were brought before a court-martial trial. Rolf Wickstrom, a welder and union steward and Harald Viggo Hansteeen a labor lawyer were sentenced to death for their involvement in the strike and executed. The remaining twenty-five were convicted and sentenced to long prison sentences. Ludvik Buland, a union railway worker died while serving his sentence in prison. So did Harry Vestli, a factory worker. Journalists were fired or arrested. Even groups like the Boy Scouts were banned. Listening to foreign broadcasts on the radio was expressly forbidden. Then radios were confiscated. In Sweden, Trade Unionists issued a statement in support of their fellow Scandinavian workers. “Norwegian trade unionists have fallen in the battle for Norway’s Freedoms and for the right of the Norwegian working class to decide for itself its own action with the limits of Norwegian law. We honor their memory.” In 1948 a memorial was placed to honor the deaths of Wickstrom and Hansteen and the workers who stood up for their country.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1916.
That was the day that the Federal Employees Compensation Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.
The act was sponsored by Senator John Kern, a Democrat from Indiana, and Daniel McGillicuddy, a Democratic Congressman from Maine.
The act provided compensation for federal civil service employees that lost wages because they were hurt or killed on the job.
There was great debate at the time over whether employees injured at work deserved to be compensated.
Before the turn of the twentieth century, those who sustained workplace injuries had little recourse.
Employers blamed workers for accidents and typically refused compensation leaving families destitute.
Edward Gainor, the President of the National Association of Letter Carriers explained the debate around the 1916 proposal saying, “The only question, the fundamental question, involved in this discussion is whether or not society should bear the burden of the injured worker in any industry.”
Increasingly, some lawmakers were beginning to make the case that society should indeed bear that burden.
Workers and labor leaders organized around issues of work place safety and demanded a compensation if they were injured on the job.
The law providing such a safety net for federal employees passed through the House of Representatives by an overwhelming margin of 288 to 6.
Although the Act only applied to federal employees, it was an important step forward in recognizing that all workers deserved to be compensated for workplace injuries.
The federal Office of Workers Compensation Programs that operates today traces its history directly back to the 1916 act.
And because of this 1916 act some Three million federal employees and their families are covered under the acts protections.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1860.
That was the day that Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois.
Her family was wealthy and her father served as a state senator.
In 1881, Jane Adams visited London with her friend Ellen Gates Starr.
There the two women were inspired by Toynbee Hall, a settlement house which worked with the poor and working class in the city.
They decided to establish a similar effort in Chicago.
They founded Hull House in an immigrant neighborhood of Italian, Greek and Jewish workers.
Hull House grew to become a complex of facilities that offered kindergarten, day care, lectures and cultural programs, and an important space for women trade unionists to hold meetings.
The women of Hull house became oneof the leading proponents for workplace safety in the nation, pushing for laws and reforms to help workers.
During the 1894 Pullman workers strike, Jane Addams visited the community and had meals with the women workers.
She was able to convince the workers’ strike committee to agree to sit down to arbitration, but the Pullman company officials staunchly refused to negotiate.
The refusal of the company to bargain, and the rising anger of the workers was an eye-opener for Jane.
Later she reflected, “During all those dark days of the Pullman strike, the growth of class bitterness was most obvious.”
Before the strike, she wrote, “there had been nothing in my experience [that had]reveal[ed] that distinct cleavage of society which a general strike at least momentarily affords.”
In 1931 Jane Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for her life-long advocacy for working class women and children and her strong stand for peace during World War I.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1882. That was the day the first Labor Day celebration and parade took place in New York City. The New York Sun printed a vivid report of the parade of 10,000 marching workers.
The paper described “men wearing regalia, men with society aprons, and men with flags, musical instruments, badges and all the other paraphernalia of a procession.”
The article went on, “As far ahead as one could see and as far down the side streets as forms and faces could be distinguished the windows and roofs and even the lamp posts and awning frames were occupied by persons anxious to get a good view of the first parade in New York of workingmen of all trades united in one organization. All along the line cheers were sent up.”
The reporter described the colorful banners carried by each trade union, and noted that following the bricklayers came “two decorated wagons containing brick arches. On each side of one of the wagons were the inscriptions: “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for recreation,” and “Get on to it the Union will never surrender.”
From New York the idea of setting aside a holiday for workers spread.
Oregon became the first state to officially recognize the holiday in 1897.
Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York established a Labor Day that year as well.
By 1894 twenty-three more states celebrated the workers holiday.
It was that year, that President Grover Cleveland declared it a national holiday, in response to the Pullman Strike and Boycott that began in Chicago.
Labor Day is day to honor the sacrifices made by labor fighting for safe and fair workplaces.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1949.
That was the day known in New York as the Peekskill Riots.
Internationally renowned African American Paul Robeson was scheduled to give an open-air concert.
He was known for his deep, moving voice singing iconic songs like Shenandoah and the Ballad of Joe Hill.
Robeson was active in the causes of civil and labor rights.
In the Cold War hysteria after World War II, Robeson had been labeled a dangerous Communist.
The New York concert was originally planned to benefit the Civil Rights Congress.
The group had been defending the “Trenton 6” a group of six black young men sentenced to die in New Jersey for allegedly killing a white shop keeper.
The case was rife with legal abuses.
But protests over the concert led to its cancellation.
It was rescheduled, and the tickets were distributed to trade unionists in New York City.
On the day of the concert 2,500 union members made a human wall around the field to protect against protesters.
Protesters gathered hurling anti-black and anti-Jewish racial epithets.
Pete Seeger opened the concert followed by Robeson.
The real trouble came when the concert ended and people tried to leave.
The protesters threw rocks at the passing cars, while policeman stood by and watched.
145 people were injured.
Other concerts were cancelled.
Paul Robeson would continue to be harassed by the FBI.
He was denied a passport due to his stance against anti-black discrimination in the United States and against colonialism in Africa.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1991.
That was the day that a fire killed twenty-five workers are the Imperial Food Products plant in Hamlet, North Carolina.
More than fifty workers were injured.
The plant made chicken products for fast food restaurants and grocery stores.
According to an article in the New York Times, the plant was “a warren of ramshackle buildings.”
The fire “started with hydraulic fluid from a ruptured line spraying in to gas flames that heated large, oil-filled cooking vats.”
Ninety workers were inside when the fire began.
Some were able to escape out the main entrance or a loading bay.
But the emergency exits of the plant were locked from the outside.
A worker said that this was on the order of company owner Emmett J Roe, to stop workers from stealing chicken.
A passerby, Sam Breeden was interviewed by the Associated Press.
He described the tragic scene “They were screaming: ‘let me out.” They were beating on the door. The people could not force the door open.”
At the time of the fire, the company had not had a fire inspection in eleven years.
An inspection after the fire found 54 “willful” violations.
The company was fined more than $800,000.
Although this was the highest fine in the history of North Carolina, it was far less than federal fines for similar workplace disasters.
That is because North Carolina has a state-run occupational health and safety program.
At the time of the fire nearly half of the states in the country had state-run safety inspections.
And for the company owner Emmett Roe?
He was convicted on twenty-five counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Serving just four years.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1974.
That was the day that President Gerald Ford signed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
The act was passed over growing concern about the mismanagement of private pension plans.
In 1963, the Studebaker Corporation closed its auto plant.
Its pension plan was in shambles nearly seven thousand workers received only fifteen percent of their pension or nothing at all.
Across the country more and more workers were relying on private pensions.
In 1960 21.2 million workers had private pensions.
By 1970 the number stood at thirty million.
The funds in those pensions had nearly tripled in that same decade to $138 billion.
Ensuring the security of those pensions was essential for millions of workers and the stability of the economy.
At the bill signing, President Ford explained, “Dramatic growth in recent years has thrust private pension plans into a central role in determining how older Americans live in their retirement years. Yet, this same growth in pension plans has brought with it a host of new problems. Many workers have ultimately lost their benefits - even after relatively long service - because when they left jobs, they thereby gave up rights to hard-earned pension benefits. Others have sustained hardships because their companies folded with insufficient funds in the pension plan to pay promised pensions. In addition, some pension funds have been invested primarily for the benefit of the companies or plan administrators, not for the workers. It is essential to bring some order and humanity into this welter of different and sometimes inequitable retirement plans within private industry.”
President Ford signed the bill on Labor Day, and outlined minimum standards for private pensions.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1893.
That was the day that the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron Ship Makers of America was founded in Chicago.
This joined two earlier boilermaker unions into one.
They decided to establish their headquarters in Kansas City, Kansas.
Two years later, the Boilermakers affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.
The union represents members of 250 lodges in the United States and Canada.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Boilermakers had about 8,500 members.
But the membership expanded, especially during World War II, as shipbuilding grew for the war.
By 1944, there were more than 350,000 Boilermakers.
In 1954, they merged with the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop Forgers and Helpers, and expanded their name to include these groups of workers.
But what exactly is a boilermaker?
According to the union’s website the term can have many meanings.
It might refer to a Purdue University student or alumni, whose football team started going by the name of the boilermakers in 1891.
Or boilermaker might refer to dropping a shot of whiskey into a draft of beer, and drinking it all at once.
But for the labor movement a boilermaker is someone that constructs and repairs boilers, and the other workers who are part of the union.
These might include “blacksmiths, forgers, ship builders, cement workers, stove workers, metal polishers, or numerous other job descriptions.”
The boilermaker’s union logo reflects these workers.
It includes images of a ship, a worker working on a boiler, and a blacksmith’s anvil.
Below the images are found the words “Unity, Progress and Protection” declaring the mission of the union and its members.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1921.
On that day the “Battle of Blair Mountain” raged in Logan County, West Virginia.
Members of the United Mine Workers of American were attempting to organize the minefields in the southern part of the state.
The effort to bring workers the union was met with violent resistance.
The miners armed themselves and marched south.
As many as ten thousand joined the march.
They met armed company men at Blair Mountain.
In the battle that ensued, one million rounds were fired.
The mine owners even hired private planes to drop bombs on the union miners.
The US army intervened, and the battle ended.
Despite not being successful in their march, the bloody battle brought national attention to the violence in the coal fields.
But that was not the last Battle for Blair Mountain.
In 2011, there was a proposal to bring mountain top removal mining to Blair Mountain.
This type of mining blasts off large chunks of a mountains surface, to get at the coal seams below.
Protestors stood against the proposal.
They argued it would be environmentally devastating to the area.
They also argued it would blast away one the most important sites of labor history in the nation.
Some coal miners took exception to the protests.
In a CNN documentary on the conflict, one union miner said, “Mountaintop removal is what built this house, sends that little girl to school, provides insurance for my wife…”
But another miner joined in the protest against removal.
He told CNN that miners had been “brainwashed to think, “Oh I can’t have a job unless it’s a mountaintop removal job.”
In 2014, the state prohibited surface mining at Blair Mountain……. for now,
On this day in Labor History the years was 1935.
That was the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Revenue Tax Act, more popularly known as the “Wealth Tax.”
The act reformed the federal income tax to raise rates on the wealthiest in the nation.
Those making over $5 million could pay taxes up to seventy-five percent.
In a speech to Congress that summer, Roosevelt had explained his thoughts on wealth and taxes.
The President said,
“Wealth in the modern world does not come merely from individual effort;
it results from a combination of individual effort and of the manifold uses to which the community puts that effort.
The individual does not create the product of his industry with his own hands;
he utilizes the many processes and forces of mass production to meet the demands of a national and international market.
Therefore, in spite of the great importance in our national life of the efforts and ingenuity of unusual individuals,
the people in the mass have inevitably helped to make large fortunes possible.
Without mass cooperation great accumulations of wealth would 'be 'impossible save by unhealthy speculation.
As Andrew Carnegie put it, "Where wealth accrues honorably, the people are · always silent partners."
Whether it be wealth achieved through the cooperation of the entire community or riches gained by speculation—in either case the ownership of such wealth or riches represents a great public interest and a great ability to pay.”
Although President Roosevelt tried to win over the nation's wealthy by quoting industrialist Andrew Carnegie, he did not gain their support.
Not surprisingly many of the national’s wealthy lobbied for and used tax loopholes to evade paying the new rates.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1907.
That was the day that became known for the Quebec Bridge Disaster in Canada.
Workers were building a cantilever bridge over the St. Lawrence River.
This was not an easy task.
The river was two miles wide at its narrowest point.
The river was deep, moved quickly, and was icy in the winter.
But in the late 1880s, businessmen in Quebec who wanted to keep up in trade with Montreal, decided the river had to be spanned.
The project did not begin for more than a decade due to a lack of funds.
Finally, the Canadian government supported the project to improve the nations railway infrastructure.
Theodore Cooper, a respected American bridge designer was signed on for the project.
Despite concerns about the bridge design, he never visited the site due to illness.
Eighty-six men were working on the project that fateful day.
Their work day was drawing to a close when the bridge suddenly collapsed.
Seventy-five men plunged to their deaths.
Some of their bodies were never found.
The bridge collapsed because of design flaws.
The official report of the disaster noted that the loss of life “might have been prevented by the exercise of better judgement on the part of those in responsible charge of the work for the Quebec Bridge and Railway Company and for the Phoenix Bridge Company.”
Unfortunately, that was not the last tragedy trying to cross the St. Lawrence.
After the bridge collapse, the Canadian government took over the project.
A partial collapse on that effort killed thirteen more workers in 1916.
The bridge finally opened in 1917.
Its completion came at high price. Costing $22 million and eighty-six lives.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1963.
That was the day one of the most important stands for justice and equality took place in United States history.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech” to a quarter-million people in Washington D.C.
But did you know that one of the main organizers for the march was a man by the name of Bayard Rustin?
Rustin is often left out of the history books because he was gay and because of earlier communist affiliations.
He was born in 1912, and raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
He was raised in the Quaker tradition, and his commitment to peaceful, non-violent protest continued into the Civil Rights Movement.
Rustin joined the Young Communists League in the 1930s, a time when Communist organizers were some of the few people actively speaking out about racial injustice in the United States.
After he left the YCL, Rustin spent a brief time as the youth organizer for a March on Washington planned in the 1940s.
This movement was led by one, A. Philip Randolph.
The planned march was aimed at putting pressure on President Franklin D. Roosevelt to desegregate work at industries with federal wartime manufacturing contracts.
When President Roosevelt agreed to issue an order desegregating these jobs, the planned march was called off.
But the idea for the march lived on, and became a reality during the Civil Rights Movement.
Rustin went on to work in the labor movement.
He became the founder and first director of the AFL-CIO’s A. Philip Randolph Institute, which focuses on tearing down the walls of discrimination in work places and within the labor movement
On this day in Labor History the year was 1921. That was the day that Green Bay Packers football team received a charter from American Professional Football Association.
A year later this would become the National Football League. The Green Bay club had started up two years earlier.
Its original sponsor was the Indian Packing Company, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They packaged canned meat. Meat packing was a major industry in the Midwest during this era.
Packing plants in Chicago, Kansas City, Iowa and Wisconsin processed the cattle and pigs raised in the west as meat to feed the nation.
Curly Lambeau was a shipping clerk for the company. He helped to organize a group of local players into a football team. Curly persuaded his boss to donate money for the uniforms. The name “Packers” was born.
Then when Indian Packing fell on hard times, they were bought out by Acme, another packing company based in Chicago. So for a brief moment, the Green Bay Packers, one of the staunchest rivals of the Chicago Bears, was actually owned by a Chicago company.
Although Acme only owned the team for a year, the team nickname stuck. Lambeau was able to buy back the team.
He went on to become the Packers coach, leading the team to six championships. The Packers are not the only American sports franchise that’s name harkens back to a particular kind of labor.
Another Wisconsin team, the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team, is a reference to that city’s proud beer brewing tradition. In Big Ten Sports the Purdue Boilermakers and the Nebraska Cornhuskers take to the gridiron.
These names reflect the working traditions of the cities where the teams play ball.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1839. That was the day that the Amistad sailed into Long Island, New York.
The Amistad served as a Spanish slave ship.
Fifty-three captives, led by an enslaved rice farmer by the name Joseph Cinque, had revolted against their captors and taken control of the ship.
They came from what is now Sierra Leone, Africa. They had endured the brutal Middle Passage on a Portuguese slave ship, the Tecora. They had landed in Havana, Cuba where they were transferred to the Amistad. From there they were supposed to sail to a Cuban sugar plantation.
The transaction was illegal. Most of the major slave destinations in North and South America had outlawed bringing in newly enslaved people. But since existing slave labor was still used in these areas, the illegal slave trade continued.
On July 2nd, the African captives escaped their chains and set upon their captors before they could load their guns. They killed the ship’s captain. The Africans demanded to be returned to Sierra Leone. The US Navy intercepted the Amistad as it sailed up the US coastline.
The Africans were thrown into prison and charged with murder. The case garnered national attention and made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
Former President John Quincy Adams presented the defense for the accused. The court found in favor of the Africans. Thirty-five were returned home. The others had died while incarcerated or at sea. The Amistad became the subject for a 1997 film by Steven Spielberg.
While the Amistad became famous, it was not the only one, similar uprisings were attempted on hundreds of slave ships during this era.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1819.
That was the day at Allan Pinkerton was born in Glasgow, Scotland.
His father was a policeman, who died while Allan was a boy.
This left the family in poverty.
As a young man he became involved in the Chartism movement.
This reform movement hoped to expand the political rights of the working class in Great Britain.
Allan had to flee his homeland to avoid arrest because of his involvement.
This led him to Chicago.
It is a great historic irony that Allan Pinkerton came to the United States because of his involvement in a working class cause.
Today Pinkertons are often considered some of the greatest armed foes against unionism in US labor history.
In Chicago, Pinkerton became involved in law enforcement and then formed his own detective agency.
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency made its name working against railway thefts.
But it became most notorious for opposing the labor movement.
Pinkerton spies infiltrated labor meetings for company owners, worked as hired guns to stop union organizing and protected strike breakers.
Pinkerton died in 1884, and passed the agency to his sons.
During the 1890s there were more Pinkertons and reserves than the standing army of the United States.
One of the most famous battles between Pinkertons and workers occurred at the 1892 strike against Carnegie steel in Homestead, Pennsylvania.
There Seven workers and two Pinkertons were killed.
The event inspired a song by William W. Delaney.
The lyrics include the lines, “God help them tonight in their hour of affliction, Praying for him whom they’ll ne’er see again, Hear the poor orphans tell their sad story, “Father was killed by a Pinkerton Man.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1970.
That was the day that the United Farmworkers went out on strike against California lettuce growers.
The UFW had led a successful boycott against grape growers that had drawn national attention to the harsh working conditions and low pay of those who harvested our nation’s food.
In an effort to keep the UFW from organizing lettuce workers, some of the growers had signed contracts with the Teamsters Union.
The UFW argued that these contracts did not represent the workers’ best interests.
As thousands of workers went on strike, Cesar Chavez called for a national boycott of non-union lettuce.
In the lead-up to the strike an estimated 4,000 workers attended a meeting in Salinas, California.
One worker, Antonio Sagredo explained the importance of the action.
The El Malcriado “Voice of the Farmworker, newsletter reported his words, “Let the people and the government of the United States know that we are ready to work—but that we must have what we ask. It isn’t very much. We don’t ask the impossible—only that they look upon us as human beings. We have the same ambitions that they do. We have families. We have rights. Why must they continue to treat us like beasts of burden and look for a thousand ways to bring us down.”
That December Cesar Chavez was jailed for leading the boycott.
Putting pressure on the growers through encouraging the public to boycott non-union harvested food was a key tactic for the farm worker’s movement.
It impacted the bottom line of the growers and moved them to sit down at the bargaining table.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1900.
That was the day that folk singer Malvina Reynolds was born to a Jewish family in San Francisco.
Her parents were socialists and operated a tailor shop.
Malvina learned the price of speaking out for what you believe in at a young age.
Her parents opposed US entry into World War I.
Because of this, Malvina’s High School would not issue her a diploma.
She was able to still go the college at Berkley, where she eventually earned her PhD.
She married carpenter and labor organizer William “Bud” Reynolds.
She became a prolific folk singer, playing around the Los Angeles area.
During the 1960s she wrote about songs supporting civil rights and labor rights.
Her song Free Enterprise offers the lyrics, “The air you breathe is poison, the food you eat is worse, the dollars in your pay check are pennies in your purse…There’s nothing free about it, you pay at every turn, Except the guys in Wall Street who have the stuff to burn, they had to make new brain machines to count their profits’ rise, but since there’s always room for more, they can still make their profits soar, a little war does wonders for free enterprise.”
Perhaps her most well-known song is “Little Boxes.”
The song was inspired by driving by hillside houses in Daly City, California.
It talks about the conformity of middle class suburbia.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1980.
That was the day that Joyce Miller became the first woman ever elected to the Executive Board of the AFL-CIO.
In her 2012 obituary the New York Timesdescribed Joyce’s commitment to women’s rights in the labor movement.
Writing “Ms. Miller saw union membership, collective bargaining and labor contracts as the road to equality for working women, and she believed that women should be a part of union management to make sure that attention was paid to issues like equal opportunity, equal pay, parental leave, child care, health insurance and discrimination in the workplace.”
Joyce grew up in Chicago, where she her earned her Master’s Degree in education from the University of Chicago.
She first entered the labor movement as worker at a gumball factory while attending college.
After graduation, she became the Education Director for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in Pittsburgh.
She remained dedicated to union education for rank and file members.
Joyce was a founding member of the Coalition of Labor Union Women or CLUW.
She served as CLUW’s East Coast Vice President eventually being elected CLUW President in 1977, a position she held for 15 years.
Under her leadership CLUW worked as a powerful voice for women’s reproductive rights, improving child care, and increasing the number of women in union leadership positions.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton named Joyce Miller the Executive Director of the Glass Ceiling Commission.
The purpose of the commission was to gather testimony about women’s experiences in the workplace and to draft a report about their findings.
Of her career Joyce said, “I came to the labor movement with stars in my eyes, I saw it as a vehicle for social change, and I’ve never changed my mind.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1893.
That was the day that workers-rights and women’s rights activist and anarchist Emma Goldman gave a speech in New York City.
Emma Goldman was born in what is today Lithuania.
She came to the New York in 1885, where she built a reputation as a powerful speaker.
In New York she addressed a crowd of between 3,000 to 4,000 unemployed workers in Union Square.
The country was at the beginning of a depression that would sweep the nation.
Working families were finding it harder and harder to put food on the table.
By the end of 1893 unemployment would soar to nearly twenty percent.
Undercover agents at the rally reported that Emma had urged the crowd to take bread from the capitalists “by force.”
Goldman recounted saying, “Well then, demonstrate before the palaces of the rich, demand work. If they do not give you work, demand bread. If they deny you both, take bread.”
Ten days later Emma was arrested in Philadelphia for her comments at the New York rally.
She was sentenced to a year in prison.
After she was released, Emma traveled to Vienna to study medicine.
She returned to the United States to continue her lectures on workers’ and women’s rights.
She spoke out about the need for women to have access to contraception, an opinion that could arouse a backlash at that time.
Emma was arrested multiple times for daring to speak out on controversial issues.
In 1919, during the height of the Red-Scare anti-communist hysteria, Emma Goldman was deported to the Soviet Union.
Emma was courageous defender of free speech. Often called "the most dangerous woman in America
On this day in Labor History the year was 1619.
That was the day that the first ship bearing enslaved people arrived in North America.
It was an English warship called the White Lion, that came to Jamestown in the colony of Virginia.
The ship was a privateer and had captured “twenty and odd” enslaved people from a Portuguese ship in a raid.
Virginian planters were interested in forced labor to work the tobacco fields in the colony.
The laws surrounding slavery in Virginia evolved over time.
Throughout the 1600s statutes replacing indentured servants to race-based slavery for life were written into the law books.
In 1654 John Casor became the first person enslaved under rule of law in North America.
By 1662 a law was passed that children would be considered enslaved or free based on the status of their mother in Virginia.
This meant that slavery could pass down from generation to generation.
This and similar laws ensured slavery would grow.
Historians estimate that 388,000 enslaved people came to what became the United States from Africa.
Due to laws passing down slavery to children, by the Civil War there were nearly 4 million enslaved people in the South.
By the early 1800s enslave people made up about one-third of the Southern population.
Initially enslaved labor worked predominantly to produce crops like tobacco, indigo and also rice.
Some West Africans had developed valuable skills in rice cultivation that white land owners exploited through slavery.
With the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became increasingly important to the southern economy.
The South’s dependence on slave labor became more entrenched, and spread westward with the growing United States until the Civil War ended the brutality of slavery.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1997.
That was the day that a strike by the Teamsters Union against UPS ended with a victory for the union.
The strike had started fifteen days earlier.
More than 180,000 UPS workers participated in the action.
It was the first nationwide strike by UPS workers.
At the time UPS delivered eighty percent of all the packages in the United States.
The company known for its signature brown trucks delivered twelve million packages a day.
The key issue of the strike was that the company increasingly relied on part-time workers.
The insecurities of part time work were growing not just at UPS, but for workers in industries all across the country.
The strike settlement came with the union winning its core issues.
The company agreed to convert 10,000 part-time jobs to full-time positions over the course of the next five years.
The victory was significant for the US labor movement.
The 1980s and 1990s saw new attacks on labor unions and working people, starting with President Ronald Regan’s breaking of the air traffic controllers’ union strike in 1981.
The UPS victory in a national strike with broad rank-and-file support encouraged working people beyond the Teamsters Union.
Announcing the settlement of the strike, ABC news anchor Peter Jennings declared, “It’s been the most dramatic confrontation between industry and organized labor in two decades.”
Teamsters President Ron Carey said, “It is what this country needs, decent jobs, a chance for the dream, a chance to purchase a home, a chance to bring your children up properly, a chance to send them to college. Enough is enough and it’s about time that people start fighting back on this.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1949.
That was the day that is remembered as “Kemi Bloody Thursday” in Finland.
Two strikers were killed.
Kemi is a lumber town in northern Finland.
The lumber workers in the area went out on strike when the government proposed slashing their wages by more than thirty percent.
The strike was soon joined by sawmill and dock workers.
The walk out caused a massive log-jam on the Kemijoki River.
On the fateful day 3,000 strikers engaged in a peaceful march.
They encountered armed police, and a confrontation ensued.
The police had guns on their side.
The workers had only rocks and sticks.
One striker was shot and killed.
Another was hit by a truck.
Finnish army troops were called in to Kemi.
Twenty-two strike leaders were arrested.
In response to the violence, sympathy strikes were called by other unions, including the seaman’s union.
These strikes were seen by many as a fight between the Finnish elected government and Communists in the nation’s trade unions.
Officials in the United States worried the strikes were an attempt by Communists to open the door to intervention in Finland by the Soviet Union.
After World War II, Cold War politics shaped responses to labor struggles in many nations.
A song, Fly Black-Winged Bird, remembers the fallen workers.
The lyrics, translated to English, begin, “Fly, black-winged bird, with blood on your feathers across the lands. From village to village carry your message. Open up, Autumn sky for the sad news to spread. Shame on a country where an unarmed man gets shot. Shame on the one who calls the shots.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1985.
That was the day that workers at the Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota went out on strike.
They were members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local P-9.
Hormel had slashed workers’ wages by twenty-three percent during the early 1980s.
Benefits were also diminished and incentive programs rolled back.
These changes cut deeply into the Hormel workers’ earnings.
What had been considered a good job was changing drastically.
This was the story for many workers in Reagan-Era America.
The 3,500 Hormel workers voted overwhelmingly to strike.
The national UFCW discouraged the action.
The strike lasted more than a year.
Strikebreakers were brought in, including some of the union members who crossed the picket line to return to work.
The National Guard was called in to keep the peace between strikers and scabs.
After a year, the strike went down in defeat.
Even after the strike, many were not called back to work.
They were put on waiting lists for a job to reopen.
Some never returned to the plant.
Twenty-five years after the strike the Austin Daily Herald staff wrote, “What resulted was a bitter, drawn-out labor dispute that drastically impacted the community, from workers who lost jobs to families that were torn apart by picket lines.”
The strike became the feature of a documentary by Barbara Kopple.
In 1990 the documentary, “American Dream” won the Academy Award. The
film tells the story of the Hormel strike as a window into the tragic experiences of many workers in during the 1980s.
The film was made on a shoestring budget.
Singer Bruce Springsteen provided $25,000 to help support this important film
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937.
That was the day that the U.S. Congress passed the National Apprenticeship Act.
It was also known as the Fitzgerald Act.
The purpose of the act was “to formulate and promote the furtherance of labor standards necessary to safeguard the welfare of apprentices.”
Apprentices are workers learning a skill set.
They are typically paid less than skilled workers or journeymen during the course of their training.
Apprenticeship programs are especially found in the building trades, where learning skills like plumbing or electrical work might take years of dedicated training.
But before the protection of the 1937 act, there was no national standard governing apprentice programs.
This led some apprentices to be exploited, earning lower wages even after they gained the skills they needed to do the job as journeymen.
In 1911, Wisconsin was the first state to pass legislation to structure the apprentice system.
In the 1920s multiple labor unions advocated for national apprentice standards to promote fairness and safety for workers.
Recognizing the need for national apprentice guidelines, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt commissioned a committee to study the issue.
They were tasked with developing training standards for apprenticeship programs.
The 1937 law gave the committee the authority to complete their job.
The committee on apprentice training became a permanent part of the Department of Labor.
The Bureau of Apprenticeship works with State governments to ensure the fair treatment of apprentices.
Today apprentice programs provide classroom and on-the-job training to help developed a skilled labor force.
In 2015, 52,500 participants graduated from the registered apprentice programs.
Nearly ½ a million workers participated in apprentice training programs, learning skills that will help build their financial security.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1989.
That was the day that Gerry Horgan was killed while walking the picket line.
Gerry was a chief steward for the Communication Workers of America Local 1103.
The Communication Workers were on strike against the telecommunications giant NYNEX company, which became part of the present day Verizon company.
At issue was management’s proposal to shift a greater share of the health care costs to the workers.
The strike wore on for a total of seventeen weeks.
In total, nearly 60,000 telephone workers in the Northeast participated in the walk out.
These included both CWA members as well as workers who were members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Gerry Horgan was part of the strike in the town of Valhalla,New York, about twenty-five miles north of New York City.
Gerry was struck by a vehicle driven by a strikebreaker while walking the picket line.
The driver was the daughter of one of the company managers.
She was never charged for hitting Gerry, although some at the scene claimed she accelerated after hitting him with her car.
One witness, Charles Pearce, recalled that “Gerry was rundown like a dog.”
The CWA honors Gerry’s memory by wearing red t-shirts.
In 2010, a CWA article titled “Why We Wear Red,” explained,“The idea started small, we asked our Members to wear red on Thursday to remind the company of the blood they had spilled and to show support for our fallen Brother. But it quickly spread nationwide as a sign of solidarity every Thursday at CWA locations.”
Gerry Horgan was killed standing up for the rights of workers and fighting for a better tomorrow for all workers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937.
That was the day that the U.S. Congress passed the National Apprenticeship Act.
It was also known as the Fitzgerald Act.
The purpose of the act was “to formulate and promote the furtherance of labor standards necessary to safeguard the welfare of apprentices.”
Apprentices are workers learning a skill set.
They are typically paid less than skilled workers or journeymen during the course of their training.
Apprenticeship programs are especially found in the building trades, where learning skills like plumbing or electrical work might take years of dedicated training.
But before the protection of the 1937 act, there was no national standard governing apprentice programs.
This led some apprentices to be exploited, earning lower wages even after they gained the skills they needed to do the job as journeymen.
In 1911, Wisconsin was the first state to pass legislation to structure the apprentice system.
In the 1920s multiple labor unions advocated for national apprentice standards to promote fairness and safety for workers.
Recognizing the need for national apprentice guidelines, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt commissioned a committee to study the issue.
They were tasked with developing training standards for apprenticeship programs.
The 1937 law gave the committee the authority to complete their job.
The committee on apprentice training became a permanent part of the Department of Labor.
The Bureau of Apprenticeship works with State governments to ensure the fair treatment of apprentices.
Today apprentice programs provide classroom and on-the-job training to help developed a skilled labor force.
In 2015, 52,500 participants graduated from the registered apprentice programs.
Nearly ½ a million workers participated in apprentice training programs, learning skills that will help build their financial security.
”Communists!” “Reds!” Long have these been the cries of the press and politicians seeking to undermine the labor movement in the United States.
But sometimes even labor leaders themselves got caught up in the anti-Communist hysteria.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1938.
President of the Metal Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor, John P. Frey, gave testimony before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities.
It was also known as the “Dies Committee.”
Texas Congressman Martin Dies, Jr. founded the effort to root out an alleged Communist threat in the U.S.
In his testimony Frey alleged three hundred leaders of the Congress of Industrial Organization were Communists.
At the time the AFL and CIO were two separate organizations.
The CIO had split off from the AFL to pursue more organizing in industries like auto making and steel.
Even after his testimony, Frey maintained a network of operatives in the labor movement to identify suspected communists.
A few days after Frey spoke before Congress, the Chicago Tribune ran a story explaining the perceived communist-labor threat.
The article declared, “If the communists in the United States continued to operate as the communist party they would have no influence on American foreign policy in the foreseeable future. But by making themselves leaders of labor and therefore powerful in Democratic counsels they can be of immediate value to the soviets.”
The paper warned that the communists were hoping to march the US into another European war.
War-weary after World War I, the public had little appetite for another major conflict.
The charge that the CIO was infiltrated by communists who wanted war took its toll on the radical labor organization, dividing workers by playing into the fears and hysteria of the era.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1919.
That was the day that the chorus girls of the Ziegfeld Follies formed a union.
They called their organization the Chorus Equity Association.
The Ziegfeld Follies were the hottest ticket on Broadway during the early 1900s.
The show was most famous for their chorus girls in elaborate costumes, bedecked with feathers and sparkles.
In 1919 performers on Broadway as well as Chicago were standing up for fairer wages and better treatment on the job.
The Actors Equity Association’s contract had expired, and the actors demanded a fair contract.
The producers banded together into the Producing Managers Association. Actors and producers faced off.
The actors held a meeting and decided not to go on stage unless the contract was settled.
Membership in the union swelled. Twelve shows in New York were cancelled.
When Florenz Ziegfeld, the head of the Ziegfeld Follies joined the producers’ group, the chorus girls took this a bad sign.
They decided it was time that they too joined the union movement.
A former chorus girl named Marie Dressler was elected the first union president.
The chorus girls joined the striking actors for a march down Broadway.
The Ziegfeld performers formally went on strike, and the curtain fell on the Follies.
Chicago theaters also went dark. In all, 37 productions are shut down in the two cities.
Finally, on September 7 the strike is settled and the Follies returned.
In 1955 Chorus Equity merged with the Actors Equity Association.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894.
That was the day that federal troops pushed “Kelly’s Industrial Army” out of Washington D.C and across the Potomac River.
The “army” was a group of unemployed men who had come to the capitol to protest government inaction.
The country was in the grip of an economic depression.
The nation’s Agricultural regions in the South and Great Plains were also hit by a drought.
Times were hard for American workers and families.
The call had gone out across the nation for the unemployed to make their way to the doorstep of Congress.
The goal was to petition for public infrastructure projects to put people back to work.
Businessman Jacob Coxey had organized a march of the unemployed from Ohio.
Charles T. Kelly and his group came from California.
They rode the rails and made it to Des Moines, Iowa where they encamped.
After a while the local residents decided the unemployed group had outstayed their welcome.
The Iowans provided lumber so the Industrial Army could build flatboats and be on their way.
By the time Charles Kelly and his men made it to D.C., Coxey had already been sentenced to twenty days in jail for trespassing on the Capitol lawn.
Yet unemployed men from across the country kept coming into the nation’s capital.
1,200 men arrived from different points across the country.
One of those in Kelly’s group was a young Jack London.
The wrote of the experience, “Across the “wild and wooly West,” clear from California, General Kelly and his heroes captured trains; but they fell down when they crossed the Missouri and went up against the effete East.”
The marchers’ protests earned no help from the capitol.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1931.
That was the day that Air Line Pilots Association affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.
The need for pilots to organize became apparent as early as the mid-1920s.
The airline industry was new, and pilots often faced dangerous conditions.
They were often put under pressure to fly under adverse conditions, especially if they were tasked with delivering the mail.
As the Great Depression swept the country, pilots were asked to fly more and more hours for less money.
They organization of pilots started off small and in secret.
But soon it grew.
In 1930 the union got its unofficial start, holding its first convention the following year.
David Behncke was elected the first president.
Behncke had served as a flight instructor for the Army.
He then led the Behncke’s Flying Circus, performing airshows across the Midwest.
Then he went to work for a private airmail service.
As union president, Behncke established the organization’s headquarters in Chicago.
Over the years as plane technology has changed, the union has fought to ensure the continued safety of the pilots.
Pilot fatigue, as well as security concerns, especially after the terrorist attacks of 911, have also been important issues for the union.
Today the Air Line Pilots Association represents more than 50,000 pilots flying for 31 airlines in the United States and Canada.
Their mission statement begins with the commitment to “promote and champion all aspects of aviation safety throughout all segments of the aviation community.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1979.
That was the day that young women workers at the YH Trading Company in Seoul, South Korea staged a sit-in.
The women made wigs for export.
The company had been one of the leading exporters in the nation.
But then the managers began to move the profits from the wig company to a shipping company under the same ownership, as well as to a film production company.
This drained the profits from the wig factory and left it in debt.
The owner shut down the company without warning, firing all of the employees.
These women did not only lose their jobs.
Water and electricity were turned off at the factory dormitories where they lived.
A union represented the young women.
The union planned a strike at the building, but the police were called in to break it up.
The workers decided move their protest to the local headquarters of the New Democratic Party.
The party was in opposition to the leader of Seoul, President Park Chung Hee.
The fired women were welcomed at the New Democratic Party office.
There they decided to stage a sit-in to bring attention to their situation.
The worker’s sit-in only lasted three days.
Then 1,000 police stormed the building.
They overturned furniture and broke windows.
They dragged the women out of the building violently.
One woman, 21-year old Kim Kyong-sook died in the raid
She fell from the roof of the building in a clash with the police.
Four of the union leaders were sent to prison.
More than two hundred of the workers were expelled out of Seoul, back home to rural areas.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1850.
That was the day that two tailors who were out on strike in New York City were killed in a confrontation with the police.
It is thought they were the first workers to die while participating in a strike in the United States.
They certainly would not be the last.
The United States has one of the bloodiest labor histories of any industrial nation.
It is estimated that at least 700 people have lost their lives to violence during a strike.
The vast majority of those slain were workers.
Some of the most-bloody conflicts included the Great Upheaval of 1877.
Across the country 100 workers lost their lives in an uprising of railway labor.
Then in the 1892 strike against Carnegie Steel in Homestead, Pennsylvania nine strikers and three Pinkerton agents died.
Two years later, thirty workers died across the country in a strike and boycott against the Pullman Palace Car Company.
One of the most infamous labor massacres occurred in Ludlow, Colorado in 1914.
During this coal mining strike gun thugs hired by the company rained machine gun bullets and fire down on a tent colony of the striking workers.
At least nineteen people were killed.
Eleven of them were children.
In 1937, ten workers died on Memorial Day at a demonstration against Republic Steel in Chicago.
These are just some of the battles, massacres and murders that shaped the American labor movement.
Too often the toll of this blood-shed is not taught in history classes.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1890. That was the day that one of the heroines of the US labor movement, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was born in Concord, New Hampshire. Elizabeth learned her progressive politics at a young age. Her father was a socialist and her mother was a feminist
On this day in Labor History the year was 1835. That was the day that began the “Baltimore Bank Riot.” The Bank of Maryland had failed in 1834. Thousands of people who had deposited money in the bank saw their savings vanish. For nearly a year-and-a-half the depositors waited for their money to be returned. Anger grew.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1993. That was the day that the Family Medical Leave Act went into effect. Union members worked hard to support this legislation, testifying before congress and holding rallies. It was an uphill battle to pass the bill. Starting in 1984 family medical leave was brought before Congress.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1942. That was the day that the United States and Mexico signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement. It became known as the Bracero Program. The word “bracero” can be translated into “one who works with his arms” and refers to farm workers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day that became known in California as the “Wheatland Riot.” The Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, were trying to organize hop pickers, who worked near the city of Wheatland in Northern California. Living conditions for the hop pickers were rough.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1939. That was the day that the Hatch Act was enacted. The law was named after Senator Carl Hatch, a Democratic Senator from New Mexico. The Hatch Act limits political activity by federal employees. One of the reasons the law was passed was due to allegations of corruption by the Works Progress Administration.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1917. Frank Little, an activist for the Industrial Workers of The World, or Wobblies was lynched near Butte, Montana. His beaten body was found hung off of a railroad trestle. On it was pinned a disturbing note.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1970. That was the day the NFL Players Association went out on strike. The American Football League and the National Football League officially merged that year. Each league had their own player’s association. With the league merger they joined forces into one union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1965. That was the day that US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law. This federally funded healthcare program provides assistance to one of the country’s most vulnerable populations—the elderly. At the time the law was enacted, many seniors found it difficult, if not impossible, to get private health insurance.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1956. That was the day that an oil tank explosion took the lives of nineteen men fighting a fire at Shamrock Oil and Gas company in the northeast of Dumas, Texas. Dumas was in the Texas panhandle, oil boom country. The day after the tragedy, the Chicago Daily Tribune carried the story of what happened.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1932. That was the day that flames burned in the US Capitol. The US armed forces set fire to a “shanty-town” of unemployed World War I veterans. The veterans had come to the capitol to demand a bonus that had been promised for their service. The payment was not due until 1945. But the nation was in the throes of the Great Depression. Desperate veterans demanded the bonus be paid early.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1903. Labor leader “Mother” Mary Harris Jones was leading a march of child laborers to President Theodore Roosevelt’s summer home in New York. The long march had begun twenty days before in Philadelphia. Mother Jones was hoping to draw national attention to the plight of child workers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1990. That was the day that George H. W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA prohibits employment discrimination of people with disabilities, and requires public accommodations be accessible. The passage of the act was the result of years of grassroots organizing by members of the ADA community and their allies.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1898. That was the day that United State armed forces invaded Puerto Rico. The invasion was part of the Spanish-American war. In 1898 the US Department of State, noted “It seems to be conceded that every year we shall be confronted with an increasing surplus of manufactured goods for sale in foreign markets if American operatives and artisans are to be kept employed year round.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. That was the first day of a new U.S. labor partnership, the Alliance for Labor Action. The Alliance was forged by President of the United Automobile Workers, Walter Reuter and the President of the Teamsters, Frank Fitzsimmons. The UAW had left the AFL-CIO over differences in how to approach labor organizing.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1877. That was the day that a mob began an attack on Chinese workers in San Francisco that killed four people. During the mid-1870s a depression swept across the nation. White workers from the east coast headed west, many to San Francisco, hoping to find a job. Skilled Chinese workers who had completed their labor on the Transcontinental Railroad also came to the city.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1877. A group of labor leaders and members of the Workingmen’s Party met in St. Louis. They were there because of the labor strike that had swept the nation. The United States was in the grip of a terrible depression. Railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia had walked off the job, after their wages were slashed.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1878. That was the day that a new song was introduced to the US labor movement. Reverend Jesse H. Jones set the lyrics of a poem that had been written by I. G. Blanchard more than a decade earlier. The song was called the “Eight Hour Day.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1971. It was an historic day for the men and women who deliver the US Mail. It was the day that the American Postal Workers Union and the National Association of Letter Carriers signed their first ever union contract. Although there had been earlier postal unions they did not have formal bargaining rights.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1993. That was the day that President Bill Clinton announced his “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. He had campaigned for President promising to allow all citizens to serve in the military regardless of sexual orientation. Once he was elected there was a great deal of opposition to his proposal.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1919. That Friday thousands of workers in the Chicago Stockyards walked off the job. A serious union organizing drive had been underway in the yards since June. One of the organizers of the butchers was John Kikulski.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1934. The Teamster members of Local 574, in Minneapolis were back out on strike. Their strike had begun two months prior on May 16. The striking Teamsters had effectively shut down much of the commercial transportation in the city.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1862. That was the day that black-rights activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She was the oldest of eight children. Wells went to college, and then became a teacher in Memphis, Tennessee. In Memphis, Ida B. Wells became active in speaking out against black oppression in the Jim Crow South.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1931. That was the day that Ralph Gray was attacked for trying to organize black farmers. Gray was a born to a large African American family in Alabama. Living in the Jim Crow South, he became a tenant farmer. He joined the Communist Party.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day that Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma. Guthrie became one of the most prolific song writers to ever sing the stories of the working class. His most well-well known song is “This Land is Your Land” an anthem whose lyrics claim America for the common man.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1863. That was the day that draft riots broke out in New York City. The Civil War had been raging for two years. For the first time in United States’ history, the government instituted a draft lottery. But those with enough money could buy their way out of the draft.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1850. That was the birthday of Oscar Neebe. Neebe was one of eight men convicted of inciting violence at a workers rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886. He was born in New York City.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. That was the day that the American Indian Movement began at a meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A group of 200 Native Americans gathered together to discuss a response to the US governments’ history of broken treaties and the devastating consequences on Native peoples.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. That was the day that labor leader Eugene V. Debs was arrested for supporting the strike of Pullman Palace Car Company workers. In May, the workers who made the popular train sleeping cars had walked off the job. George Pullman had slashed workers’ wages, but had kept the rents in his company town steady.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1918. That was the day that went down in U.S. history as the Great Train Wreck. The wreck occurred at Dutchman’s Curve, in Nashville, Tennessee. During World War I, the train industry was bustling across nation. Trains carried troops, as well workers to factories to support the war effort.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1966. That was the day that the International Association of Machinists went out on strike. The day before “The Machinist” newsletter published out of Washington D.C., declared “Strike Set on Five Airlines.” During the first-half of the 1960s the airline industry had invested in new equipment and jet technology.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1998. That was the first day of a 48-hour general strike in Puerto Rico. The strike was called in support of telephone workers, who had walked off the job three weeks before. The workers were protesting government plans to sell off the publicly owned telephone service to GTE, a private company based out of Connecticut.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. That was the day that the song “The Preacher and the Slave” first appeared in the Little Red Song Book. The Little Red Song Book was a compilation of labor songs, published by the Industrial Workers of the World union. The booklet was pocket-sized so labor activists could carry it with them wherever they would go.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1888. That was the day that the spark was lit that touched off what came to be known as the “Match Girls Strike” in East London. The Match Girls were workers at the Bryant and May Match factory. Matches were in high demand. The workers struggled under horrible conditions.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1966. That was the day that the Freedom of Information Act was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The act required government agencies to respond to citizen requests for information. John Moss, a Democratic Congressman from California fought for the passage act for more than a decade.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1835. That was the day that textile workers walked off the job at twenty mills in Paterson, New Jersey. But this was not a strike like we might picture one today, with burly men walking a picket line, or women chanting as they carry their picket signs.In Paterson, most of the strikers were children, ages 10 to 18. Many were young girls.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1822. That was day that Denmark Vesey was hung for his role in allegedly plotting a slave rebellion in South Carolina. Vesey had been born into slavery in St. Thomas in the Caribbean. From there he was brought to Charleston. He won the lottery and was able to purchase his freedom at the age of 32.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1922. That was the day that railroad workers across the United States walked off the job. During World War I, the railroads had been nationalized by President Woodrow Wilson. Seen as a vital cog of the war machine, the railroads were to be kept running no matter what. Because they were essential to the war effort, this gave railroad workers leverage
On this day in Labor History the year was 1885. That was the day that streetcar workers went out on strike. The West Division Street Railway Company had reduced the number of trips it made each day. The workers asked for a wage increase to make up for the loss in earnings. In response, management fired fifteen union leaders.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1917. That was the day that American folklorist Archie Green was born in Winnipeg, Canada. His father was a Ukrainian refugee, who had fought in the 1905 Russian revolution. As a young boy his family moved to Los Angeles. There he enjoyed listening to cowboy songs on the radio.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1936. That was the day that the U.S. Congress passed the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act. The bill had been proposed by the Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins. The act was part of the President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal effort to combat the ravages of the Great Depression.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1880. That was the day that Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Two years later she lost both her sight and hearing due to illness. With the help of a teacher by the name of Anne Sullivan, Helen learned how to communicate again.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1893. That was the day that Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe and Michael Schwab, who were imprisoned for their alleged role in the Haymarket bombing of 1886.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1893. That was the day that Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe and Michael Schwab, who were imprisoned for their alleged role in the Haymarket bombing of 1886.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1971. At 12:51 am Battalion 12 Chief Leo Najarian of Los Angeles heard that there had been a tunnel explosion. That February a 6.5 earthquake had killed 65 people in the area. Now it seemed tragedy had struck again. Just the night before Chief Najarian had been called out to the same address.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947. That was the day that many labor historians mark as the beginning of a long decline of the US labor movement. The United States Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act. The bill was named after Republican Senator Robert A. Taft from Ohio.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1969. That was the day that the Cuyahoga River, which winds its way through Cleveland, Ohio caught on fire. Cleveland was once the sixth largest city in the nation. During the early twentieth century the city had a booming steel industry.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1877. That was the day that ten Irish miners were hung in Pennsylvania. They were part of a group of twenty who had been sentenced to death for allegedly being part of the Molly Maguires, a group of alleged radical Irish miners. Miners were on strike in the Schuylkill County anthracite coal region.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1943. That was the day that would go down in the history books as the 1943 Detroit Race Riot. The violence started on Belle Isle, a large island park in the Detroit River. Both white and black Detroiters were visiting the park on that hot sunny summer Sunday afternoon.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1865. That was the day that 2,000 Union soldiers marched into Galveston, Texas. They carried with them the news that those enslaved were now free. The Confederate General, Robert E. Lee had actually surrendered more than two months earlier.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1918. That was the day that the Saint Paul Federation of Women Teachers Local 28 received their charter from the American Federation of Teachers. The next February, the Minnesota Women’s Union was joined by the Saint Paul Federation of Men Teachers Local 42.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1972. That was the day that nine fire fighters gave their lives is Boston, Massachusetts. The tragedy occurred at the historic Hotel Vendome. Built 100 years earlier, the hotel stood in Boston’s Back Bay, one of the most historic neighborhoods in the city.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1836. That was the day that the London Working Men’s Association was founded. Skilled craftsman started the organization. William Lovett a Cabinet Maker and a publisher by the name of Henry Hetherington were two of the original founders.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1908. That was the day that the Executive Board of the American Federation of Labor established its Metal Trades Department. The goal was to coordinate the organizing and legislative efforts of those in the many metal trades.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1921. During that summer the battle waged over the efforts to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coal mines. The miners had been evicted from their company homes, and had established tent colonies. One was located at Lick Creek.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1914. That was the day that the Miner’s Union Day parade was scheduled in Butte, Montana. In spite of the festivities trouble was brewing down in the copper mines.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1904. That was the day that 18,000 workers in the Chicago’s stockyards went out on strike. Work in the stockyards was often brutal and dangerous. Thousands of workers toiled in the yards, many of them immigrants from Eastern Europe.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1969. That was the day that labor leader John L. Lewis died. Born to a Welsh-American Coal mining family in Iowa, Lewis became the leading champion of industrial unionism in the 1930s.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1946. That was the day that the US Supreme Court handed down a decision that would have massive implication for American workers. The case was known as Anderson V. Mount Clemens Pottery.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1954. That was the day that marked the public downfall of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. Senator McCarthy had become the public face of anti-Communist hysteria during the Cold War. He used his position as Senator to make wild accusations against alleged communists in the US Government.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1904. That was the day that John Carley, a union miner, was shot down in Dunnville, Colorado. He was part of a strike in the Cripple Creek gold mining region.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1929. That was the day that Police Chief Orville Aderholt was shot and killed, at a camp of striking textile workers in Gastonia, North Carolina. The textile mills had fallen on hard times in the 1920s.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. That was the day that the Colorado state militia troops came to Cripple Creek to intervene in a mining strike. But unlike every other time in US mining history that a state militia was called out, the state troops did not have their guns pointed at the miners.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947. That was the day that Secretary of State George Marshall delivered a speech at Harvard University. In his speech Marshall made a call for the United States to send assistance to European countries devastated by World War II.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1904. That was the day when 900 Wisconsin paper makers walked off the job from Appleton to Menasha, from Combined Locks to Neenah. They were members of the International Brotherhood of Paper Makers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1900. That was the day that International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union was formed in New York City by seven local unions. While men held nearly all of the leadership roles in the early days of the union, most of the workers were Jewish women.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1916. That was the day that John Greeni, an Italian immigrant miner, walked out the St. James Mine in Aurora, Minnesota. The mine was part of the Mesabi Iron Range, the richest deposit of iron-ore in the United States.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. That was the day that the “Cannery Murders” took place in Seattle, Washington. Two union organizers, Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes were gunned down at their labor hall. They were working to reform the canning industry for Local 37 of the International Longshoreman’s and Warehousemen’s Union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1987. That was the day that Rose Will Monroe, one of the women who came to be known as Rosie the Riveter, died in Clarksville, Indiana. She was 77 years old.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. That was the day that came to be known as the Republic Steel Massacre or the Memorial Day Massacre, in Chicago, Illinois. Workers had gathered to rally for a union at the Republic Steel Plant. The crowd included men, women and children and began with a festive holiday atmosphere.
Today in Labor History, May 29 Today in Labor History, May 29, the year was 1941. That was the day that the animators at Walt Disney went out on strike. Attempts to organize a union for cartoonists had begun a decade earlier, resulting in the formation of the Screen Cartoonists Guild in 1938.
Today in Labor History, May 28, the year was 1882. That was the day that John Muir, a Scottish American conservationist founded the Sierra Club in San Francisco California. The Sierra Club’s purpose is to "explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth."
Can you imagine if the earth beneath your hometown caught fire and kept on burning for more than half a century? That is what happened in Centralia, Pennsylvania. Today in Labor History, May 27, the year was 1962. Centralia was a mining town with 2,700 residents, built above a rich vein of anthracite coal.
Today in Labor History, May 26, the year was 1824. That day was the first time when women workers in the United States left their jobs and walked out on strike. It happened at the Slater Mill, part of New England’s rapidly growing textile industry.
Today in Labor History, May 25, the year was 1986. That was the day that more than five million people participated in “Hands Across America.” The event was organized to raise money to combat the problems of homelessness and hunger in the United States.
Today in Labor History, May 24, the year was 1949. That was the day a shot gun blast broke through a closed window and struck Victor Reuther, as he sat reading a newspaper in his living room.
Today in Labor History, May 23, the year was 2003. That was the day that the US Senate approved more than 300 billion dollars in tax cuts over the next decade. The cuts barely passed. Vice President Dick Cheney cast the deciding vote, 51-50.
Today in Labor History, May 22, the year was 1969. That was the day that began the first strike of the Chicago Teacher’s Union. The strike lasted three days. It won teachers a $100 per month pay raise.
Today in Labor History, May 21, the year was 1946. That was the day that Democratic President Harry Truman ordered government seizure of the nation’s bituminous coal mines. 800,000 United Mine Workers of America, led by John L. Lewis, had gone out on strike.
Today in Labor History, May 20, the year was 1937. That was the day that workers at the Jones and Laughlin plant in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania voted in the first ever union election in the United States’ steel industry under the National Labor Relations Board.
Today in Labor History, May 19, the year was 1989. That was the day that black author and Marxist theorist CLR James passed away. James was born in Trinidad, at the time a Caribbean colony that was part of the British empire.
Today in Labor History, May 18, the year was 1972. That was the day that Maggie Kuhn stood before a group of reporters to tell them about her organization, the Gray Panthers. The idea for the group had started two years earlier.
Today in Labor History, May 17, the year was 1954. That was the day the Supreme Court handed down their decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. In the unanimous decision the court declared that racial segregation in public education was illegal.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1979. That was the day we lost one of the giants of the US Labor Movement, A Philip Randolph. A Philip Randolph spent his life working for black workers and the cause of labor.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1917. That was the day of the founding that the Library Employees Union of Greater New York. This was the first public library workers’ union in the United States. From its beginning, one of the key efforts of the union was to fight for “equal rights of women and men in the library field.”
Do you ever enjoy a cold beer after a long day’s work? Well if you were worker in the United States from 1920 to 1933, you would have to break the law to down a brew. On this day in Labor History the year was 1932. That was the day that massive demonstrations for the re-legalization of beer were held in New York City and Detroit. Prohibition had lasted for more than a decade.
On this day in Labor History the year was the 1968. That was the day at the workers across Paris joined students in a city-wide general strike. College students had begun an occupation at the famed Sorbonne University earlier that May.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1856 workers of Melbourne, Australia marched to celebrate a victory in the campaign to win the eight-hour day. At the time it was common to work as long as twelve or fourteen hour days.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. That was the first day of the Pullman Strike. The strike started in the company of town of Pullman, on the south side of Chicago, where workers made luxury sleeping cars for passenger trains.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1980. That was the day that as many as ninety thousand people rallied for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1972. That was the day that employees at the Farah Manufacturing Company went out on strike. The company was one of the top producers of men and boy’s pants in the country, and the second largest employer in El Paso.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1863. That was the day that Division One of the Brotherhood of the Footboards was founded in Detroit, Michigan. By the next year they had changed their name to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1907. That was the day known in the San Francisco labor movement as “Bloody Tuesday” In the early twentieth century, San Francisco was a city with a strong union movement. In early May, the Carmen’s Union called a strike against United Railroads, the company that ran the city’s transit system.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1935. That was the day that began a strike of lumber workers across the Pacific Northwest. Lumberman had enough of long hours, dangerous conditions, and low pay. Plans for the strike began at a meeting of the Sawmill and Timber Workers Union in late March.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1931. That was the day that became known as the “Battle of Harlan” or the “Battle for Evarts.” Harlan County, Kentucky was coal country. Miners worked long hours underground and faced dangerous, and often deadly working conditions.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1886. That evening a worker’s rally in Chicago Illinois became known as the Haymarket Tragedy. On May 1, workers from across the city and country had held massive rallies for the eight-hour day. Two days later,the police had fired into a crowd of workers on strike outside of the McCormick Reaper plant in the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1919. That was the birthday of folk musician Pete Seeger. Seeger and his music would become staples of the US labor movement. He was born into a musical family.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1830. That was the birthday of Richard Trevellick, one of the early leaders of the US labor movement and the fight for the eight-hour work day. Of English descent, Richard was the son of a Cornish farmer. As a young man Trevellick took up the trade of a ship carpenter.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1886. That was the day that workers throughout the United States walked off their jobs in a coordinated, planned effort and demanded the eight-hour day. What made the strike truly revolutionary, was that the workers were not asking for reduced pay for reduced hours. They wanted their pay-level to stay the same.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2012. That was the day that updated National Labor Relations Board rules regarding the formation of new unions went into effect. The rules cut down the time between when workers announced they want to hold an election to form a union and when that election can actually take place. The rule change was aimed at cutting down delaying tactics used by employers to stop unionization.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1899. That was the day that Idaho miners detonated 50 cases of dynamite at the Bunker Hill & Sullivan Mine in Wardner. For nearly a decade Idaho miners and owners had been locked in bitter battle in the Coeur d’Alene District. The mining companies fought against unionization.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1965. That was the day that American Federation of Hosiery Workers merged with Textile Workers Union of America. Hosiery workers had begun organizing as early as 1909. By 1923 the American Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers, as the union was originally called, had affiliated with the American Federation of Labor
On this day in Labor History the year was 1825. That was the day that saw what is widely considered the first strike for the ten-hour work day. It happened in Boston. Journeymen carpenters had grown tired of being required to work from sun up to sun down. They decided it was time to make a stand.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1975. That was the day the AFL-CIO held a “Jobs Now” rally in Washington, D.C. A painful recession had pushed unemployment in United States to nine percent. Many workers across the nation thought that the Ford administration was not doing enough to address the problems facing working families.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1978. That was the day of an important victory for any woman in the United States with a pension. The Supreme Court handed down its decision in a case known as Los Angeles Water Department versus Manhart. Manhart and a group of current and past female employees at the department had sued.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1999. A headline from the Los Angeles Times declared, “Dock Crews to Halt Work in Support of Death Row Inmate.” Up and down the west coast the ports stood silent. The International Longshoreman and Warehouseman’s Union had called their members off the job for a one-day strike.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1956. That was the day of the founding of the Canadian Labour Congress. Today the Canadian Labour Congress is the largest labor organization in Canada representing some 3.3 million workers. During the early 1950s, labor leaders in Canada were becoming increasingly uneasy about the rising influence of big business in the country.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1970. That was the first observation of Earth Day. Across the United States, millions took to the streets and parks to demonstrate for clean air, water, a reduction in pollution and care for nature and the environment.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1920. That was the day remembered in Butte, Montana as “Bloody Wednesday” or the “Anaconda Road Massacre.” Butte was in the heart of copper mining country.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1853. That was the day that Harriet Tubman led her first trip on the underground railroad, the clandestine network that helped enslaved people escape slavery and move north to freedom. One of the most remembered ‘conductors’ on the railroad, Tubman had herself escaped slavery in eastern Maryland.
This marks the day one of the most horrendous acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. History occurred in Oklahoma City.
A truck bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1857. That was the day that Clarence Darrow was born in Kinsman, Ohio. Darrow was perhaps the original U.S. labor lawyer. Known to be a friend to underdogs, Darrow once supposedly said, “Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That a day of tragedy for workers in the goldfields of Siberia. Gold miners by the Lena River in Southeast Siberia worked under brutal conditions. The Lena Gold Mining Joint Stock Company ran the mining operation. The lucrative gold fields lined the pockets of shareholders, including Russian aristocracy and British industrialists.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2000. That was the beginning of a two-day rally in Washington D.C to protest the gathering of world leaders for the World Bank and The International Monetary Fund or what is known as the A-16 summit. The event was a continuation of the massive protest that disrupted the World Trade Organization’s meeting the year before in Seattle, Washington.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1916. That was day that the American Federation of Teachers was founded at a meeting at the City Club in downtown Chicago. Three Chicago teachers groups helped to organize the meeting. They were convinced that in order to improve working conditions for teachers they would need to formally join the labor movement.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1930. That was the day that 114 agricultural laborers in California’s Imperial Valley paid a harsh price for joining together to try to improve their working conditions. The Great Depression was worsening the already difficult conditions faced by California farm laborers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1903. That was the year the day that twenty-five delegates from seventeen cities gathered in Washington, D.C. to discuss forming a union for laborers. General laborers, who often performed some of the most back-breaking work on projects like digging canals or surfacing streets, were often blocked from joining craft unions as full members.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1934. That was the day that workers at the Toledo Auto-Lite factory decided to go out on strike. The company made electric starters for the auto giants in nearby Detroit. The punishing effects of the Great Depression had hit the auto industry hard.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1934. That was the day that labor organizer Frank Norman disappeared from the Lakeland, Florida area and was never heard from again. It is believed he was kidnapped and murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Norman was organizing citrus workers in the northern part of the state.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2006. That was the day of massive protests for immigrants’ rights in cities throughout the United States. Starting in March of 2006, there was a series of coordinated protests in response to a bill passed by the US House of Representatives. The bill would classify undocumented workers as felons, and proposed a wall along one-third of the US-Mexico border.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1970. That was the day that Minneapolis Teachers Union, Local 59, went out on strike. They took the vote to strike, despite the fact state law prohibited teachers from striking. But after months of negotiations that went nowhere, the teachers decided it was time to act. The main issue for the strike was wages
On this day in Labor History the year was 1952. That was the day that President Truman issued Executive Order 10340, nationalizing the US Steel Industry. He hoped to stop a looming steel strike, while the country was embroiled in the Korean War.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947. If you tried to make a telephone call that day, you might have been out luck. During that time, telephone calls were connected by operators. Ninety-five percent of the operators were women.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1917. That was the day the that the United States declared war on Germany and entered World War I. The war had been raging since 1914, but the US did not enter the conflict until 1917. Dubbed the “War to End All Wars,” the conflict transformed the work experience for many women.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1989. That was the day that the United Mine Workers of America called a strike against the Pittston Coal Company. Negotiations with the miners who worked in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky had drug on for fourteen months.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. That was the day that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis, Tennessee. He was in Memphis to support AFSCME sanitation workers, who were out on strike fighting for better wages and working conditions
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. That was the night that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his now famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. He was speaking in support of striking sanitation workers who were members of AFSCME Local 1733.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1917. That was the day that Montana Republican Jeanette Rankin was sworn in as the first ever woman elected to the US Congress. Her mother was a school teacher and her father was a rancher. On her victory, Representative Rankin said, “I may be the first woman member of Congress, but I won’t be the last.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1963. That was the day that the New York Times ran the headline “New York Happy as Papers Return.” The longest and largest newspaper strike in the city had ended. During the early 1960s changes in typesetting technology were transforming how newspapers were made.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1883. That was the day that cowboys went on strike. The cowboys worked in the Texas panhandle. Increasingly, the ranch land in the region was coming under large corporate ownership.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1930. That was the day that ground was broken on what would become one of the worst workplace disasters in U.S. history. At least 476, and possibly more than 700 men died from a disease called silicosis. The project was called the Hawks Nest Tunnel.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1948. That was the day that the labor movement came literally to the doorstep of Wall Street. The United Financial Employees Union went out on strike. The union was started in 1941 by Merritt David Keefe, a page who worked on the stock exchange trading floor.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1977. That was the day that members of AFSCME Local 1644 began their unsuccessful strike in Atlanta, Georgia. The union was made up of 1,300 mostly black sanitation workers. The city of Atlanta had elected its first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, in 1973.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2002. That was the day that the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case Hoffman Plastic Compound, Inc. versus the National Labor Relations Board. This case had profound importance for undocumented workers in the United States.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1910. That was the day that Congress expanded the Immigration Act passed three years earlier.
The new language prohibited “criminals, paupers, anarchists and diseased persons” from entering the nation.
During the first decade of the twentieth century, some nine million immigrants arrived on the shores of the United States.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. It was one the most tragic days in US labor history. 146, mostly Jewish and Italian, women died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City. The death toll was so high because exits were locked or blocked, and basic safety precautions were not taken in the sweatshop.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the birthday of Dorothy Height, a Civil Rights leader and a champion for black women domestic workers. Domestic workers had largely been left out of the labor protections passed as part of the New Deal.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1918. That was the day that trial of 101 Industrial Workers of the World began in Chicago. Their alleged crime? Speaking out against US involvement in World War I.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941. That was the day that the generators began to operate at one of the most massive construction projects ever built—the Grand Coulee Dam. The dam generates hydro-power from the Columbia River in Washington State.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1960. That was the day of the Sharpeville, Massacre in South Africa. Black South Africans were required to carry identification documents. These passes limited who could live or work in designated “white” areas of the country.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1854. That was the day that the founders of what became the Republican Party met in Ripon, Wisconsin. The idea was to form a new party, opposed to the Southern labor system based on slavery. That July the Republicans held their first convention in Michigan.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1834. That was the day that six Englishmen, who would become known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to seven years “transportation” to the penal colony of Australia. Their crime? Forming a union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. That was the day that the staff at radio station KMPX in San Francisco went on strike. The radio station had broken new ground with their “underground rock” format. In 1967, the station hired Tom “Big Daddy” Donahue as a DJ.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1890. That was the day that the executive council of the American Federation of Labor decided that the Carpenters union should lead a national campaign for the eight-hour day. The cry “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!” had been on the lips of working people for more than twenty years.
“Too long have others spoken for us." Those were the words published On this day in Labor History the year was 1827. This was the message of the co-editors of the Freeman’s Journal, the first black newspaper in the United States. Slavery had been outlawed in New York that same year.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1999. That was the day the Bruce Springsteen was inducted into the Rocking Roll Hall of Fame.
Two years later, an article in Rolling Stone magazine read, “For nearly four decades Bruce Springsteen has been a working-class hero: a plainspoken visionary and a sincere romantic whose insights into everyday lives — especially in America's small-town heartland — have earned comparisons to John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day that participants in the famed Bread and Roses strike, gathered in Lawrence, Massachusetts to celebrate their victory. The strike had begun in January and was a hard-fought battle.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1946. That was the day that United Autoworkers members won an 18.5-cent hourly raise after a four-month strike against General Motors. After World War II workers grew increasingly frustrated.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1930. That was the day that Mahatma Gandhi began his famous Salt March. The March was to protest British colonial rule of India and the repressive salt tax waged on the Indian people. Under British rule, Indian people were prohibited from producing salt.
At some point in your life you may have had someone call you a “luddite.’ Maybe you had a hard time programming your DVR, or working the latest app on your smart phone. But at some point technology gets the best of us all. But did you know the term luddite has its roots in labor history?
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. That was the day that farm labor activist Cesar Chavez broke a twenty-five day fast. He fasted as a sign of commitment to nonviolence during the struggle for farm workers in Delano, California to gain fair wages and safe working conditions. During the fast he only drank water.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. That was the day that coal miners in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania walked out of the mines. It became known as the “Slovak strike” because seventy percent of the strikers were Slovakian immigrants. Unrest was mounting among the workers in the non-unionized coal fields.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1924. That was the day that tragedy struck at the Utah Fuel Company Mine in Castle Gate, Utah. The mine stood about 90 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. Coal mining began at Castle Gate in 1888.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1942. That was the day a house fire claimed the life of a true champion for working people. Lucy Gonzales Parsons was born in Texas.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1857. That was the day the Supreme Court handed down one of its most infamous decisions. It was known as the Dred Scott case. Dred Scott had been born into slavery.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1770. That was the day of the Boston Massacre, when the first shots of the American Revolution were fired. But did you know that the massacre happened in part because of a dispute over jobs? In 1767 the British had passed the Townshend Revenue Act.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1914. That was the day that President Woodrow Wilson signed the Seaman’s Act into law. The act was in part a response to the tragic sinking of the Titanic.The International Seamen’s Union was demanding changes to the work conditions at sea.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1893. That was the day that William Green, long-time president of the American Federation was born in Coshocton, Ohio. Green’s family were English and Welsh immigrant coal miners.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1807. That was the day that President Thomas Jefferson signed legislation outlawing the trans-Atlantic slave trade from bringing enslaved Africans to the United States. At the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, the authors had decided to revisit the question of slavery after two decades.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1900. That was the day that the members of the Granite Cutters National Union walked out on strike.
Their demands were improved wages and the eight hour day.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1942. That was the day that Sue Cowan Williams filed a lawsuit for equal pay for black school teachers in Little Rock, Arkansas. Eighty-six black teachers worked in the city’s segregated school system. They were all members of the Little Rock Class Room Teachers Association.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1942. That was the day that 27 Japanese women, working in the Seattle public school system handed in their forced resignations. In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, anti-Japanese hysteria swept the United States, especially the west coast.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2011. That was the day that labor movement took an historic stand in Madison, Wisconsin. That cold Saturday a crowd of union members and supporters swelled to more than 100,000 people at the state capitol building.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941. That was the day a general strike by workers against the Nazis took place in Amsterdam. The Nazis had begun the occupation of the Netherlands in the spring of 1940. The German occupiers implemented a series of increasingly repressive anti-Semitic laws.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1965. That was the day that the Drug and Hospital Employees Union Local 1199 sent a telegram to President Lyndon Johnson. The message declared the union’s stand against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1875. That was the day that the National Marine Engineers’ Association was founded at a meeting in Cleveland, Ohio. The association represented steamboat engineers, most from boats navigating the Great Lakes. Being a steamboat engineer was risky business.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1860. That was the day that the shoemakers of Lynn, Massachusetts walked out on strike.
The shoemakers were very concerned over how technology was changing their work. Shoemaking had long been considered a skilled craft.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1868. That was the day that the Governor of California signed into law the eight-hour workday. The law was the result of a strong organizing effort led by California’s trade unions. The call for eight hours had gained traction across the U.S. labor movement after the Civil War.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. That was the day the National Lawyers Guild held their first convention at the Hotel Washington in the nation’s capital. The guild was established as way to bring together progressive lawyers dedicated to fighting “for basic and progressive change in our political and economic system and to assure that human rights be regarded as more sacred than property interests.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1997. If you had theater tickets that evening to see Beauty and the Beast in Seattle, the show did not go on as planned. Musicians at the Fifth Avenue theater, members of Local 76-493, had been on strike for a week.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1834. That was the day that one of the earliest labor newspapers in the country published its first edition in New York City. The Man was a paper aimed at trade unionists.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1932. That was the day that working people in the United States said goodbye to one of their great heroes. Florence Kelley was born in Philadelphia in 1859. Her father, William D. Kelley, was a U.S. Senator.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1870. That was the day that the powerful labor orator Leonora O’Reilly was born to an Irish immigrant garment worker in New York City. During her lifetime Leonora left her special mark on the labor movement as a member of some of the leading organizations of working people of her day.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1950. That was the day that the Red Scare took its toll on the US Labor Movement.
The Congress of Industrial Organizations expelled the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers for their alleged Communist ties.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1818. That was the day that abolitionist Frederick Douglass chose to celebrate as his birthday. He could not be sure of the exact date of his birth, because he was born into slavery. He escaped from slavery and became one of the leading black writers and orators for the cause of abolition.
What labor union would you say has the coolest name? The Sons of Vulcan would most certainly have to be in the running. On this day in Labor History the year was 1865. That was the day the Sons of Vulcan ended their eight-month strike and won a union contract. The Vulcans were skilled steel workers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1913. That was the day that the labor leader known as “Mother” Jones was arrested in West Virginia. She was there to support coal miners during the Paint and Cabin Creek strike of 1912-1913. The West Virginia coalfields were one of the bloodiest sites of labor conflict in US History.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1903. That was the day that workers in Oxnard, California took a united stand and showed the power of solidarity. Oxnard was a California boom town. The American Beat Sugar Company, owned by the Oxnard brothers, drew hundreds of workers to the area.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1971. That was the day that is known in Great Britain as the Battle of Saltley Gate.
30,000 Birmingham engineers had walked out in solidarity with a strike by the National Union of Mineworkers.
The miners were taking a stand against austerity pay.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1854. That was the day that novelist George Lippard died in Philadelphia. Lippard was friends with Edgar Allen Poe. He is most well-known for his novel about Philadelphia titled Quaker City.The book is considered to be one of the first American muckraking novels.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1974. That was the day that a three-man American astronaut crew returned to earth from eighty-four-day mission at the Sky Lab. They were the first crew to spend so long in low-earth orbit up to that time.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2008. That evening at 7:15 p.m., an explosion rocked the city of Wentworth, just outside of Savannah, Georgia. An explosion had gone off at Imperial Sugar. Highly combustible sugar dust had ignited.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1919. That day began the week-long general strike in Seattle, Washington. As World War I drew to a close many workers in the city were frustrated by two years without pay increases due to the war. 35,000 workers in the shipyards walked off of the job.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1913. That was the day that Ida Breiman was killed while she stood up for the rights of working people in Rochester, New York. Ida was born in Russia to a Jewish family.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1825. That was the day the Ohio legislature authorized the Canal Act. The act called for the construction of two canals.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1971. That was a day of tragedy for the workers at the Thiokol Chemical Corporation plant in southeastern Georgia. An explosion killed twenty-seven workers, and injured dozens more.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1821. That was the birthday of the first woman to earn her medical degree in the United States. Her name was Elizabeth Blackwell.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1960. That was the day that four black freshmen students from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina sat down to make a stand for justice.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1865. That was the day that the US Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the constitution, abolishing slavery. President Lincoln had already issued the Emancipation Proclamation. But there was worry that the proclamation, an emergency wartime measure, would not stand up in the courts after the war had ended.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1992. That was the day that the gravediggers of Chicago ended their forty-three day strike. The United Press International’s headline declared, “The dead will rest in peace now that Chicago-area gravediggers have reached a tentative contract.” The gravediggers were part of Service Employees International Union Local 106.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1834. That was the first time in United States history that a President called in federal troops to settle a labor dispute and It would certainly not be the last. President Andrew Jackson ordered federal troops to quiet the workers on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1932. That was the day the first unemployment insurance law in was established in the United States.
It happened in Wisconsin. Governor Phillip LaFollette signed the Unemployment Compensation Act.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1950. The cost of a first-class stamp was three cents.
And starting on this day, one of the options for first class postage bore the image of US labor leader Samuel Gompers.
The British-born Gompers was a founder and long-time head of the American Federation of Labor.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1907. That was the day that President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law an effort to get corporate money out of national politics. The law was called the Tillman Act. The act was named after its sponsor, Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1787. That was the day known as Shays’ Rebellion.
The United States was a new nation, and the Constitution had not yet been written.
The revolutionary army had won the war with Britain, but the young nation was mired in debt.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1984. That was the day that Nestle agreed to terms in order to end a seven year international boycott against the company. The boycott was over the unsafe and dangerous ways that Nestle marketed and sold its baby formula in third world countries.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1936. That was the day when twenty laborers who were part of the Civilian Conservation Corps got involved in a type of “labor” they probably never expected. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a program established by President Franklin Roosevelt to get young men back to work during the Great Depression.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1849. That was the birthday of U.S. labor leader Terence Powderly.
Powderly was born the second youngest of twelve children to Irish immigrants in Carbondale, Pennsylvania.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2000. Just after midnight six hundred police officers clashed with picketing longshoreman in Charleston, South Carolina. The port in Charleston ranked the fourth largest in the United States.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1986. That was the first time Dr. Martin Luther King Day was observed as a national holiday. A powerful voice for Civil Rights, Dr. King was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee while standing on the second floor of the Lorraine Motel.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1915. That was the day that two striking workers were shot and killed by gunmen hired by a fertilizer plant in New Jersey. In addition to the 2 killed many more were injured by the hired guns.
Have you ever worn a union button or t-shirt to work? On this day in Labor History the year was 1912.
Members of the Australian Tramways Association in Brisbane, Queensland decided to put on their union badges at work.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1915. It was the day that the people in Chicago stood up to demand an end to hunger and unemployment. Their stand began at a meeting at Bowen Hall, part of the Hull House complex founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1946. That was the day the United Packinghouse Workers of America went on strike. Their initial demand was for a twenty-five cent an hour raise. They were also joined in the strike by the Amalgamated Meat Cutters union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1946. That was the day the United Packinghouse Workers of America went on strike. Their initial demand was for a twenty-five cent an hour raise. They were also joined in the strike by the Amalgamated Meat Cutters union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941. That was the day that black labor leader, A Philip Randolph, issued a call for a March on Washington. He proposed the march to bring attention to the employment discrimination faced by African American workers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1868. Representatives of more than forty locals of the International Union of Bricklayers of North America gathered in New York City. It was the third annual convention of the new union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1893. That was the day that 120 delegates met in Bradford, England to form the Independent Labor Party. The goal of this political party was to get more candidates that represented the interests of working people elected to the British Parliament.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1942. That was the day the President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reestablished the National War Labor Board. Just a little over a month before the United States had entered World War II.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day a strike launched one of the most iconic rallying cries of the U.S. Labor Movement. Twenty thousand, mostly women workers, in the Lawrence, Massachusetts textile mills began what came to be known as the “Bread and Roses” strike.
On this day in Labor history the year was 1860. It was a day of tragedy as The Pemberton Mill collapsed in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The collapse of the five-story textile mill was one of the worst workplace disasters in U.S. history.
Do national security concerns outweigh the right of workers to form a union? That question was being debated On this day in Labor HistoryThe year was 2003. The head of the Transportation Security Administration, James Loy, made the case that collective bargaining would be an impediment to the war on terrorism.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1939. That was the day a new radio show began on CBS radio.
The show featured some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1980. That was the day the President Jimmy Carter signed into law the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act. The act allowed the federal government to guarantee up to one-and-a-half billion dollars in loans to aid the failing Chrysler corporation.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941. That was the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave a speech that would become one of the defining moments of his presidency. The world was embroiled in the Second World War.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1933.
That was the day that construction on one of the most iconic landmarks in the United States—the Golden Gate Bridge, began.
The bridge was built during the height of the Great Depression.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1965. That was the day that 8,000 social workers went on strike in New York City. For twenty-eight days that bitter cold January these workers marched on the picket lines. They were members of AFSCME District Council 37 union and the Social Service Employees Union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1917. That was the day the trial against labor leader Tom Mooney began.
Mooney stood accused of detonating a bomb at the "Preparedness Day," parade in San Francisco on July 22, 1916.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2006.
That was the day that a morning explosion at the Sago mine in West Virginia claimed the lives of twelve miners.
The federal Mine Safety and Health administration had cited the mine more than two hundred times the year before the disaster.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1831.
That was the day that William Lloyd Garrison published the first edition of “The Liberator.”
The purpose of the newspaper was to push for the end of slavery in the United States.
On this day in labor history the year was 1891. That was the day that an Irish teenager by the name of Annie Moore arrived on the shores of New York. She was travelling with her two younger brothers. They had taken a twelve-day sea voyage to be reunited with their parents, who were already in New York City.
On this day in labor history the year was 1899. That was the day that a group of thirty-three railway clerks gathered in the back room of Behrens’ cigar shop in Sedalia, Missouri. They called themselves the Order of Railway Clerks in America. They affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.
On this day in labor history the year was 2006. That was the day that United Steelworker members ended a nearly three-month strike against the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. The strike involved nearly 15,000 workers from sixteen different plants across the United States and Canada.
On this day in labor history the year was 1936. That was the day that at 2pm in the afternoon, 200 workers at the Fisher Body Ohio Company on the East side of Cleveland sat down on the job. Fisher was located in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood.
On this day in labor history the year was 1943. That was the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt seized control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike. The nation was in the midst of World War II.
On this day in labor history the year was 1996. That was the day that working people of South Korea awoke to some alarming news. That morning the country’s new ruling party had passed a new set of labor laws. The new policies had been implemented at an unscheduled morning meeting.
On this day in labor history the year was 2001. That was the year that the spirit of Christmas must have seemed very far away from some of the workers who harvested Christmas Trees in the United States. Many of these workers come from Mexico and Central American countries. They come for the harvest as guest workers.
On this day in labor history the year was 1913. That tragic Christmas Eve, came to be known as the Italian Hall Disaster in Calumet, Michigan. A Christmas party was being held for children of striking copper miners.
On this day in labor history the year was 1908. That was the day that three leaders of the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, and Frank Morrison, were sentenced to jail terms for calling for a Boycott against Bucks Stove & Range.
On this day in labor history the year was 2005. At 2:35 that afternoon the Transport Workers Union in New York City called an end to their three-day strike. The union represented 34,000 workers who kept the cities buses and subways running.
On this day in labor history the year was 1907. At 3:45 that afternoon the Chilean military opened machine gun fire on a school occupied by striking workers. It is estimated that between one and three thousand people died that day in what came to be known as the Santa Maria School Massacre.
On this day in labor history the year was 1790. That was the day that work for many living in the new country of the United States began to change in a significant way. Samuel Slater operated the first cotton spindle machine to spin yarn in the U.S in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The 48-spindle machine ran on the water power of Pawtucket Falls.
On this day in labor history the year was 1983. That was the day that a bitter national strike of Greyhound Workers came to a close. Nearly 13,000 bus drivers, mechanics and clerks had gone on strike. They were members of the Amalgamated Transit Union.
On this day in labor history the year was 1991. That was the day that thousands of workers at in U.S. General motor factories got some very bad news. The company’s CEO Robert Stampel announced that GM would eliminate 74,000 jobs and close 21 plants. The company was struggling.
On this day in labor history the year was 1760. That was the day Deborah Samson was born in Plympton, Massachusetts. She was the first known woman to impersonate a man in order to fight in the Revolutionary War. Her family was poor. As a girl, young Deborah, became an indentured servant.
On this day in labor history the year was 1977. That was the day that eight women in Willmar, Minnesota stood up for their rights in the work place. The women worked at Willmar Citizens National Bank. These women were paid considerably less than the male employees.
On this day in labor history the year was 2005. That was the day the labor movement lost a man who was willing to go to jail to fight for the rights of working people. Clinton Jenks was born in Colorado Springs in 1918. He learned of labor consciousness from his father, a postal worker.
On this day in labor history the year was 1990. That was the day that 20,000 workers in the city of Fez in the North African country of Morocco went out on strike. Austerity measures had hit the country’s working people hard during the 1980's. A drought had made the situation even worse.
On this day in labor history the year was 1924. That was the day that long-time leader of the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers, died. Gompers was born to a Jewish family in England. He was a cigar-maker by trade.
On this day in labor history the year was 1964. That was the day that half of the labor force of France ended a strike that had ground the country to a halt. The strike started on December 10. It is estimated that nine million people participated in the work action.
On this day in labor history the year was 1886. That was the day that black farmers formed the Colored Farmers’ Alliance and Cooperative Union in Houston County, Texas. The Southern Farmers Alliance would not allow black members
On this day in Labor History the year was 1906. That was the day the workers at a General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York organized a sit-down strike. It is considered to be perhaps the first time the sit-down tactic was used in the United States.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1869. That was the day a new union, named the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor was founded. It started in Philadelphia as a secret society of tailors. But soon the Knights expanded to workers in other trades.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1993. That was the day that President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law. The stated aim of NAFTA was to increase trade between the United States, Mexico and Canada.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1931. That was the day that protesters staged a hunger march on Washington, D.C. 1,600 protesters took part in the march.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1897. London became the world’s first city to license motorized taxicabs. More than a century later, cab service has seen many changes. Today taxi drivers are an important sector of workers trying to win union recognition.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1955. That was the day the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to become the AFL-CIO. The American Federation of Labor was a confederation of unions can that trace its history all the way back to just after the Civil War, in 1866.
Would you go to jail for justice for working people? Over the years many in the labor movement have had to make that decision. Such was the case for Cesar Chavez. On this day in labor history the year was 1970. Chavez, the head of the United Farm Workers, was jailed for twenty days for refusing to end a lettuce boycott.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1916. That was the day that seven Australian members of the Industrial Workers of the World were sentenced to fifteen years in prison for their antiwar efforts during World War I. Other IWW members were sentenced to as many as five and ten years each.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2009. That was the day that Wal-Mart agreed to pay $40 million to over 87,000 current and former employees in Massachusetts. This was the largest class action settlement in the state’s history.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1955. That was the day that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. With that action she helped to launch the Civil Rights Movement.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1909. That was day the British House of Lords rejected the “People’s Budget.” The proposed budget plan was a product of the Liberal government headed by Prime Minister H.H. Asquith. This budget was championed by Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George and the President of the Board of Trade, a young Winston Churchill.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1832, American author, Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Alcott is most well known for her classic book Little Women and its two sequels. She also wrote a novel called Work: A Story of Experience.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1891. That was the day that the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union began in St. Louis Missouri. At the time of the union’s founding the field of electrical work was very new. Linemen often risked their lives for the job.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. That was the day the curtain first went up on the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union pro-labor production on Broadway. The show was called Pins and Needles. The revue played on Broadway until 1940 and was revived in 1978.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1867. That was the day that J.B. Sutherland of Detroit patented the first specialized refrigerated railroad car. Southerland’s design included ice tanks at both ends of the car and ventilation flaps on the floor, which used gravity to send a draft of cold air flowing throughout the car.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1946. That was the day that teachers in St. Paul, Minnesota went on strike. It was the first ever organized walkout of teachers in the United States. The strike was organized by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1875. That was the day that Samuel Gompers founded the Cigar Makers’ International Union Local 144 in New York City. The very first Cigar Marker’s Union local had been established in Baltimore in 1851 by craftsmen who opposed importation of lower-paid laborers from Germany.
On this day in labor history, we are going way, way, way back. The year was 1170 B.C. So the exact date is a bit of an estimate. Egyptian workers initiated what just might be the first recorded strike in world history. The workers were toiling on public works projects, including building tombs of the pharaohs, in the Valley of the Kings.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1909. That was the day that a young garment worker by the name of Clara Lemlich made a speech that would have a resounding impact on the labor movement in New York City. Lemlich was at a union meeting, where she sat listening to men discuss whether garment workers should call a general strike. Finally she asked to speak.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1831. That was the day that silk workers went on strike in Lyon, France. It was one of several strikes, known as the Canut revolts. Canut was a term used to describe Lyonnais silk workers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1816. That was the day the Albany Typographical Society used the term “scab” to describe a strikebreaker. The word scab had been used in England for nearly three centuries as a slang meaning a rascal or scoundrel. By the late 1700s, laborers began to use the insult to refer to workmen who wouldn't join a union or a strike.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1915. On that sad day, Industrial Workers of the World organizer and songwriter, Swedish-born Joe Hill, was executed in Utah. In 1914, Hill was framed for the murder of a grocer and his son in Salt Lake City. The evidence was circumstantial at best.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1936. That was the day workers at the General Motors plant in Atlanta, Georgia participated in a sit-down strike. This was part of a wave of labor organizing during the 1930s. Other GM plants in Kansas City, Mo. and Cleveland, Ohio went on strike.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947. That was the day that the Screen Actors Guild voted to make all SAG members take an anti-Communist loyalty oath. The late 1940s were the dawn of the US Cold War with the Soviet Union. Anti-Communist hysteria swept the country.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1798. On that day Kentucky became the first state to nullify an act of the United States Congress. The federal government had passed the Alien and Sedition Acts during the presidency of John Adams.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1881. That was the day that trade unionists held the founding convention of the Federation of Trades and Labor Unions in Pittsburgh. This group later changed its name to the American Federation of Labor. During the 1880's it grew to replace the Knights of Labor as the most powerful labor union organization in the United States.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1903. Working women from around the nation founded the National Women’s Trade Union League in Boston. The organization’s founders included female reformers, working class women, as well as women from wealthy families.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1909. On this tragic day, 259 coal miners died in a mine in Cherry, Illinois. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad opened the mine in 1905 to supply coal for their trains. Most of the miners were immigrants, primarily Italian. Many could not speak English.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1996. That was the day that “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap lived up to his nickname. Under his leadership, the Board of the Sunbeam Corporation agreed to eliminate half of the company's 6,000 employees and 87% of its products. Dunlap had built a reputation for ruthlessly restructuring companies. His policy of implementing sweeping layoffs and plant closures earned him the nickname “Chainsaw Al.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1887. That was a tragic day for the labor movement. Four men were hung in Chicago for their alleged role in the bombing at a labor rally at the city’s Haymarket Square a year earlier. In a sensational trial a total of eight men were convicted for Haymarket.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1933. That was the day that Hormel plant workers in Austin, Minnesota began a sit-down strike. Company head, Jay Hormel, boasted that his company was a benevolent dictatorship. Workers agreed that the company was a dictatorship but not very benevolent.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1935.The Committee for Industrial Organizations was created by eight unions, as part of the American Federation of Labor. United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis was the driving force behind this new committee
On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. That was the day that black and white workers in New Orleans began what is considered the first integrated general strike in United States history. The strike began when the New Orleans Board of Trade refused to enter into an agreement with the Teamsters Union because it included black members.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1990. That was the day that Lemuel Ricketts Boulware died. Boulware had a notorious reputation with labor leaders. He was the Vice President for employee relations for General Electric during the 1950s.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1860. That was the day that Abraham Lincoln was elected sixteenth President of the United States. When Lincoln came to office the nation was deeply divided on the question of slavery. By December 20, South Carolina had seceded from the United States.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1855. That was the day that Eugene Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. Debs was forced to leave school when he was just fourteen. He worked as a railroad fireman.
Got milk? If you lived in Neillsville, Wisconsin the answer might have been NO. On this day in labor history the year was 1933. Wisconsin is known as the dairy state.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1921. That was the day the New York Timesheadline proclaimed: “Striker Rioting All Over the City, Dump Thousands of Gallons of Milk; Hylan Threatens to Seize plants.” Hylan referred to New York City Mayor John Francis Hylan.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1928. That was the day that police shot at protesting union workers at Prince’s Pier in Melbourne Australia. Three union workers were injured, one fatally.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1835. That was the day that workers in Philadelphia organized what was the first general strike in North America. There call was for a ten-hour workday.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941. That was the day that the completed Mount Rushmore monument was dedicated in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The monument portrays massive sculptures of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt hewn into the side of a mountain.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1986. That was the day that Edward Meese, gave a speech to the US Chamber of Commerce. Meese was serving as Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan. During the speech, Meese encouraged bosses to spy on their employees, in order to determine if they were using drugs.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1929. That bleak day is now known as “Black Tuesday,” the day of the Stock Market crash that marked the start of the Great Depression. During the optimistic Roaring Twenties investments in the Stock Market soared.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1965. That was the day that the St. Louis Gateway arch was completed in St. Louis. The project was the result of a nation-wide design competition.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1951. That was the day that the National Negro Labor Council held its founding convention. African American workers had made significant gains in the American workforce during World War II.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1825. That was the day the construction of the Erie Canal was completed.
The 363 mile canal connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, by way of the Hudson River. The project was started in 1817.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1990.
That was the day that eight of the ten unions at the New York Daily News went out on strike.
The paper had had one of the highest daily circulations in the United States.
The New York Daily News was owned by the Chicago-based Tribune Company.
The strike began when management demanded major concessions from the delivery drivers, essentially forcing them to strike.
Seven more unions joined them on the picket line.
In retaliation management brought in scab labor.
This caused a ninth union to join the walkout.
The Newspaper Guild workers had planned to honor the picket lines, but not go on strike themselves.
But according in an article in the Los Angeles Times, “said local Guild President Barry Lipton, the editorial employees decided almost immediately at an afternoon meeting to go on strike rather than to work with any “imported scabs and goons.”
Well known journalist Juan Gonzalez, was a strike leader for the local.
By using replacement workers, Daily News management was able to keep the paper in production.
But they found it much more difficult to get the paper distributed.
Even where they could make delivery, many newsstands refused to sell the struck paper.
The New York Times blamed this on intimidation from delivery drivers.
But they also acknowledged that some refused distribution “either out of sympathy for strikers or an unwillingness to offend pro-union customers.”
To support the strike, the unions put on a concert headlined by Lou Reed, along with Pete Seeger, Q-Tip from a Tribe Called Quest and other musicians.
The strike lasted for five months, prompting the Tribune to sell the paper.
Under new management the strike was finally settled.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1934. That was the day that the first minimum wage law went into effect in the United States. The minimum was twenty-five cents an hour. The wage law was part of the Fair Labor Standards Act passed earlier that year.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1989. At 1:05 in the afternoon a massive explosion rocked the town of Pasadena, Texas, near Houston. The explosion was so large it registered as a 3.5 on the Richter scale, used to measure earthquakes.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority voted to decertify Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. The PATCO union had gone on strike earlier that year over wages, hours, and working conditions.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1999. That was the day that 270 workers from the Embassy Vacation Resorts in Maui voted to join Local 5 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees. Local 5 got its start in Hawaii in 1938.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1983. That was the day that musician Merle Travis died. Known for his unique finger-picking guitar style, Travis wrote songs that captured the hard life of the coal miner.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1980. In what the Chicago Sun Times called it the “biggest labor management war of the last two decades.” The battle for union recognition at ten J.P. Stevens’s textile plants ended in victory.
On this day in Labor History, and we are going all the way back to 1648. More than a hundred years before the American Revolution, an early trade organization was founded in the Colony of Massachusetts. They called themselves the “Company of Shoemakers.”
On this day in Labor History, the year was 1877. That was the day that John D. Rockefeller, and his company Standard Oil struck a deal with the Pennsylvania Railroad that would cement his monopoly on the nation’s oil refineries. In the early 1870s Rockefeller was building his oil empire out from its center in Cleveland, Ohio.
On this day in Labor History, the year was 1859. That was the day that abolitionist John Brown led a raid at the armory in Harpers Ferry, in what is now West Virginia. His goal was to strike a blow toward ending slavery.
On this day in Labor History, the year was 1914. That was the day that President Woodrow Wilson signed the Clayton Antitrust Act. The act also became known as Labor’s “Magna Carta.”
On this day in Labor History, the year was 1933. That was the day the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor decided to call for a boycott of Nazi Germany’s goods and services. Jewish labor leaders in the United States led the push for the boycott.
On this day in Labor History, the year was 2000. That was the day the newspaper carriers for the San Jose Mercury News ended their walkout. Eighty percent of the newspaper carriers were Vietnamese immigrants to the United States. Many were elderly, or recent immigrants with families.
Bury me with my boys in Mt. Olive, and let no traitor draw breath over my grave.” Such was the last wish of labor leader Mother Jones. She wanted her final resting to place to be alongside the coal miners who gave their lives in the struggle to bring fair wages and a safe working environment to Virden, Illinois.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1936. 50,000 people gathered in the small town of Mount Olive, in southern Illinois. They had come to commemorate a new memorial to renowned labor leader Mother Jones and the honor mine workers who had lost their lives. Five special trains and twenty-five Greyhound buses helped bring the crowd to the Union Miners Cemetery.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1933. That was the day that forty armed cotton growers shot at a group of striking workers in the small town of Pixley, California. That year a wave of labor unrest had swept through the fields of California’s agriculture industry. Nearly 50,000 workers participated in strikes throughout the year.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1888. That was the day that the United Hebrew Trades was founded in New York City. The new effort was patterned after the United German Trades. The goal was to organize Yiddish speaking workers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1986. Female flight attendants won an important legal victory. Can you imagine losing your job because you decided to get married? It might have happened if you were a flight attendant working in the mid-Twentieth century.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1879. The man who came to be known as Joe Hill was born Joel Emmanuel Hagglund in Gavle, Sweden. Hill traveled the United States organizing for the grassroots labor organization the Industrial Workers of the World.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1996 fifteen thousand workers at the General Motors Plant in Quebec walked off the job. Members of the Canadian Auto Workers union were frustrated with their wages. They were also angry about layoffs and GM’s moves to outsource some of the auto production to non-unionized labor.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1886.
That was the day Henry George accepted the nomination to run for mayor of New York on the United Labor Party ticket.
In cities across the country, trade unionists met to found state labor parties and to hammer out political platforms for local and state elections.
In New York City, ULP advocates issued the Clarendon Hall platform and nominated Henry George as the ULP candidate for the mayoral race.
George had gained prominence with the 1879 publishing of his book, Progress & Poverty.
In it, he addressed private land ownership as the basis for inequality and advocated for a single tax system.
At New York’s Cooper Union that evening, where thousands of supporters gathered, George addressed the crowd.
He presented the ULP platform: higher pay, shorter hours, better working conditions, government ownership of railroads and communications and an end to police repression.
Burrows and Wallace describe the scene that night in their book, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898.
During his speech, George declared that, “this government of New York City—our whole political system is rotten to the core.”
He argued that “politicians had made a trade out of assembling votes and selling them to powerful interests; what business got in return was police protection, lax enforcement of housing and health codes, friendly judges and fat franchises. To purify the political order, working class voters had to sever ties to all the established parties and choose from their own ranks.”
For a party that had just been founded weeks before, George came in second.
But like its sister organization in Chicago, the New York ULP would split over the issue of socialism within a year
On this day in Labor History the year was 1945. That was the day President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9639. It ordered the US Navy to seize control of more than four dozen oil refineries across the country. As World War II was drawing to a close, workers in many industries were growing increasingly restless. They had seen company owners rake in record profits, and the workers felt they had not received their fair share.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1943. That was the day the United Packinghouse Workers of America was chartered under the CIO. The new union was the result of the CIO’s Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee. Started in 1937 the Organizing Committee was an effort to build a union that broke down barriers between races and crafts in the meatpacking industry.
Did you enjoy a cup of coffee to start your day this morning? On this day in Labor History the year was 2007. That was the day that Starbucks agreed to post information about union rights on an employee bulletin board at its store in Grand Rapids Michigan. The Industrial Workers of the World were attempting to organize the baristas at that store.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1991. That was the day that the Pattern Makers League of North America merged with International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Have you ever heard of the Pattern Makers union? The Pattern Makers can trace their history all the way back to 1887.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. That was the day that 29 leaders of the Homestead Steel Strike in Pennsylvania were charged with treason against the state. If you are a regular listener to this broadcast, you have heard about this strike before.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1931. Canadian Coal miners, their wives, and children marched through the streets of Estevan, Saskatchewan. The miners were on strike for union recognition, and better pay and working conditions. Safety was a major concern for the 600 men and boys who worked in the mines.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1904. A woman was arrested for smoking a cigarette in a car on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Women in the United States are no longer likely to be arrested for smoking cigarettes in public. They continue to face unequal treatment in the labor force.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1909. That was the day the International Ladies Garment Workers Union began a strike against the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Eventually, female workers struck at 339 of the 352 shirtwaist manufacturing firms in New York City. The strike was referred to as the “Uprising of the 20,000.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1786. Daniel Shays led a group of farmers in an armed uprising. They were angry about taxes levied by the State of Massachusetts. Shays had been a captain in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
Can a photograph bring about social reform? Lewis Hine believed it could. On this day in Labor History the year was 1874, renowned photographer, Lewis Hine, was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Hine studied sociology at the University of Chicago, Columbia Universityand New York University.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1789. Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789. This act established the plan for U.S. Supreme Court. At first the Court was comprised of just six justices appointed by the President with Senate confirmation.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1969. President Richard Milhous Nixon issued the Philadelphia Plan. The goal of the plan was to require building trades unions to admit black members into their ranks. Nixon believed this would show him as a civil rights supporter without having to give in to the more radical demands of the civil rights movement.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2006. Eleven Domino’s pizza delivery drivers in Pensacola, Florida formed what is thought to be the first ever union of pizza delivery drivers. The American Union of Pizza Delivery Drivers won recognition from the National Labor Relations Board as the bargaining agent for drivers at the Pensacola franchise.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day that labor activist, Mother Jones, led a march of miners’ children through the streets of Charleston, West Virginia. Her aim was to illustrate the effects of poverty.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1878. That was the day that socialist author Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland. A prolific writer, Sinclair wrote nearly 100 books and other publications. Upton Sinclair’s father and father’s relatives had been wealthy Southerners.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. More than 400,000 union members marched in labor’s first Solidarity Day demonstration in Washington, D.C. The demonstration was called by the AFL-CIO to protest the Reagan administration’s policies and the firing of striking air traffic controllers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1830. That was the day that “Tom Thumb,” the first locomotive built in the U.S. raced a horse on a nine-mile course in Maryland.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1868. That was the day that Susan B. Anthony, and a committee on female labor called for a vote for equal pay for equal work at the National Labor Congress. It was the second annual meeting of labor leaders from throughout the country. Anthony had begun publication of a newspaper, The Revolution.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1920. At noon, a horse-drawn wagon containing 100 pounds of dynamite pulled up across the street of the J.P. Morgan Chase Company on Wall Street in New York City. 500 pounds of cast-iron slugs were packed in with the dynamite.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1845. 5,000 female workers at the Allegheny Cotton Mills went on strike for a ten-hour day. The fast streams around Pittsburgh and Allegheny city were ideal to power cotton mills. The mills were overheated and filled with dangerous dust.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1959. The United States Congress passed the Landrum-Griffin Act. President Eisenhower signed the new law, which was also called the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. The new law had lasting consequences for the way unions operated.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2013. Riot police used tear gas and water cannons to clear out Zocalo Square in Mexico City. The square was occupied by protesting teachers. The teachers had been on strike for weeks. They wanted changes made to education reforms that had been passed by the Mexican government.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1918. Socialist and labor leader Eugene Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison for opposing the United States’ involvement in World War I. The Espionage and Sedition Act had been passed a year earlier.
Today in Labor History, we pause to remember the events that took place on the morning of September 11. The year was 2001.
Terrorists hijacked planes and intentionally crashed them into Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1897, striking coal miners marched on a coal mine in Lattimer, Pennsylvania. Earlier that year the miners had gone out on strike. Most of the miners were German or Eastern European immigrants.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1924. Sixteen striking Filipino sugar workers on the Hawaiian island of Kauaiwere killed by police. This incident is known as the Hanapepe Massacre. Filipinos began immigrating to Hawaii to work on sugar plantations in 1906.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1901. That was the day that Francisco Ferrer opened the Escuela Moderna in Barcelona, Spain. Ferrer was anarchist and educator. Explaining what he hoped to accomplish with these new schools. He said, “There must be a co-education of the different social classes as well as of the two sexes.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1980. The 32nd Annual Emmy Awards show took place despite 51 of the 52 nominated performers boycotting the event. At issue was a strike by members of the Screen Actors Guild. Powers Boothe was the only nominated actor to attend.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941. The Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee, part of the CIO, and Armour & Company signed a master contract. This was the first such contract in the meatpacking industry. Within two years, three other major meatpackers also signed agreements with the union.
What are your plans for Labor Day weekend? Are you going to enjoy a barbecue with friends or family, or maybe march with your union in a parade? Do you know the history of this holiday? On this day in Labor History the year was 1882.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. At least 10,000 tailors went on strike to protest their sweatshop working conditions. The New York Times reported “contract tailors of New York and Brooklyn celebrated Labor Day yesterday by going on strike.” Unemployed tailors pledged not to work as scabs.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1928. 300 musicians working in Chicago went on strike against 250 movie theaters. They were protesting their impending replacement by talking pictures. This was part of a nationwide wave of protest by the American Federation of Musicians.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1885.White miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming planned to wipe out the town’s entire Chinese community. Chinese immigrants came to the United States looking for work, first in the California gold mines, then as laborers on the Transcontinental Railroad.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1859. That was the day the first Pullman sleeping car made an overnight trip. The first Pullman sleeper was a renovated day coach. That first trip was made on the Chicago and Alton Railroad between Bloomington, Illinois and Chicago.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1991. Three thousand five hundred buses rolled into Washington, D.C.
They were loaded with protesters, there to participate in Solidarity Day.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1921. That was the day that one of most pitched battles in US labor history, the “Battle of Blair Mountain” began in West Virginia. Coal fueled the engines of industry, keeping the trains moving and the steel mills humming.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1996. That was the day that workers at the Lusty Lady strip club in San Francisco made their final push to make their case for the right to join a union. They made history by winning the union vote fifty-seven to fifteen.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1963. That was the day of one of the most iconic stands for justice and equality in United States history. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech” to a quarter-million people in Washington D.C.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1950. At 4 pm that day the US Army completed its take-over of the country’s railroads.
They were acting on the orders of President Truman.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1919. That was the day that Fannie Sellins and Joseph Starzeleski were murdered while standing up for workers’ rights. Fannie was born in New Orleans, and then married a garment worker in St. Louis.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1925. 500 African American sleeping car porters gathered at the Elks Hall at 129thStreet in Harlem. The meeting was called by A. Philip Randolph.
The year was 1877.
That summer during what came to be known as “The Great Upheaval,” police, the US Army, and the National Guard brutally crushed a national railroad strike. The simmering anger of working people had many elected officials and industrialists on edge.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day the US Congress approved the formation of the Commission on Industrial Relations. In the early 1900s the terrible work conditions and entrenched resistance to union organizing had led to increasing labor unrest.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1945. That was the day five women working for United Airlines formed the first union for airline stewardess. Those women were Ada Brown, Frances Hall, Edith Lauterbach, Sally Thometz and Sally Watt.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1831. That was the year Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in Southhampton, Virginia.
From a young age Turner believed he had a purpose ordained by God. Turner had learned to read from one of his master’s sons.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1964. President Lyndon B. Johnson gave a mid-morning address in the Rose Garden of the White House. He was there to sign the Economic Opportunity Act that launched what became known as Johnson’s War on Poverty.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1909. That was the day that a committee of the Industrial Workers of the World in Spokane, Washington published the first edition of the “Little Red Song Book.” The collection were “Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1927. That was the day that a new radio station began to broadcast on the New York dial. The station’s call letters were WEVD. It stood for Eugene V. Debs. The radio station was founded to honor the recently deceased Socialist and labor leader.
On this day in Labor History the year 1918. That was the day that 101 leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies were convicted in a Chicago Federal Court. Their alleged crime?
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. That was the birthday of the long-time leader of the AFL-CIO.
George Meany grew up in the Bronx, with his Irish Catholic family.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1971. That Sunday, President Richard Nixon addressed the nation in a speech that preempted the popular television show, Bonanza. His subject? The state of the economy. The speech was timed before the stock markets opened on Monday morning.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1936.
That was the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law.
The act was a key piece of the President’s “New Deal” a series of federal programs responding to the ravages of the Great Depression.
Social Security would provide an income for retirees and the disabled, to ensure they did no slide into complete destitution.
On signing the bill, President Roosevelt, known for delivering memorable speeches, addressed the press.
He said, “Today, the hope of many years’ standing in large part fulfilled. The civilization of the past hundred years, with its startling industrial changes, had tended more and more to make life insecure. Young people have come to wonder what will their lot when they come to old age. The man with a job has wondered how long that job will last. This Social Security measure gives at least some protection to 50 million of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation, through old age pensions, and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health.”
He went on to say, “The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and inflation. It is, in short, a law that will care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.”
Over the past few decades, politicians, have increasingly sounded the alarm that Social Security will not remain viable as the large baby boomer generation retires and draws benefits.
Yet despite those who seek to attack Social Security, it remains a bedrock of the social safety net for millions of Americans.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1936. That was the day that thirty-five journalists of the Seattle Post-Intelligencerwalked off the job. They represented about half of the paper’s news room staff at the time.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1881. That was the day that the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners passed their first constitution at a meeting in Chicago. The meeting was organized by Peter J. McGuire.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2013. That was the day a somewhat unexpected new union formed in Bangor, Maine. Local 207 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace workers represents lobster fisherman. Lobster fisherman are known for being fiercely independent.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1954. That was the day of the groundbreaking ceremony of what would come to be known as “the greatest construction show on earth.” The show was the development of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1927. That was the day that the California School Employees Association was founded.
Today the union includes more than 215,000 members. But it all started with just nine men and one woman.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1994. President Bill Clinton posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Latino farm worker organizer Cesar Chavez. It is the highest honor granted to civilians.
In the early 1980s telephone service in the United States went through a major shake-up. Up until that time AT&T through their Bell Operating Companies monopolized almost all of the telephone service in the nation. One-hundred-fifty million phones were part of the Bell network.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1919. That was the day that stages across New York City went dark. Actors Equity was on strike against the Producing Managers Association. Up until that time stage actors often faced poor work conditions.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. It was a dark day in U.S. labor history.
Nearly 13,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization had been out on strike for two days.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1997. That was the day that 185,000 UPS workers and members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters went out on strike. It was the biggest strike in the United States in more than a decade.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1821. That was the day Uriah Smith Stephens was born near Cape May, New Jersey.
Although he longed to be a Baptist minister, he worked as a tailors apprentice and taught school.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1918. That was the day of the first general strike in Canadian history.
The strike took place in Vancouver. It was held to protest the police killing of labor leader Albert “Ginger” Goodwin.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1938. At 8:30 in the morning union members gathered at the port in Hilo, Hawaii.
They were there to protest the docking of a ship with non-union workers, the SS Waialeale.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. That was the day the long Major League Baseball strike finally came to an end.
The issue that motivated the strike was a dispute between players and management over free-agency.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1975. That was the day that began one of the greatest mysteries of the United States labor movement. Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in Detroit.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1970. That was the day the United Farm Workers, led by Cesar Chavez, signed their first union contract in California. It was a milestone victory for agricultural workers
On this day in Labor History the year was 1913 silk workers in Paterson, New Jersey ended their unsuccessful six-month strike. By 1900, Paterson had won the nickname "Silk City." Skilled weavers, ribbon weavers in particular, were proud of their craft.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1869. That was the day that labor leader William Sylvis died. Sylvis was born in Armaugh, Pennsylvania.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1775. That was the day that the United States Post Office was created in Philadelphia under Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was a member of the Second Continental Congress. Among many distinctions Ben Franklin was the nation’s first Postmaster General.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1832. That was the day of the first recorded railroad accident in U.S. history. It took place near Quincy, Massachusetts. Four people were thrown off a vacant car on the Granite Railway.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1877. Workers organized the first general strike in American history. The strike was an outgrowth of the railroad strike which you may know, if you are a regular listener of Labor History in 2:00, that started ten days earlier in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. That was the day that Lithuanian-born anarchist, Alexander Berkman attempted to shoot steel magnate Andrew Carnegie’s second-in-command, Henry Clay Frick. Berkman wanted to avenge the Homestead Steel massacre in which nine workers were killed.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1887. That was the day brewery workers in San Francisco declared victory after breweries owners gave in to their demands. The demands were as follows: free beer, a closed shop, freedom to live outside the breweries, a 10-hour work day, a six-day week, and a board of arbitration.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1931. And Chicago public school teachers went home without a paycheck. The school system was broke. Property owners out of work due to the Great Depression could not pay their property taxes, which were used to fund the public schools.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1899. That was the day New York City newsboys went on strike. A newspaper article noted: “The Newsboys’ Union has decided to tie up the World and the Journal.They have struck for better rates on the evening editions of these papers, and their demands have been refused.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1848. That was the day the convention on woman’s rights began in Seneca Falls, New York. The organizers of this convention brought together some of the leading woman’s activists of the day, such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1914. That was the day IWW songwriter, Joe Hill, was sentenced to be executed in Utah.
He was convicted of murder although the charges were likely trumped up. Hill grew up in Sweden.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1944. A crew of mostly black soldiers were loading munitions onto ships at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California, northeast of Oakland. 320 soldiers were killed by a munitions explosion that wounded another 390 people.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. Striking coal miners in Alabama killed a number of black miners. Both white and black miners were attempting to organize the southern bituminous coal fields during the 1890s.
On this day in Labor History and we are going all the way back to the year of 1381. That was the day John Ball, the leader of the Peasants’ Revolt in England was executed. Due to the plague, the Black Death, in 1348, many peasants had died.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1877. That was the day that what would come to be known as the “Great Upheaval” or “Great Uprising” began in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Railroad workers were angry. They had seen their wages cut twice in six months by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1905. That was the day that revolutionary black scholar W.E.B. DuBois helped found the Niagara Movement. It was named for the “mighty current” of change the group hoped to bring about. The initial organizing meeting was held near Niagara Falls, New York.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1917. That was the day that miners in Bisbee, Arizona were rounded up, taken by train and left in the desert on the New Mexico/Arizona border.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. Striking silver miners in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho blew up the Frisco Mill. The miners were upset because the company had hired Pinkerton guards to infiltrate the mine.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1902. A powerful gas and dust explosion occurred in the Rolling Mill Mine in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Johnstown was rich in coal resources. The coal industry in Cambria County gradually grew thanks to the rise of the industry in the region.
On this day in Labor History the year was1984. Jacqueline Vaughn became President of the Chicago Teachers’ Union. Jacqueline started out as a teacher and became a member of the collective bargaining team in 1968. She was elected Vice President of the CTU in 1972 and then became the first black woman to head up the third largest teacher’s union in the nation.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1862. Ella Reeves “Mother” Bloor was born in Staten Island, New York.
She was a labor activist who investigated child labor in glass factories and mines.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1905. It was the tenth day of the convention in Chicago, Illinois, where William (“Big Bill”) Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, and Daniel De Leon and Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party founded the Industrial Workers of the World.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. At 3 AM an alarm sounded in the town of Homestead, Pennsylvania. The steelworkers who lived in the town were on strike. Andrew Carnegie was the owner of the mill, located just outside of Pittsburgh.
The great orator and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, was invited to speak at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. The speech he gave that day would go down as one of his most powerful.
Do you consider the right to join and form a union of your choosing a fundamental human right? The United Nations does! And on this day in Labor History the year was 1950. On that day the United Nations formally put into force the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize.
On this day on labor history the year was 1860. That was the day Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father abandoned the family when Charlotte was an infant leaving them in poverty. This forced them to move around frequently. Charlotte’s education suffered as a consequence as she attended seven schools in four years.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. That was the day that 3,800 workers at the Carnegie Steel Company, in Homestead, Pennsylvania were thrown into the streets and locked out of their jobs. The plant was located seven miles south-east of Pittsburgh. The general manager of the plant, Henry Clay Frick, was determined to break the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1983. That was the day that began a three year struggle by copper workers in Arizona.
The contract for 13 unions in the mining towns that included Clifton and Morenci had expired. Many of the workers were Latino.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1998. If you were trying to drive to work on that Tuesday morning in mid-town Manhattan you were probably late. Forty thousand construction workers took to the streets in a massive protest. They shut down more than 200 building projects
On this day in Labor History the year was 1936. Jesus Pallares, a Chicano miner and union organizer was deported from the United States. He was charged with having communist sympathies, and declared an “undesirable alien.”
President Grover Cleveland had a growing problem. The nation was in the midst of a deep depression.
Unrest amongst working people was mounting. The workers at the Chicago Pullman Palace Car factory had declared a boycott against the company.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1993. That was the day that AE Staley locked out 763 workers at their corn processing plant in Decatur, Illinois. Labor Management relations grew increasingly hostile with foreign-owned Tate & Lile’s decision to bring in new managers. The new management ordered workers to disregarded safety regulations.
On this day Labor History the year was 1894. That was the day the American Railway union, led by Eugene Debs, voted to support the boycott of Chicago’s Pullman Palace Cars. The nation was gripped by an economic depression. The Pullman workers were on strike, because the company had severely slashed wages. But Pullman had not reduced the workers rent payments in his company town.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1938. That was the day the President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act. The night before he signed that landmark act, he addressed the nation in one his famous “fire side chats.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1880. Chicago labor leader Agnes Nestor was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her father had been a machinist and member of the Knights of Labor. Like many others families, the Nestor family moved to Chicago during the depression that swept the country in the mid-1890s.
Chances are you have heard of “black lung,” the deadly disease that threatens coal miners. But have you ever heard of “brown lung?” On this day in Labor History the year was 1978. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration or OSHA adopted standards to fight this workplace hazard.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1977. The eyes of the British Labor Movement were turned to the Grunwick Film Labor Processing Laboratories in northwest London. Members of trade unions participated in a large demonstration at the factory.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1877. It became known in Pennsylvania labor history as “The Day of the Rope.”
Twenty Irish miners were hung for allegedly belonging to a secret group of labor radicals known as the Molly Maguires.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1893. That was the day that Eugene V. Debs founded the American Railway Union. The goal of the union was to organize railroad workers from different job classifications. Previous railroad unions have been based on job type.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. That was the day that would go down in labor history as the “Woman’s Day Massacre.”
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee were attempting to bring union recognition to the Steel Industry.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941. That was the day that an historic meeting took place at the White House.
Black labor leader A. Philip Randolph, along with the head of the NAACP sat down to talk with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1903. Mary Harris better known as “Mother” Jones held a rally in Philadelphia.
The famous Irish-American labor leader had come to Pennsylvania to support a strike of textile workers. As many as one-hundred thousand workers were out on strike.
On this day in Labor History Pinkerton Detectives arrived at job sites across the US to escort workers off the premises. No--this was not at a railroad or coal mine in labor’s distant past. It was at the offices of what was once the largest computer seller in the United States. And the year was 2000.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1990. About 400 janitors were protesting at Century City, a large office complex in Los Angeles.
It was part of SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign in LA. The janitors had gone out on strike against International Service Systems.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1924. Three-hundred members of the International Workers of the World, or Wobblies, gathered at their union hall in San Pedro California. They were holding a benefit for two of their members who had been killed in a railway accident. For the past year, the KKK had targeted the San Pedro IWW members.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1991. That was the day that a San Francisco man, Jeffrey Collins, received $5.3 million for wrongful termination from Shell Oil. The judge ruled the company had fired Jeffrey because they found out he was gay.
In 1981 the Los Angeles Dodgers dropped the first two games of the World Series to their rivals, the New York Yankees. The Dodgers would come roaring back, sweeping the next four games. And so closed the curtain on one of the strangest seasons in baseball history.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1913. Police in New Orleans shot at maritime workers striking against the United Fruit Company.
Two workers were wounded. A third laid dead in the street. At the time of the strike the port in New Orleans was one of the busiest U.S. ports for importing bananas.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1963. That was the day President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act.
The goal of the act was to end wage discrimination against women.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1865. Labor leader Helen Marot was born to a wealthy Quaker family in Philadelphia.
Helen grew up around the written word, as her father was a book binder and seller
On this day in Labor History the year was 1966. That was the day that the roaring of the jet age grew quiet across the United States.
35,000 members of the International Association of Mechanics went out on strike.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. The leader of Lansing, Michigan’s United Auto Workers union, Lester Washburn, returned home, in the wee hours of the morning. He had been to Detroit for a meeting. At his home he found a disturbing scene.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1988. That was the day that between two and three million black workers went on strike in South Africa. The Congress of South African Trade Unions had called for three days of “national peaceful protest.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1979. That was the day that leaders from the Retail Clerks and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters unions began two-day special conventions to discuss merging their organizations. The result was the forming of the United Food and Commercial Workers.
In the past few years you may have seen news stories about efforts to raise the minimum wage. From the “Fight for Fifteen,” to various state-based campaigns, raising the minimum wage has become an important campaign for workers. But do you know where in the United States the minimum wage started?
On this day in Labor History the year was 1900. That was the day that the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union was formed. Eleven delegates attended the founding meeting. They represented the major garment making cities of the east coast.
On this day in Labor History, we are going all the way back to the year 1786. That was the day when what labor historians widely consider “America’s First Strike” occurred in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A group of the city’s journeymen printers gathered to discuss proposed decreases to their wages.
Would you be willing to risk your job to stand up for the rights that you believe in? For postal worker Henry Gerber, the answer to that question was a resounding yes. And so On this day in Labor History, the year was 2001.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1889. Nestled in western Pennsylvania was the community known as Johnstown. The town and surrounding area was home to 23,000 people, families of workers who labored in the regions’ booming steel mills.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. It was a day that would become known as the Memorial Day Massacre. Ten demonstrators were killed by police bullets, while protesting at Republic Steel, on the south east side of Chicago.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day fifteen women lost their jobs for dancing on their lunch break. The women worked for the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1946. That was the day the working people of New York stood up in true labor solidarity. It all started at stroke midnight on May 15th as messengers delivered the following statement to 489 municipal employees:
On this day in Labor History the year was 1935. That was the day the United States Supreme Court unanimously declared the National Industrial Relations Act unconstitutional. The act had been passed just two years before, as the centerpiece of President Franklin Roosevelt’s plan to combat the Great Depression.
Did you know that sometimes photographs have the power to help change the course of a labor struggle? That is what happened on this day in Labor History, the year was 1937. Detroit News photographer James “Scotty” Kilpatrick came with his camera to the River Rouge Ford plant.
Unions were created to make living conditions just a little better than they were before they were created, and the union that does not manifest that kind of interest in human beings cannot endure.”
Those were the words of Philip Murray, born on this day in Labor History, the year was 1886. Philip Murray was born in Blantyre, Scotland, the son of a union coal miner.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1883. The “eighth wonder of the world, the Brooklyn Bridge opened for traffic. 600 men worked on the project, which took 14 years to complete. Between twenty and thirty men died working on the bridge. This included the bridge’s designer, German-born John. A. Roebling.
How can unionized workers and unemployed workers stand together? Perhaps we can look to the past for examples of the power of such solidarity. On this day in Labor History the year was 1934. It was the height of the Great Depression.
On this day Labor History the year was 1895. Labor organizer Eugene V. Debs began a six month prison sentence in Woodstock, Illinois. Debs was the leader of the American Railway Union that had led a nationwide boycott and strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1894.
On this day Labor History the year was 1945. That was a very important day for workers on the islands of Hawaii.
It marked the passage of the federal Hawaii Employment Relations Act, more popular known as the “Little Wagner Act.”
On this day Labor History the year was 1926. That was the day President Calvin Coolidge signed the Railway Labor Act.
For decades railroad labor disputes had often become bloody affairs.
On this day Labor History the year was 1920. That year a national coal strike had won unionized miners a twenty-seven percent pay raise. But the miners in West Virginia were not in the union
On this day in labor history, the year was 1979. That was the day an Oklahoma City jury found in favor of the estate of Karen Silkwood. Karen worked as a lab tech at the Cimarron nuclear plant, operated by the Kerr-McGee Corporation.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1838. The Second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women was being held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For a while, a group of anti-slavery abolitionists had had difficulty finding a venue in the city willing to host their convention.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1979. That was the day that A Philip Randolph, perhaps the most significant African American figure in the US Labor Movement, passed away.
On this day in labor history the year was 1942. The Labor Movement lost one of its prolific voices. T Bone Slim was born Matti Valentinpoika Huhta in Ashtabula Ohio.
One could say that brewing beer is important to the identity of the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Even the city’s baseball team goes by the name the “Brewers.” And so on this day in Labor History the year was 1953. The beer brewers in Milwaukee walked off the job in what came to be a ten week strike.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1998 and if you tried catch a cab in New York City on that particular day you probably did not have much luck. The city’s yellow cab drivers held a one day strike to protest Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s new taxi cab regulations.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. It was mother’s day. Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a group of thousands of women in a demonstration in Washington D.C.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. It was the first day of the Pullman Strike
On this day in Labor History the year was 1869. At 2:47 pm a one-word telegram was sent from Promontory Summit, Utah. The message read simply, “done.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1970. On that day workers and the US labor movement lost a leading voice in a tragic plane crash.
If you are a member of a union, how well do you know your union’s history? You might be surprised to find out how far back that history goes. Such is the case with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1867. That was the day that shoemakers founded the labor union the Knights of St. Crispin, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. St. Crispin is the patron saint of cobblers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. That was the year that 400 black women who worked as tobacco stemmers walked off the job at I.N. Vaughn and Company in Richmond, VA.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1852. It was the last day of a three-day convention held in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Printers who worked for newspapers and other publications from fourteen cities had converged to decide if they wanted to form a union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1886. This was one of the most significant days in US labor history.
A mass meeting of workers was called for that night in Chicago’s Haymarket Square.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1886. A little after three o’clock on that Monday, in Chicago, radical labor activist and newspaper man August Spies climbed onto a box car to give a speech about the fight for the eight hour day.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. That was the day the administration shut down the Paris University at Naterre. Student protests at the school had begun weeks before around the ideas of a sexual revolution, or the right of young people to sleep together if they chose to without adult interference or moralizing.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1886. This was the day that began events in Chicago that would make May First the most important day on the calendar for the labor movement across the world.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. A group of 400-500 unemployed men marched down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the US Capitol. In a buggy at the front of the march rode Jacob Coxey.
When you stand up for Civil Rights and Workers Rights you never know how far the struggle may travel. This was the case on this day in Labor History the year was 1963
On this day in Labor History the year was 1971. That was the day that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was founded. Since then OSHA rules have become a powerful tool for the protection of workers health and safety.
You have probably heard about the Red Scare, when thousands of people lost their jobs in the 1950s for allegedly harboring Communist sympathies. But have you ever heard of the “Lavender Scare” that happened during those same years?
In 1848 gold was discovered at John Sutter’s Mill in California. As word spread, fortune seekers from all across the United States and across the world flocked to California in what came to be known as the Gold Rush.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1969.
The Governor of South Carolina sent 1,000 state troopers and National Guardsmen to Charleston.
They were sent there to deal with striking hospital workers who wanted union recognition
On this day in Labor History the year was 2013.
That was the day of the deadliest workplace disaster in garment industry history.
More than 1,100 workers lost their lives when a factory complex building collapsed in Bangladesh.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1980. That was the day that Ida Mae Stull passed away.
She is widely considered to be the first woman coal miner in United States history.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2011.
That was the day the labor movement lost one of its most poignant voices.
Hazel Dickens was born in Mercer County, West Virginia in 1935. It was coal country.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. The nation was in the grip of deep depression.
Unemployment soared. Workers wages and hours were cut dramatically in virtually every industry.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1914 the bloody anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre.
11,000 miners had gone on strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation, owned by one of the wealthiest men in the world, John D. Rockefeller.
This marks the day one of the most horrendous acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. History occurred in Oklahoma City.
A truck bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people.
You have more than likely heard of Rosa Parks, and how she heroically sat down on a bus to help end segregation in Montgomery, Alabama. But did you know discrimination often barred black bus drivers, even in northern cities?
On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. This marks the day that more than 4,000 furniture makers walked off the job in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947.
The day dawned unseasonably cool in Texas City, TX, a port city forty miles south of Houston on the Gulf of Mexico.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947.
It was opening day of a truly new baseball season.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1939. This was the day readers were first introduced to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1919. Labor leader and socialist Eugene V. Debs was sent to prison for speaking out against World War I.
There are some songs that stand at the core of the labor movement. Year after year these songs ring out on picket lines, at labor rallies, and in union halls around the world. These Songs inspire and build solidarity between workers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941.
For years auto workers had participated in a series of sit down strikes and walk outs. They had won union recognition from almost every major auto maker.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1930. That was the day that Dolores Huerta was born in the mining town of Dawson, New Mexico.
The fight for an eight hour work day was one of the most difficult and important efforts of the US labor movement.
Slogans such as “Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what we will!” became the rallying cry of working people.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. At 6:30 in the morning an explosion shook the Banner Mine, owned by the Pratt Consolidated Coal Company. Banner was located near what would later become Birmingham, Alabama.
Their slogan was “Justice for Janitors!” Their chant was “Si se puede!” “Yes we can!”
Their image was a red and black poster of a mop raised high in a clenched fist. 3,000 members of SEIU Local 1877 marched in the streets of downtown Los Angeles.
Often Southern states are the focus of histories of slavery in the United States.
But did you know that in the early 1700s one in five residents of New York were enslaved Africans?
On this day in Labor History the year was 1954. It began what some have called the “longest major strike in U.S. history.” The strike was against Kohler, the Wisconsin-based manufacturer of bathroom fixtures.
On this day in Labor History, the year was 1968. This is a day of mourning. Today is the day an assassin’s bullet murdered Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he was coming out of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1968. That was the night that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his now famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. He was speaking in support of striking sanitation workers who were members of AFSCME Local 1733.
When you go shopping, do you remember to look for the union label? On this day in Labor History the year was 1909.
The American Federation of Labor launched its “Union Label” department
On this day in Labor History the year was 1929.
It was the first day of the strike at the Loray textile mill in Gastonia, North Carolina.
Textile mill workers in the south were paid significantly less than workers in the north.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1933. The nation was in the grips of the Great Depression. Long bread lines formed each day in major cities across the nation with at least one in four people out of work. The crisis deepened as the Dust Bowl ravaged US farmland crippling farmers and limiting food production.
The most important word in the language of the working class is ‘solidarity.’”
Those inspiring words were spoken by labor leader Harry Bridges, who died on this day in Labor History the year was 1990.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1918 and someone was born who would forever change the retail industry in the United States. His name was Sam Walton.
Walton opened his first Walmart store in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas.
This is the day in Memphis that marked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final march for Civil Rights.
If you are a regular listener to Labor History in 2, last month you heard about how AFSCME sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike to win union recognition.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. Between six and seven thousand workers walked off the job, on strike against the Canadian Northern Railway. Their issues included low pay, worker safety, and the poor quality of food and housing provided by the railroad.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1943.
The United States was in the midst of fighting World War II.
And by 1943 there were more than 9 million people serving as military personnel.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. Marking one the most tragic days in US labor history.
146 women and girls died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1974.
It was the final day of a ground-breaking gathering of more than 3,000 women union members in Chicago to found the Coalition of Labor Union Women, or CLUW.
Do you know that it used to be legal for employers in their United States to make their employees sign a contract promising not join a union?
Such agreements were often referred to as “Yellow Dog Contracts.”
At some time during your life you’ve probably read a book or heard a story by Mark Twain.
But did you know that this renowned American author was also a strong supporter of labor?
In 1835 he was born Samuel Clemens in town of Hannibal, Missouri.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1857. Labor activist, Alice Henry was born in Melbourne, Australia.
Alice originally went to work as a teacher, but then found her true calling as a journalist.
She wrote in support of the day’s progressive causes, including care for dependent children, labor reform, and women’s rights.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. Three hundred police men waited outside the Bernard Schwartz Cigar Factory in Detroit, MI.
They were there to break up the peaceful sit down strike going on inside the Cigar plant. During the winter and spring of 1937, Detroit had seen a wave of sit down strikes.
Is it unpatriotic to go on strike when the nation is at war? What if your workplace is in an industry critical to the war effort? On this day in Labor History the year was 1941.
The world was at embroiled in the Second World War, and increasingly it seemed as if the United States would soon join the fighting.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1970. This was the day postal workers walked off the job in New York City. The strike caught many by surprise.
The workers had not received a raise since 1967 and were not permitted by law to engage in collective bargaining.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1966. This is the day Chicano labor organizer, Caesar Chavez started a 340 mile march from Delano to Sacramento, California for the rights of farm workers.
The action had actually started the year before, in 1965. Filipino farm workers had gone strike against grape growers in California.
Albert Shanker was fed up. Mr. Shanker taught math at a junior high in in Astoria, Queens. He and his colleagues felt they were underpaid and not respected. The assistant principal of the school even spied on their classrooms with binoculars!
On this day in Labor History the year was 1887. This was the day the International Brotherhood of Painters and Decorators of America got their start issuing their first charter. John Elliot led the founding meeting
On this day in Labor History the year was 1954, marking the opening of the powerful labor film, “Salt of the Earth.”
“Salt of the Earth” told the story of striking Chicano miner members of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Local 890 against the Empire Zinc mine in New Mexico.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1906. That was the day the world lost a great champion of women’s and workers rights, Susan B. Anthony.
Born in 1820 in Massachusetts to a Quaker family, Susan B. Anthony is most well-known for her tireless campaign to secure the right to vote for women.
The year was 1912. The Lawrence MA. Textile workers strike had worn on for over a month.
More than 20,000 workers had walked off the job. Most of them were young women.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. It was a tragic day of history repeating itself. An explosion occurred deep inside the Macbeth mine, in Logan West Virginia. In the immediate aftermath the bodies of 2 miners were recovered.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1941.
New Yorkers woke up to find a foot of snow blanketing their city. Nearly a million New Yorkers also discovered their usual routine was going to be disrupted.
At 5 a.m. the Transport Workers Union had walked off the job, calling a strike against the Fifth Avenue Coach and New York City Omnibus companies.
You have likely heard the recent news stories about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
The national media continues to report as labor, energy groups, environmental and Native American activists all debate the proposed oil pipeline.
But did you know that on the day in Labor History, March 9, marked the beginning of another oil pipeline project?
You may know that March is Women’s History Month. But do you know why it takes place each March?
It all goes back to today in Labor History the year was 1857.
That was the day that hundreds of women working in New York City’s garment industry went on strike.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1932. Forever remembered as a tragic day.
The nation was in the grip of the Great Depression.
As the economy languished, car sales plummeted by 80 percent. Thousands in Detroit found themselves out of work. Breadlines in the city grew longer with each passing day.
On this day in Labor History the year was 2012.
A few thousand artists, activists, teachers and union members lined Broadway in New York City.
Each held a pink placard, representing a “pink slip.” As New Yorkers bustled by on their way to work, the protestors stood with their signs from 8:14 in the morning until 8:28.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1879. A steamship named the Colorado, docked in St. Louis. On board were black migrant workers on their way to Kansas in search of jobs and a better life.
This was the day President Franklin Roosevelt named Frances Perkins Secretary of Labor. Secretary Perkins was the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the US Government. Perkins brought to her position years of experience advocating for working people.
Born in Boston, Perkins attended Mount Holyoke College. She moved to Illinois to become a teacher.
Are you a trade union worker? Have you ever worked at a “prevailing wage” job site? Then today in Labor History, is an important day for you. The year was 1931.
Congress passed the Davis-Bacon Act. This act requires that any new construction or repair of a public building or public works project of more than $2,000 that includes federal funding must pay a “prevailing wage.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1937.
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee, and US Steel signed their first, historic labor agreement.
Previous efforts to organize steel workers had failed due to the union-busting tactics of the steel mill owners.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1912.
Nearly one million coal miners went on strike in Great Britain.
A period of great labor unrest marked the year leading up to the massive walkout from the mines.
Union solidarity does not know national borders.
This was abundantly clear today in labor history, the year was 1986.
450 workers in South Africa walked off the job to support laid off workers in New Jersey.
On this day in labor history the year was 1939 and the US Supreme Court ruled that sit-down strikes were illegal.
If you are a regular listener of Labor History in 2:00, last month you might have heard how sit-down strikes had become an important tactic for workers during the 1930s.
On this day in labor history the year was 1972, marking the day of the Buffalo Creek Flood in West Virginia.
The Pittson Coal Company’s coal waste impoundment dam failed during heavy rain causing more than 130 million gallons of water and coal waste to flood the valley below.
On this day in labor history the year was 1987, marks the death of Edgar Daniel Nixon.
Nixon’s leadership in the struggle for black labor and civil rights spanned decades.
On this day in labor history the year was 1919, the U.S. Congress passed the Child Labor Tax Law.
At the turn of the twentieth century child labor had increasingly become an issue of concern in the United States.
On this day in labor history the year was 1940, in a hotel in New York City, Woody Guthrie penned the original lyrics of his song “This Land is Your Land.”
On this day in labor history the year was 1968 and striking sanitation workers staged a sit in at the City Council meeting in Memphis, Tennessee.
The striking workers were members of AFSCME Local 1733. They had been on strike for ten days.
Across the United States, workers enjoy the first Monday of September as their holiday.
Labor Day has become known as a day for family picnics and community parades—but do you know how Labor Day really started?
On this day in labor history the year was 1917, more than 400 Jewish mothers, many carrying their children, marched on City Hall in New York City.
Their cry, which rang out in both Yiddish and English, was “We want food for our children.” On the eve of the U.S. entry into World War I, inflation had sent the cost of food skyrocketing.
If you are a member of union, you probably know that one of your most important protections as a worker is your “Weingarten Rights.” But do you know the story behind why union workers have those rights?
It all started on this day in labor history the year was 1975.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1946 is what is known as the Royal Indian Navy Revolt.
The HMS Talwaar was in Bombay Harbor. Indian workers on ship went on strike.
They refused orders from the British naval officers.
A current question is which workers are entitled to union representation? Who really gets counted as a worker? Who decides wages, hours, and conditions?
These were the questions that divided the campus of Yale University
On this day in labor history, the year was 1992.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1883 marking the deadliest day in Illinois mining history at the time. 74 men and boys lost their lives digging for coal in the Diamond Mine Disaster in Braidwood Illinois.
“We need to spend money on health care, schools, housing--not a war budget.” This was the statement of Fred Pecker, a member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 6,
On this day in labor history, the year was 2003.
Fred, who was protesting in San Francisco, was just one of the estimated 10 million people in 800 cities across the globe that protested the U.S. War in Iraq that day.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1913, James Riddle Hoffa was born to a coal miner in Brazil, Indiana. Tragedy struck the Hoffa home in 1920 when at age 7 young Jimmy lost his father.
In 1924, like many families in Brazil the Hoffa family moved to Detroit, Michigan in search of work.
If you turned on your T.V. in the winter of 2007-2008, you probably couldn’t find new episodes of your favorite programs.
That winter some 12,000 writers represented by the Writers Guild of America took to the picket lines holding a 100 day strike.
On this day in labor history, the year was, 1880, labor leader John L. Lewis was born in a company mining camp outside of Lucas, Iowa.
His father was a Welsh coal miner, and young Lewis followed in his footsteps entering the Big Hill Mine in Lucas at the age of 17.
Did you work 40-hours this week? If you did, today is an important day for you! On this day in labor history, the year was 1926
On this day, labor leader Benjamin Gold began what became a general strike of all Furriers in New York City.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1979, Rufino Contreras gave his life to the labor movement.
In the Imperial Valley of California the United Farm Workers were engaged in a bitter labor strike against lettuce growers.
Shortly before noon, Contreres and six other strikers walked onto a lettuce field owned by Mario Saikhon in an attempt to try talk to a group of 75 scabs brought in to break the strike.
Before they could reach the scabs shots rang out.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2000, members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) went on strike against Boeing.
Each and every day Labor’s history continues to be written. Such is the case in North Carolina. On this day in labor history, the year was 2014 which saw a massive protest in Raleigh.
The protest was part of the “Moral Monday” movement.
“Moral Mondays” started off as and continue as a series of protests against new policies enacted by the Republican legislature and governor of North Carolina.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1913 law enforcement officers and mining company guards rode on an armored train firing indiscriminately into a tent colony of striking miners and their families at Holly Grove, West Virginia.
For nearly a year, what became known as the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek mine wars had raged in the rich coal range of West Virginia?
On this day in labor history, the year was 1919 marking the first day of the week-long general strike in Seattle, Washington. As World War I drew to a close many workers in the city were frustrated by two years without pay increases due to the war.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1993, Today marks an important day for all working families in the United States. In an attempt "to balance the demands of the workplace with the needs of families." President Bill Clinton signed the Family Medical Leave Act, or FMLA.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1869 and we celebrate the birthday of one of the most formidable figures in U.S. labor. “Big Bill Haywood” was one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World or IWW in 1905. He was also active in the Socialist Party. Haywood entered the mines at only nine years of age. He became the secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners in 1900.
During this past year, there have been many news stories of students walking out of public schools to protest the practices of community policing. This tactic has deep roots in the Civil Rights Movement. On this day in labor history, the year was 1964 with nearly a half a million African American and Puerto Rican students in New York City, participated in a one-day school boycott.
Today in labor history, February 2, 1929 3,000 timber workers in New South Wales, Australia were locked out of their jobs. Australia was in the midst of the Great Depression.
Today in labor history, February 1, 1913 was the first day of the Paterson, New Jersey silk weavers strike. During the strike than 20,000 silk weavers walked off the job. They strike started at the Doherty Silk Mill.
Today in labor history, January 31, 1940 Ida May Fuller received a check from the U.S. government for $22.54. That may seem like a small amount, but the check represented something much larger.
“What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be.” Those words were penned in the opening paragraph of the book Rules for Radicals, whose author, Saul Alinsky was born today in labor history January 30, 1909.
Sometimes you have to sit down in order to stand up for your rights as a worker. That is what workers in the Firestone rubber plant proved in Akron, Ohio today in labor history, January 29, 1936. Akron was the heart of the rubber industry in the United States, employing 40,000 at its peak.
"The only people whose names are recorded in history are those who did something. The peaceful and indifferent are forgotten; they never know the fighting joy of living." Those words were spoken in Seattle by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, today in labor history, January 28, 1917. Flynn certainly embraced the “fighting joy of living,” as a leader in the Industrial Workers of the World. She became a full time organizer for the IWW in 1907.
Today in labor history, January 27, 1850, renowned labor leader Samuel Gompers was born to a Jewish family in London, England. His family immigrated to the United States in 1863, where Gompers learned the cigar-making trade from his father.
Today in labor history, January 26, 1897 saw the charter of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union, formed out the merger of seven other unions.
After an election, have you ever found yourself scratching your head, wondering why it seems that working people vote for candidates that do not represent their interests? Well, that feeling is nothing new. Back in 1912, Ernest Riebe of the Industrial Workers of the World created a comic strip character, Mr. Block.
Today in labor history, January 24, 1950 the minimum wage in the United States was raised to 75 cents an hour. This move nearly doubled the minimum wage, from the previous level of 40 cents. 22 million people were eligible for this wage increase. In his statement on the change President Harry Truman declared, “It is a measure dictated by social justice. It adds to our economic strength. It is founded on the belief that full human dignity requires at least a minimum level of economic sufficiency and security.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1890 Miners from a number of smaller miner unions gathered in Columbus Ohio to consolidate their ranks and form the United Mine Workers of America.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1946. US steel workers staged the greatest walkout in the history of the Steel industry.
Nearly 750,000 strikers shut down more than 1,200 steel plants in 30 states.
Today in labor history, January 20, 1909, marked one of deadliest workplace disasters in Chicago history. It took place a little over a mile off-shore near 71st Street, on Lake Michigan. A group of predominantly Irish laborers were working on a tunnel to bring fresh water to the city’s growing south side.
On This Day in Labor History, the year was 1920. That was the day 3,000 members of the Filipino Labor Union went on strike against the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association on the island of Oahu. Plantation Bosses intentionally recruited Filipino workers, in an effort to weaken the Japanese labor force on the island. The bosses pitted one group as strikebreakers against the other.
Today in labor history, January 18, 1943 marks the death of the first woman general organizer appointed by the American Federation of Labor. Mary Kenney O'Sullivan was born the only child of working-class Irish immigrants, in Hannibal, Missouri.
Today in labor history, January 17, 1915, the most popular labor song in the United States was completed in Chicago. Ralph Chaplin, an Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) activist, artist and writer was in town for a demonstration against hunger. He finished writing “Solidarity Forever,” a song he had started working on the year before at a Miner’s strike in West Virginia.
Today in labor history, January 16, 1920 thousands of immigrant detainees and labor activists won the basic constitutional right to consult with an attorney. These detainees were victims of the infamous Palmer Raids.
Today in labor history, January 15, 1919 marked one of the strangest industrial disasters in U.S. History. That winter day in Boston the weather shifted suddenly and temperatures began to rise. A fifty foot storage container containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses began to make strange noises.
Today in labor history, January 14, 1940, Julian Bond was born in Nashville Tennessee. Bond was one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. He helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as “snick.”
On this day in labor history, The year was 1874 what came to be known as the “Tompkin’s Square Riot” took place in New York City. The nation was caught in the clutches of the 1873 depression. Unemployed New Yorkers called for a public works program to put people back to work.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1932, a very unusual army marched on Washington, D.C. Pro-labor Catholic Priest, Father James Renshaw Cox led the march from Pennsylvania to the Nation’s Capital to demand a public work’s program to put people back to work.
For more information on Cox's March
http://web.stanford.edu/group/progressive/cgi-bin/?p=2153
Today in labor history, the year was 1912 this historic day marked the beginning of the “Bread and Roses Strike” of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The strike was led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The state Of Massachusetts passed a law reducing the work week for women and children from 56 to 54 hours.
Today in labor history, January 10, 1914, two men were killed during a grocery store robbery in Utah. Their murders were blamed on Joe Hill a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World, or the IWW, also known as the Wobblies.
Yet farm workers have played an important, and often overlooked role in labor history. Such was the case today in labor history, January 9, 1939. That was the day more than 1,500 Missouri farmers and their families began a “highway sit in.”
Often significant days in history pass with little attention. Today in labor history, January 8, 1811, is one such day. On that day Charles Deslonde, an enslaved sugar laborer in the New Orleans territory led what became one of the largest slave revolts in American history.
Today in labor history, January 7, 1919 began what is known as Semana Trágica, or Tragic Week in Argentina. Labor unrest had been mounting in Buenos Aries. On January 7, police killed four workers who were striking for better conditions at an ironworks plant.
Today in labor history, January 6, 1878, is the birthday of renowned Illinois poet Carl Sandburg. He was born to Swedish immigrants in Galesburg, Illinois. Later Sandburg worked as an editorial writer at the Chicago Daily News. He was part of a group of poets and novelists, known as the “Chicago Literary Renaissance.” Sandburg became most well-known for his poetry, which won two Pulitzer Prizes. He also won a third Pulitzer for his biography of his hero Abraham Lincoln. Sandburg’s poems often evoked images and explored themes of the industrialized United States. This was especially true of his 1920 volume, Smoke and Steel. In this collection Sandburg wrote about workers in Gary, Indiana and farmers around Omaha, Nebraska. He wrote about railroad workers and steel workers. His words instilled unexpected beauty in these industrial scenes. Sandburg wrote in free verse, a style that did not rhyme. He used accessible language in his poems, making them available to the “common man.” He would take short tours around the U.S. reading his poems and playing folk songs on guitar. His poems gained a wide, popular readership. The opening lines of his poem “Chicago,” so captured the workers and spirit of the city, these words remain indelibly entwined in the city’s image: “Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders.”
Today in labor history, January 5, 1914 the Ford Motor Company raised its basic wage from $2.40 for a nine-hour day to $5 for an eight-hour work day. Many of Ford’s contemporary critics scorned his “Five Dollar Day.” Journalists and other auto makers predicted disaster for the industry. Henry Ford implemented the wage increase to head off labor unrest in the company and curtail his problems with worker turnover. The wage increase helped to derail efforts to start a union in his factory. The five-dollar day was not an act of altruism by the automaker. It was a calculated business decision. Most importantly for Ford, the wage increase enabled his workers to become customers and buy cars of their own. Ford declared, “One’s own employees ought to be one’s own best customers.” Despite the prognosticators of doom, Ford’s plan worked. Ford’s profits doubled in the two years after he raised the wages. In 1914 Ford sold more than 300,000 Model Ts, more than all other U.S. automakers combined. By 1920 that number had climbed to a million cars a year. Reflecting back on his decision Ford explained, “The payment of five dollars a day for an eight-hour day was one of the finest cost-cutting moves we ever made.” Perhaps those who today are lining up to predict doom and disaster if the minimum wage is raised might benefit from reading this page from labor history.
Last year Chicago saw the end of what may have been the longest hotel strike in history. On Father’s Day 2013, 130 workers from the Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue walked off the job. They were protesting a reduction in wages and the hotel’s hiring of minimum-wage subcontractors. For ten years the strikers, let by Unite Here, picketed the hotel. The hotel management remained unmoved. Unite Here quietly ended the strike. But that was not the longest strike in history-not by a long shot. Today in labor history, January 4,1961, barbers assistants in Copenhagen, Denmark ended their strike. They had first walked off the job in 1928—and the Guinness World Book of Records has declared the strike the longest in recorded history! Every strike, or a work-stoppage, has its own character. A strike might be as short as just a portion of a day. Or a strike might last for weeks, months, or years. Sometimes union members call strikes to last a specific amount of time—usually a few days. Other times union members vote for an open-ended strike, with the duration uncertain. The tactic of a strike is one of the most extreme measures a union can take. Usually, a strike means that all other efforts to gain a fair contract have been exhausted. Long strikes have become less common in recent years. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there were only 15 major work stoppages in 2013. Of these two-thirds lasted three days or less.
Today in labor history, January 3, 1931 was a day that helped to bring the hunger and poverty caused by the Great Depression to the attention of the nation.
Today in labor history, January 2, 1905 a secret meeting was held in Chicago, attended by 23 industrial unionists.
Today in labor history, January 1, 1863, is one of the most often misunderstood days in United States history. This was the day that Abraham Lincoln issued the “Emancipation Proclamation.” But did you know that Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free enslaved people in the U.S.?
On this day in labor history, the year was 1987.
That was the day OSHA issued its final rule on Grain Handling Facilities.
This standard was established almost ten years after discussions and Congressional hearings began on the subject.
There had been a series of catastrophic explosions in the late 1970s, which dominated national attention.
A special task force was created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate grain elevator safety and explosions after 13 USDA inspectors were killed in 1977.
Five separate incidents involving grain elevator explosions killed 59 and injured another 49, just in December of that year alone.
The USDA task force issued a report with guidelines soon after the National Grain and Feed Association conducted its own research and guideline issuance.
By 1981, the Food and Allied Service Trades Department, AFL-CIO petitioned OSHA to promulgate a rule regulating the build-up of explosive dust in grain elevators.
When the final rule was issued, it focused on requirements for the control of fires, grain dust explosions, and hazards associated with entry into bins, silos, and tanks, as well as hazards associated with the release of hazardous energy from equipment.
The standard held employers responsible for developing emergency action and escape plans as well as worker safety training.
The standard also set rules for safe entry procedures.
When the standard came up for review in 1998, OSHA noted that for the previous forty years, there had been 600 explosions, 250 deaths and over 1000 injuries related to grain elevator explosions.
They also determined there had been a 70% decrease in fatalities from explosions and a 44% decrease in suffocations in the years after the final rule had been issued.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1969.
That was the day President Richard Nixon signed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act into law.
At least three key events served as the impetus for the legislation.
Beginning in the mid 60s, miners began staging numerous health and safety walkouts across the Appalachian coalfields.
Their working conditions were despicable.
Then, in November 1968, 78 miners were killed in a methane and coal dust explosion at Consol Mine no. 9 in Farmington, West Virginia.
Miners were outraged when UMW leader Tony Boyle provided cover for the company’s murderous negligence.
Then, in January, thousands of miners rallied in West Virginia’s state capitol, along with the Black Lung Association and the Disabled Miners and Widows.
They demanded legislation controlling coal dust and compensating black lung victims.
When the hearings dragged on, 30,000 miners walked out in a wildcat the next month, in what is referred to as the 1969 Black Lung Strike.
By March, the number would increase to 40,000.
The state law passed March 12. Fears of a nationwide health and safety wildcat strike prompted Congress to craft and pass the federal Act.
According to historian Paul Nyden, “the West Virginia Black Lung strike was the longest political strike in modern U.S. labor history.”
The Act created the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
It mandated annual inspections and increased federal powers of enforcement.
The Coal Act also required monetary penalties for all violations, and established criminal penalties for knowing and willful violations.
The Act developed improved mandatory health and safety standards and provided compensation for miners disabled by Black Lung disease. Miners continue to fight for better conditions, enforcement and compensation today.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1970.
That was the day President Richard M. Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act into law. At the time, it was estimated that 14,000 workers died annually on the job, 2.2 million workers were permanently or temporarily disabled and half a million developed occupational diseases each year.
The Department of Labor admitted at the time that at least 25 million serious injuries and deaths went unreported each year.
Statistics like these prompted occupational health and safety expert, Dr. Jeanne Stellman to state, “Each day millions of workers in America enter a battlefield, but they fight no foreign enemy and conquer no foreign lands. The battlefield is the American workplace and the casualties of this war are higher than those of any other in the nation’s history.”
Industrial unions surveyed thousands of members regarding health and safety conditions.
They documented deplorable working conditions, debilitating injuries, mystery diseases and early fatalities of their coworkers.
Their testimonies provided the ammunition necessary to fight for OSHA.
The Act established the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, responsible for standards, regulation and enforcement.
It also established the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, responsible for research and recommendations.
The Act served as a milestone. It provided the formal, legal basis for which workers could fight to qualitatively change their lives at the workplace.
The General Duty Clause established that workplaces must be free of hazards, and allowed workers to demand inspections.
The Act also mandated medical record keeping, surprise inspections and enforcement.
Many of the standards, regulations and enforcements OSHA now has, have come as a result of intense, continuous pressure waged by the labor movement.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1973.
That was the day three astronauts aboard Skylab 4 staged a one-day strike against NASA, while in outer space. It was an 84-day mission, consisting of grueling, 16-hour workdays.
The crew was tasked with spacewalk inspections of the spaceship, comet observations, medical experiments and many projects to photograph the Earth.
Soon, Mission Commander Gerry Carr, Science Pilot Ed Gibson and Pilot William Pogue found themselves behind schedule, exhausted and in Pogue’s case, sick.
NASA insisted they work through meal and rest breaks in order to catch up.
They became increasingly frustrated by endless instructions that micromanaged every move. Infuriated by Mission Control’s eavesdropping on their conversations, Gibson argued the mission felt like a “33 day fire drill.”
Carr stated, “We would never work 16 hours a day for 84 straight days on the ground, and we should not be expected to do it here in space.”
When Mission Control dismissed the three as complainers, the crew demanded a return to rest and meal breaks and an end to their relentless schedule.
Their demands were ignored and so, they simply turned off the radio link with the ground crew.
Relations improved when the crew re-established communications the next day.
Their schedules were adjusted and breaks restored, though none ever went into space again. Debates continue whether this episode is instructive for the labor movement.
Samir Chopra notes, those "fully convinced of the value of their work are likely to push back when placed in an artificially controlled, too-tightly-regulated environment… the lessons here are not just for manned space flight, but for any workplace environment that approximates its conditions."
On this day in labor history, the year was 2011.
That was the day the National Labor Relations Board ruled that musicians in Lancaster, Pennsylvania were employees, not independent contractors.
Veteran musicians with the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra attempted to organize a union in 2007.
They challenged the dictatorial methods by which musicians were treated.
They wanted a contract to spell out rules for hiring, firing, auditioning, grievance procedures and more.
When it came time to sign union cards, the Symphony opposed the election, claiming the musicians were independent contractors.
The musicians filed with the regional Labor Relations Board. After receiving an unfavorable ruling, they turned to the national offices in Washington, DC.
There, the Board utilized the “common law agency test,” to determine the musicians’ status. Questions discern how much control workers have over the way they work, are they highly skilled, how are they paid, do they provide their own tools, or in this case, instruments.
When more answers tilt towards yes, workers are considered independent contractors.
The NLRB determined that though these workers are paid on a 1099 instead of a W-2 form, they are employees because of their working conditions.
They concluded that orchestral management exerted a great deal of control. Management determined musicians’ dress, their posture and behavior before, during and after rehearsals and concerts.
Management also imposed discipline and firings. Musicians voted to join the Greater Lancaster Federation of Musicians the next spring.
But their victory was soon undercut by management’s refusal to negotiate a first contract.
The musicians filed an unfair labor practice and won. The symphony took the case to a federal appeals court, which settled in the union’s favor in Spring 2016.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1914.
That was the day garment workers gathered in New York City to found the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.
It was a revolt against the conservative United Garment Workers union. Garment workers across the country had complaints against the UGW.
The new ACWU leaders held a simmering resentment over a bad deal made after the 1910 Chicago strike in the men’s clothing industry.
Then, in 1914, UGW tops refused to seat New York City delegates at the Nashville convention.
Chicago delegates protested and both walked out of the conference.
They had had it with the dominance of white, skilled craftsmen in a union whose members were largely immigrant women.
Early on, the ACWA emphasized industrial organizing and social unionism.
With Sidney Hillman as their first president, the union engaged in many strikes, winning the 44-hour workweek in 1919.
It provided such benefits to its members as cooperative housing, child day care, unemployment insurance, and collectively bargained health and life insurance plans. It also established the Amalgamated Bank.
By the late ‘20s, the union boasted a membership of over 100,000. Having never joined the AFL, it quickly signed up with the new CIO and coordinated its work with the Textile Workers Union of America in 1937.
The ACWA continued to organize successfully.
In 1963, these unions embarked on what became a 17-year organizing drive and boycott at J.P.
Stevens, popularized in the movie, Norma Rae.
They led other successful campaigns in the ‘70s, including at Farah clothing and championed investigations into “brown lung” disease.
The union has since undergone a number of mergers and splits, and is now known as Workers United.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1921.
That was the day President Warren G. Harding ordered Eugene V. Debs released from prison.
The Socialist Party leader had been convicted of Sedition in 1918 and sentenced to ten years in prison for an anti-war speech he made in Canton, Ohio earlier that year.
He noted in that speech, “Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder… And that is war, in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles… To turn your back on the corrupt Republican Party and the corrupt Democratic Party—the gold-dust lackeys of the ruling class—counts for something.
It counts still more...to join a minority party that has an ideal, that stands for a principle, and fights for a cause.”
His arrest and conviction was part of a wider crackdown against dissent during World War I of anti-war activists, including the Socialist Party, IWW, labor unions, and immigrants.
From his jail cell, he won close to a million votes on the Socialist Party ticket in the 1920 presidential elections.
He was also stripped of his citizenship, posthumously restored in 1976. “On the day of his release, the warden ignored prison regulations and opened every cell-block to allow more than 2,000 inmates to gather in front of the main jail building to say good-bye to Eugene Debs,” according to historian Howard Zinn. “As he started down the walkway from the prison, a roar went up and he turned, tears streaming down his face, and stretched out his arms to the other prisoners.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1936.
That was the day some fifty policemen wielding blackjacks, attacked picketers from the National Maritime Union on the Houston docks.
West Coast Maritime workers had shut down ports that fall. The East Coast maritime unions called their members out in sympathy and the strike soon spread to Gulf ports as well.
In many ports around the country, workers were fighting shippers and the AFL-led, International Seaman’s Union.
Sailors in Houston complained of atrocious working conditions, where rotting food and disease, including tuberculosis were widespread on board most ships.
When in port, they suffered exploitation at the hands of shipping agents who also acted as boardinghouse keepers.
They found the ISU was incapable of defending their interests and readily struck when organizers from the new, CIO-led, National Maritime Union put out the call.
During the strike, NMU and ISU organizers clashed, and strikers faced repression.
Early in December, ISU business agent shot down NMU militant John Kane in Houston.
During the same month, ISU seaman Peter Banfield died in Galveston after a brawl with NMU strikers.
According to historians, George Norris and Michael Botson Jr., many NMU seamen came to believe “there wasn’t much difference between Port Arthur under the oil companies and Hamburg under the Nazis.”
Then on Christmas Eve, police attacked about 150 strikers, and eighteen were sent to the hospital for their injuries.
The nationwide strikes were called off the following February, with mixed results.
But the NMU won union recognition that summer.
They succeeded in establishing union hiring halls and fought hard against segregation, racial discrimination and Jim Crow hiring practices in Texas ports and nationwide.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2008.
That was the day that Wal-Mart Stores agreed to settle sixty-three wage and hour lawsuits, across forty-two states, for at least $352 million and possibly as much as $640 million.
Wal-Mart and Sam’s Clubs were accused of failing to pay overtime, requiring workers to work off-the-clock, erasing hours from time cards and preventing workers from taking meal and rest breaks, as guaranteed by state laws.
The lawsuits involved hundreds of thousands of then current and former employees.
You’d think they would have learned their lesson after having to shell out that amount of money.
In fact, they have had to settle at least seven more class action, wage and hour lawsuits and remain a defendant in dozens more!
By 2012, Wal-Mart had settled at least nine Equal Employment Opportunity Commission cases related to disability, gender, racial and religious discrimination in hiring and sexual harassment.
Egregious labor violations have persisted throughout their stores.
Systematic wage theft, health and safety dangers and abusive conditions on the job have continued for years.
Chronic short staffing creates unsafe working conditions.
In 2012 alone, they were repeatedly cited and fined by OSHA for serious violations such as blocked emergency exits, lack of safety procedures for control of power hazards, and other problems.
Employees who worked with OurWalmart organizers often found they were targeted with threats, reduction in hours and terminations.
More recently, Wal-Mart has had to settle a discrimination suit over health insurance benefits for same-sex spouses.
The high cost of labor violations and low wages at Wal-Mart cost taxpayers on average, $6.2 Billion a year in public assistance for many of their workers.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1919.
That was the day Red Scare deportations began.
Two hundred forty-nine radicals, including anarcho-feminist, Emma Goldman, were packed onto the USS Buford and deported to Russia.
The year 1919 had seen massive social convulsions.
The Seattle General strike had kicked off the year.
It was followed by coal strikes and steel strikes, bombings and race riots.
There were increasing fears of Communist ideas and influence in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution.
These events touched off a draconian response by the US federal government.
Together with the young J. Edgar Hoover, Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer conducted mass raids and arrests of more than a thousand “suspected” working class radicals.
The Department of Labor agreed that proclaimed membership in the Union of Russian Workers was a deportable offense and received the USS Buford on loan from the War Department to carry out the deportations.
The ship set sail and docked in Finland, where trains transferred the deportees into the Soviet Union.
The vast majority of those deported had no criminal records, and had never participated in acts of terrorism.
They were expelled for speaking out about their political opinions.
According to Regin Schmidt, author of Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anti-Communism in the United States, Employers’ Association fueled the anti-radical climate.
They were engaged in an intense open-shop counter-attack against post-war organizing campaigns and strike activity.
“The main goal was to discredit unions as subversive, Bolshevistic and alien to basic American values.”
Donning the name, ‘The American Plan,’ closed shops were referred to as ‘Sovietism in disguise,’ and propaganda campaigns were waged to ensure blacklists, internal union dissension, yellow dog contracts and strikebreaking.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1860.
That was the day South Carolina announced, “The Union is Dissolved!”
The pronouncement was a direct response to the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln a month earlier.
South Carolina was the first of eleven states to secede from the Union.
They were resolved to preserve their system of slave labor.
Many debate the reasons why and will cite States’ rights or tariffs and taxes as primary causes.
But South Carolina issued a “Declaration of Immediate Causes” just four days after its State legislature passed the Ordinance of Secession.
According to James Loewen, author of The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader, this declaration opposed Northern states’ right of refusal to support slavery.
It stated there was “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery… that the Northern states had failed to fulfill their constitutional obligations” by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage.
South Carolinians were also upset they could no longer travel to Northern states with their slaves in tow.
They were furious that New England states allowed black men to vote.
The declaration complains that Northern states have “denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery; They have permitted the open establishment among them of societies whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and eloign the property of the citizens of other states.
They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes: and those who have remained, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.”
Other Confederate states would craft similar documents.
The Civil War to end slavery would begin in Charleston, South Carolina the following April.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1945.
That was the day workers ended their ninety-nine-day strike against the Ford Motor Company in Windsor, Ontario.
Just across the river from Detroit, workers from UAW Local 200 fought and won a union shop and dues check off.
They had to fight hard to get it.
The plant was organized during World War II.
Workers put off many demands to help with the war effort.
After the war, Ford refused to agree to a new contract and laid off 1,500 workers.
Workers voiced their rage and issued new demands.
They wanted vacation and layoff pay, better grievance procedures and medical benefits.
They also wanted compensation for work on Sundays and holidays.
When Ford wouldn’t budge, 14,000 workers took to the picket line and went on strike.
By October, they also shut down the powerhouse that brought light, heat and power to the plant.
Management complained machinery would be damaged if the power remained off.
The Ontario Provincial Police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police were called in to reopen the plant.
When they arrived, they found a barricade of some 2000 cars and trucks reinforcing the picket lines.
Then, 8,000 workers from Amalgamated Local 195, which included Chrysler workers, walked out in sympathy, joined the picket lines and stayed out for a month.
The women’s auxiliary organized to feed strikers.
They had financial support from unions, churches and small businesses from across the country.
Returning soldiers marched in solidarity rallies along with much of the community.
Because of this strong show of support, negotiations were jump-started and soon workers were ratifying a new contract.
This victory allowed what is now UNIFOR 584 to win unprecedented gains for its members for more than three decades.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1917.
That was the day that Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, which outlawed the transportation, manufacture and sale of alcohol.
The amendment went into effect thirteen months later.
According to John Rumbarger, author of Profits, Power and Prohibition, the temperance movement centered on tightening social control of working people.
Workers often met in bars and saloons to unwind after work and to socialize.
But in the days before union halls, the saloon doubled as a headquarters where workers could talk about problems on the job like mistreatment and poor working conditions.
They used the saloon as place to plan and organize strikes.
It also served as a site for workers to talk politics and organize around political parties.
Many prominent industrialists complained that saloons were breeding grounds for labor unrest and radical politics.
They also feared a growing immigrant working class that tied its fate to powerful political machines in cities like Chicago, New York and Boston.
The Anti-Saloon movement brought a strange mix into its coalition.
It included the KKK who worried of the growing power of immigrant workers.
But it also included Progressives who worked for labor harmony and sobriety as a means of public health.
The anti-Saloon movement also targeted German Brewers.
The United States had just entered World War I and Anti-German sentiment was so high that many considered German Brewers to be working for the Kaiser, their product a sap on the energies of servicemen and grain production to feed the US troops.
But alcohol flowed freely throughout the 20s, creating both the Jazz speakeasy and bootlegging syndicates.
It would ultimately be repealed by 1933.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1944.
That was the day President Franklin Delano Roosevelt rescinded Executive Order 9066.
It had forcibly relocated over 120,000 Japanese-Americans into internment camps.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the government considered Japanese-Americans a national security threat.
By 1942, many were given less than a week’s notice to sell and store all property
Whole families were rounded up and taken away to desolate areas in the West and Southwest.
Up to this point, many Japanese-Americans in California were employed in the agricultural industry, some as tenant farmers.
They were responsible for 40% of all produce grown in that state, whose crops were valued as $40 million annually.
Over 6000 farms, consisting of 200,000 acres were confiscated.
Once interred, they were subjected to dire living conditions with little in the way of running water, sanitary facilities or medical care.
They were subject to forced labor in the construction of camp buildings and cultivation of near-barren lands.
The government hoped to make the camps self-sufficient.
In Poston, Arizona, they were made to build the infrastructure for Colorado River Tribes reservation in order to consolidate other tribes onto the land.
When Japanese-Americans were finally released, most found their stored belongings stolen and their homes, jobs and farms confiscated and redistributed.
After the war, they continued to face violence, job and housing shortages, and racial discrimination.
Ronald Reagan would sign the Civil Liberties Act in 1988.
It acknowledged that internment was based on “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.”
The act served as a formal apology and sought to distribute billions in reparations.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1951.
That was the day New York City was struck by the Great Bagel Famine.
Three hundred members across thirty-two bakeries, of the Bagel Bakers of America, local 338 walked off the job over wages and working conditions.
Morris Siegal, business agent for the local, stated that the Bakers Association had been “lax in living up to the welfare-fund payments and sanitary provisions of the contract.”
The bagel bakers produced 1.2 million bagels weekly for New York City consumers.
The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle noted “the only ones welcoming this respite are the salmon.”
Diners, delicatessens, and Teamster delivery drivers were all rocked by the strike, which lasted for six weeks.
The two sides were so deadlocked that a mediator who had effectively settled a smoked salmon dispute three years earlier, was brought in to help settle the conflict.
The bagel bakers won a $3 day wage increase and we're ready to return to work.
But the Teamsters would not begin deliveries until they were paid for lost wages due to lack of deliveries made during the strike.
The bagel bakers would engage in job actions effectively over the course of the next fifteen years until they too suffered the fate of many an industrial worker, that of automation.
Their labor would eventually be replaced by labor-saving bagel making machines by the late 1960s.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1921.
That was the day Kansas National Guard troops marched into Crawford County coal fields to quell the “Mothers March.”
8000 miners went on strike that September to protest the jailing of their UMW district leader, Alexander Howat.
Howat was found guilty of violating a statewide strike injunction for calling workers out on strike in 1919.
Governor Henry Justin Allen had established a state industrial court which ruled strikes illegal.
Howat’s members considered it a new kind of fugitive slave act.
They likened their jailed leader to a modern-day John Brown.
The UMW opposed the court and the increasing number of unauthorized strikes.
Many district leaders were divided over this protest strike and chose not to support it.
The strike also divided the membership and some went back to work.
Conditions worsened after three months until the striking miners’ wives took matters into their own hands.
They met in Franklin to organize a march that would effectively shut down the mines.
Their numbers grew from 500 the first day to over 4000.
According to Benjamin Goosen, “for three days the women stormed area mines, obstructed traffic, and assaulted workers. When met with resistance, they threw red pepper at “scab” workers and overturned their lunch buckets, showering the miners with coffee and what had been intended as their midday meals.”
Four companies of National Guard troops, including a machine gun division, arrived to stop the march and break the strike.
The press derisively referred to the women as the “Amazon Army.”
Many women were arrested but mobilized their newly won voting power to unseat anti-labor politicians the next spring.
As a result, the state industrial court was ruled unconstitutional.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1852.
That was the day Socialist leader Daniel De Leon was born in Curaçao to Dutch Jewish parents. As a young man, he traveled Europe.
He settled in New York City, and earned a law degree from Columbia University in 1878.
De Leon joined the Socialist Labor Party in 1890 and became the editor of its newspaper, The People. His book, Socialist Landmarks, consisting of a series of lectures, became wildly popular.
These lectures included Reform or Revolution, What Means This Strike?, The Burning Questions of Trade Unionism, and Socialist Reconstruction of Society.
De Leon warned of reforms under capitalism as illusory.
He argued for revolutionary socialism and soon assumed leadership of the SLP. As a former Knights of Labor, he was critical of the American labor movement, often referring to the AFL as the American Separation of Labor for its business unionism and refusal to organize any but the most highly skilled, white craft workers.
De Leon also took a strong stand against racism in the Socialist movement, stating “Why should a truly Socialist organization of whites not take in Negro members, but organize these in separate bodies? On account of outside prejudice?
Then the body is not truly Socialist.” De Leon was among the socialist leaders at the founding 1905 conference of the Industrial Workers of the World.
By 1908, he and others looked to effect social change through the Socialist Party and existing trade union movement.
This put them at odds with the direct action perspective of the IWW.
Many left the IWW at this point, including De Leon and Socialist leader Eugene Debs. When he died in 1914, more than 30,000 turned out for his funeral
On this day in labor history, the year was 1903.
That was the day prominent civil rights activist Ella Baker was born in Norfolk, Virginia.
Her parents moved to Littleton, North Carolina when she was young. She often listened to her grandmother’s stories of slave revolts and of the brutality she endured under slavery.
Ella attended the historically black college, Shaw University, graduating in 1927.
After college, she moved to New York City and worked as a journalist.
Ella was profoundly impacted by the Harlem Renaissance and became an educator for the WPA, teaching African and labor history.
She immersed herself in the activism of the period and worked on the Scottsboro Boys defense campaign.
By 1938, she had joined the NAACP, traveling across the country to direct membership recruitment, fundraising and building of local branches.
In 1952, Ella became the president of New York City’s NAACP chapter, working for desegregation and on police brutality cases.
Baker went to Alabama to help found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference after the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott to organize voter registration drives throughout the South.
From there, she formed and led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Ella trained young, committed Civil Rights activists in a collectivist model of organizing and in participatory democracy.
By 1964, she helped to organize the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and its fight to be seated at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
She was involved in the defense of activist and friend Anne Braden, then targeted by HUAC and later, the Free Angela! Movement in defense of then jailed activist, Angela Davis.
She was instrumental in founding the Third World Women’s Alliance and supported various independence movements throughout the world.
She died on her birthday in 1986.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1945.
That was the day President Truman appointed a fact-finding panel to investigate the General Motors strike.
As many as 320,000 UAW GM workers had been on strike for nearly three weeks. They had suffered deep wage cuts, deteriorating working conditions and endless contract violations during the war. UAW now demanded 30% wage increases.
But President Truman and GM acted as if it was still wartime.
Truman ordered a 30 day cooling off period to be followed by compulsory arbitration.
Just two days earlier, 10,000 strikers picketed GM, encircling their downtown headquarters for over an hour.
The CIO held an emergency conference, vowing to continue and spread the strike. CIO president Philip Murray took to the radio in defense of the strike.
He noted that corporations had made millions in wartime profits, that wage cuts since V-J Day had been as high as 50% and denounced Congress for burdensome new tax laws.
Murray added that Truman’s proposed “Fact-Finding Act” and other anti-labor laws served “to weaken and ultimately to destroy labor union organizations.”
Bob Carter, chairman of the AC Spark Plug strike committee and chairman of the Greater Flint CIO Council remarked, “I am against arbitration and will oppose the setting up of fact-finding committees.
Anyone acquainted with the labor history of this country knows that those committees are used by political stooges of the corporations to cheat workers out of their just demands.”
The strike ended in partial victory the following March, with strikers winning a 17.5% raise, just over half their original demand.
But UAW members demonstrated their solidarity and their refusal to be cowed into going back to work on the government’s terms.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1918.
That was the day streetcar workers in Kansas City walked off the job.
It was the third strike since August 1917. Workers had previously struck for union recognition and joined the city general strike that Spring.
By summer, the city was so desperate for wartime labor, the transit company began hiring women. Though women faced initial opposition, by fall, the union demanded they receive equal pay for equal work.
The company had been paying them $15 dollars less a month than their male coworkers. The Amalgamated filed charges with the National War Labor Board, demanding a general wage increase and equal wages for women.
The Board quickly ruled in the union’s favor. But Kansas City Railway refused to abide by the decision. On this day, 2675 men and 127 women walked off the job, demanding the company honor the board’s ruling. Instead the company hired scabs.
In the rush to restore service, the company failed to properly train the scab drivers and a number of streetcar crashes reduced the transit company’s fleet by 300 cars. According to Maurine Weiner Greenwald, author of Women, War and Work, the company alleged in the press that the strike was an attack against the entire community.
On the Missouri side, state militia guarded the strikebreakers while U.S. Marshals guarded rail tracks on the Kansas side.
By April 1919, “a federal grand jury indicted union leaders for obstructing a vital industry during wartime,” even though the war had been over for six months!
By May, the strike was lost and the union busted. It would take another 20 years before Kansas City Transit would finally be organized.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1915.
That was the day the one millionth Model T rolled off the Ford assembly line in Highland Park, near Detroit.
Henry Ford started Model T production seven years earlier. For nearly 20 years, the Tin Lizzie served as the first affordable vehicle, opening up travel and leisure to a new middle class.
Ford refashioned the packing house conveyor to develop the assembly line.
Before production moved to the sprawling modern River Rouge complex, the Highland Park plant was considered the factory that changed the world.
Ford’s ambition to produce cars for the multitudes extended to his workers. As part of his campaign to beat back organizing drives by the Industrial Workers of the World, Ford instituted the $5 day at the Highland Park plant.
For auto workers, buying a Model T even with the $5 day wasn't so easy.
The $5 day actually amounted to $2.34 in wages and an additional $2.66 a day in profit sharing if Ford determined the worker was actually “living right.”
Investigators from his Sociological Department visited workers in their homes.
The routine intrusions into the personal lives of workers away from the job included determining spending and cleanliness habits, whether they drank or smoked, whether they were married or single, the state of workers’ marital relations and family values.
Workers who failed these home inspections were given six months to shape up or be fired.
Ford ruled young single men, women and blacks completely ineligible from the wage program. For a time, employee turnover plummeted and production increased.
But wartime inflation and deteriorating working conditions all but killed the $5 day, which ended in 1921.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1958.
That was the day twelve ultra-conservatives, including industrialists Robert Welch, Fred Koch and Harry Lynde Bradley gathered in Indianapolis to found the John Birch Society.
These men saw secret cabals and communist conspiracy everywhere.
They mobilized their vast financial resources to fuel Cold War paranoia.
They opposed New Deal policies, the Civil Rights Movement, President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs and the Equal Rights Amendment. They funded Barry Goldwater’s presidential bid
in 1964, denounced Nixon as a fake and warned of his establishment of diplomatic ties with China. The Birchers also opposed water fluoridation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
They pressed for the U.S to withdraw from the United Nations and viewed the U.S. war in Vietnam as a plot to bring Communism to the United States.
Welch, a candy manufacturer, even asserted that President Dwight Eisenhower was a simply a tool for the communists and advocate of a “One-World New Order.”
More recently, many Birchers have also helped to found and fund the National Right to Work Committee, whose legal defense arm has pushed hard for anti-union legislation.
Prominent members like the Koch Brothers have funneled millions into the NWRC in order to bust unions, kill the Employee Free Choice Act and weaken the regulatory authority of the National Labor Relations Board.
Their current headquarters are in Appleton, Wisconsin, hometown of Red Scare warrior, Senator Joseph McCarthy.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1941.
That was the day eighteen supporters of the Socialist Workers Party were sentenced in the first Smith Act trial.
Earlier that summer, twenty-nine militants had been targeted and arrested for their leadership of events in Minneapolis during the 30s.
They had led the 1934 Teamsters strikes that made Minneapolis a union town, successfully confronted the fascist Silver Shirts in 1938 and led a WPA strike the following year.
By 1941, federal agents were raiding SWP offices in Minneapolis and St. Paul, seizing boxes of documents, books, pamphlets and other material.
The trial began October 27. The prosecution alleged the 29 had conspired to advocate the violent overthrow of the government, were stockpiling weapons and encouraging insubordination among the armed forces.
The defendants insisted that advocating class struggle to achieve a peaceful transition to socialism was not the equivalent of violent overthrow.
They added the trial was a government witch hunt, bent on suppressing their first amendment rights. Six were released, another five were acquitted.
But the remaining 18 were sentenced to between twelve and sixteen months in jail. Dozens of CIO unions including the UAW, USWA, URW and UE all rallied to the defense of the convicted militants.
The ACLU, central in the defense case, now mounted the appeals campaign. They failed to overturn the convictions and the 18 surrendered to authorities two years later to begin serving their sentences.
For historian Donna Haverty-Stacke, the case showed “how far the Roosevelt administration went to prosecute political dissent—even to the point of targeting the labor-liberal left.”
The Act would be repealed in 1952 and hundreds of convictions under the Act would finally be reversed as unconstitutional by 1957.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1896.
That was the day eleven steam engineers met in Chicago to found the National Union of Steam Engineers, the forerunner of the International Union of Operating Engineers.
Ten of the eleven came from the stationary field. They often worked 60-90 hours a week in dangerous working conditions.
Constructing and operating steam boilers was highly skilled, labor-intensive and potentially deadly work.
At the time, steam powered railroad and construction shovels, hoists and cranes for high-rise construction and electric power generation.
Many flocked to San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake to help rebuild that city. Others left for Panama to work on the Canal.
By 1912, the union was issuing charters to locals that represented construction steam engineers and locals that represented fixed boiler operators.
It was renamed the International Union of Operating Engineers in 1928. During World War II and after, thousands worked as Navy Seabees, building military bases, airfields and roads.
The Federal Highway Trust Program opened up work for thousands more in the construction of the nation’s highway system.
Today, you can find Operating Engineers on bridge and dam projects, skyscrapers and pipelines. Its logo, the steam gauge was originally set at 80 psi but now points towards 420 psi.
Some think the change came as a result of operating high-pressure boilers for naval ships and steamboats. Others speculate the change came when the 600-psi gauge became the industrial standard.
The International Union of Operating Engineers administers one hundred apprenticeships in state of the art facilities, requiring 6000 hours of on the job training and 400 hours of classroom instruction.
It represents more than 400,000 members in 170 locals throughout the United States and Canada.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1907.
That was the day an explosion rocked Fairmont Coal Company’s number 6 and number 8 coal mines in Monongah, West Virginia, killing 367 miners.
Newspaper reports estimated the number of dead to be as high as 500. It is considered the worst mine disaster in the history of the United States.
Most miners were killed instantly as the explosion destroyed the mine entrance and its ventilation system.
Those not killed instantly suffocated from poisonous gas.
Earth tremors were felt eight miles away. The force of the explosion buckled pavement, collapsed buildings and derailed streetcars. More than 3200 miners had died in 1907.
With three more mine disasters before the end of the year, the last month became known as Black December. In January, a coroner’s jury verdict ruled that a blow out shot ignited coal dust and made number of recommendations for safer practices.
But David McAteer tells a different story in his history of the disaster.
He argues that the tipple had a design flaw that led to occasional coal car derailments as they exited the mine.
On this day, there had been a derailment with coal cars crashing to the bottom of the shaft and taking out the electrical and ventilation systems with it, igniting the coal dust in the process.
The disaster generated a surge in demands for greater mine safety, leading to the creation of the Bureau of Mines in 1910.
The Bureau could conduct research and safety training but was powerless to conduct inspections or safety enforcement.
Miners would continue to fight for the better part of the century for safety regulations and enforcement.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2008.
That was the day UE local 1110 members at Republic Windows in Chicago began a five–day occupation to protest the imminent closure of their plant.
A month earlier, Republic workers witnessed management moving machinery out of the factory.
They began monitoring where the machinery was going and soon learned it was headed for a new, non-union plant in Iowa.
They planned a possible plant occupation. By December 2, management announced the plant was closing in just three days.
Republic Windows owner Richard Gillman blamed Bank of America for refusing to extend credit, just as the federal government had bailed out the banks in a $700 billion deal.
Workers learned they would receive no severance or vacation pay, despite WARN Act mandates.
The next day they rallied out in front of Bank of America, chanting, “You got bailed out, we got sold out.” Workers were determined to occupy the plant that Friday, when they went to pick up their last paychecks.
Police refused to remove the sit-downers and the occupation quickly made national news.
Local labor leaders and trade unionists, activists and politicians all visited strikers and lent their support. Journalist Kari Lydersen recounts the events in her book, Revolt on Goose Island, noting the “donations of food, blankets, pillows, sleeping bags and other necessities that poured into the factory.”
Protests of Bank of America spread across the country. By the following Wednesday, workers learned that though they could not keep their plant open, they would at least win severance and vacation pay.
In 2012, some of those workers reopened the plant under the name, New Era Windows, as a worker-run cooperative. They specialize in energy efficient vinyl windows.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1946.
That was the day Federal Judge T. Alan Goldsborough fined John L. Lewis $10,000 and the United Mine Workers $3.5 million.
In what was characterized as “a roaring courtroom scene,” Lewis rose to challenge the judge to fine him whatever he wanted.
The judge had just found Lewis and the UMW in contempt of court for ignoring his November 18 order to head off a soft-coal strike, then in its fourteenth day.
Judge Goldsborough had replaced his order with a temporary injunction after the government demanded a judgment that the strike was illegal and must end.
Goldsborough ruled the strike was “an evil, demonic, monstrous thing that meant hunger and cold, unemployment and destitution--a threat to democratic government itself.”
He insisted he was a friend of labor, but that Lewis should be sent to prison.
UMW chief counsel, Welly K. Hopkins, snapped back defiantly, stating that the government was seeking to “break the union politically, financially and morally.”
The federal government had seized the mines in May and was now threatening to run them with Army engineers if Lewis didn’t order miners back to work.
AFL, CIO and Railway Brotherhoods all rallied to Lewis’ defense.
The Detroit labor movement vowed a 24-hour general strike in support. But by the 7th, Lewis retreated, ordering miners back to work until March 31st.
Facing the real threat of the Supreme Court action to uphold the $3.5 million fine, Lewis stated he wanted the Court to “be free from public pressure superinduced by the hysteria and frenzy of an economic crisis.”
Lewis and the UMW were tied up in appeals court for months while they attempted to negotiate new contract terms.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1946. That was the day a general strike erupted in Oakland, California.
Workers, mostly women, had been on strike for a month at two downtown department stores.
Teamsters honored their picket lines and refused to make deliveries. Infuriated owners of Hastings and Kahn’s demanded their merchandise and turned to the city for help.
On this day, police assembled early in the morning to clear the streets of picketers. They attacked strikers, forced them off the streets and set up a perimeter of machine guns to escort scab delivery trucks through.
One striker recalled, “I was black and blue for six months from their clubs.” Outraged truck drivers, bus drivers and streetcar operators all stopped, got out of their vehicles and joined the strikers, quickly filling downtown Oakland.
By the end of the day, the city was completely shut down. 142 AFL unions called for a labor holiday in support of the strikers and now 130,000 workers were on strike in solidarity.
UAW member Stan Weir recalled that it was the bus drivers, many just returned from the war, who led the strike. The streets that night had a carnival like atmosphere. War vets led a march to City Hall to demand the resignation of the Mayor and the City Council for their attempts to break the strike.
The general strike quickly forced the administration to stop the scabhearding. But local labor leaders were divided over what some considered a near insurrection and called the strike off 54 hours later.
The retail workers were left to fight on their own for another five months. But for a few days, workers got a taste of their own power.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1859.
That was the day John Brown was hanged in Charles Town, Virginia in what is now West Virginia.
He had been sentenced to death on charges of treason, murder and insurrection for his role in the raid on the United States Federal Armory at Harper’s Ferry.
Brown and twenty-one abolitionists intended to seize the arsenal there, then build a free settlement in the Appalachian Mountains.
From there, abolitionists and free people of color would wage a guerrilla war against the slave labor system throughout the South.
Convicted on November 2, Brown resisted plans for rescue and prepared to die a martyr.
On this day, John Brown wrote his last statement: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done.”
He was marched out of the Jefferson County Jail through a crowd of onlookers that included Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth to the gallows, where he was hanged.
While many abolitionists distanced themselves from his actions, they defended him and memorialized him after his death.
Fredrick Douglass remarked many years later, “His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine-it was as the burning sun to my taper light-mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1912. That was the day the Anaconda Copper Company instituted its rustling card system at its copper mines in Butte, Montana. The company used the rustling card in two ways: as a work permit and as way to keep track of miners. A miner looking for work would first have to apply for a card. Miners had to present information about citizenship status, English literacy skills, work history and two years of employer references. Once the card was approved, the miner would then be allowed to apply for work. The Butte Miners’ Union charged it was the company’s way of blacklisting those who had quit, been fired or known as a union militant. By 1917, the Metal Mine Workers Union and the IWW added that the company was looking to “nip agitation in the bud.” They alleged employers were holding on to cards or denying them altogether for no reason. According to historian Paul Brissenden, both unions maintained the company was looking “to punish those who were at one time active in the socialist administration of Butte Mayor Lewis J. Duncan, to prevent the Socialist Party from again securing a foothold in Butte, to strengthen the hands of the more conservative unions and to curb the industrial unionism of the IWW and Metal Mine Workers Union.” The company asserted its right to keep its enemies out of the mines, alleging they presented a danger to mine safety. But the unions shot back, stating the blacklist meant the hiring of untrained, inexperienced workers who presented the real danger. Brissenden notes that many union radicals continued to work in the mines despite the card system.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1930. That was the day the world lost the miners’ angel, Mother Jones. She had crossed the country many times over, been involved in practically every strike that built the labor movement; stood with miners and steel workers and mill children everywhere. Mother Jones had asked to be buried with the Virden Martyrs, killed in the Massacre of 1898, at Union Miners Cemetery in Mt. Olive, Illinois. Dozens of labor leaders including AFL president William Green, attended her funeral in Maryland, where she had been living. Then, AFL representatives, several Illinois miners and others boarded the Baltimore and Ohio train to accompany her body to Mt. Olive. Historian Dale Fetherling describes the scene as her body arrived. A band played “Nearer, My God, To Thee” as onlookers bowed their heads and wept. Survivors of the Virden Riot bore the casket to the Odd Fellows’ Hall where it lay in state… The town of 3,500 with its strong and violent heritage, was thronged by thousands of coal diggers.” At least 15,000 turned out for the funeral, broadcast on WCFL, the Chicago Federation of Labor’s radio station. The labor priest, Reverend John Maguire gave the memorial address and officiated at the funeral in Mt. Olive’s Roman Catholic Church of the Ascension. He asked: “What weapons had she to fight the fight against oppression of working men? Only a great and burning conviction that oppression must end. Only an eloquent and flaming tongue that won men to her cause. Only a mother’s heart torn by the suffering of the poor. Only a towering courage that made her carry on in the face of insuperable odds. Only a consuming love for the poor.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1937. That was the day the National Labor Relations Board began hearings on an unfair labor practice brought by the International Union Mine, Mill and Smelters. Mine, Mill had been fighting the union busting tactics at Eagle-Picher Lead Company. The union had been organizing lead and zinc miners in the Tri-State area of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. During the Great Depression, they built the union by emphasizing safer working conditions, stressing the hazards of silicosis and tuberculosis. In their book, Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the Politics of Occupational Disease, Gerald Markowitz and David Rosmer note that one of Mine Mill’s demands included the elimination of the company clinic. They argued it was used to target and fire diseased workers, rather than provide a safe work environment. Mine Mill also organized other area industries, to counteract the near total power of the mine owners in the region. When the union called a strike at area mines in May 1935, the area’s largest producer, Eagle Picher Lead moved quickly to force a lockout and establish a company union. During the hearings, the union was limited in its ability to raise health and safety issues. They did win reinstatement and back pay for workers fired during the strike. But the case brought national attention to silicosis in the Tri-State area. In a letter to Francis Perkins the following year, the head of the Cherokee County Central Labor Body hoped to secure legislation to compel the companies to install ventilation systems and safety devices. He noted the average life of a miner was 7-10 years, with many dying in 2 or 3 years. But a federal standard on silica was still decades away.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1953. That was the day 400 photo-engravers at six New York City newspapers walked off the job. Members of the AFL’s International Photo-Engravers Union had just voted down arbitration. All but one local newspaper, The New York Herald Tribune were idled as 20,000 newspaper workers refused to cross the engravers picket lines. Six days into the strike, that newspaper suspended operations as well. Writers at The New Yorker magazine remarked they were “curled up with the Wall Street Journal, The Daily Worker and a two-day old copy of La Prense.” In the decades before digital images, photoengraving was a labor-intensive process. Highly skilled workers made metal plates from which newspaper images were printed. Photo-Engravers had been working without a contract since the end of October. They demanded a $15 a week raise. The Newspapers Association was only willing to grant $3.75. The other newspaper unions had been offered similar wage and benefit packages, far below their demands. They knew that whatever they won or lost depended on the victory of the Photo-Engravers strike. So they walked out in solidarity. Federal mediators intervened in an attempt to settle the strike. Hysteric newspaper editors across the country shrieked that the union had accomplished what the government would never dare to do: subvert the freedom of the press! They sulked that the strike had broken 35 years of industrial harmony and peace; adding that the ungrateful workers didn’t appreciate just how good they had it. After eleven days, members voted to end the walkout and let a fact-finding board solve the dispute. Three months later, that board upheld the Newspaper’s Association original offer of $3.75 a week plus benefits.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1936. That was the day 1200 production workers at Detroit’s Midland Steel sat-down for higher wages, an end to piecework and union recognition. The strike was called just before noon. When 800 on the second shift arrived for work, they readily handed their lunches, cigarettes and newspapers through the windows to the sit-downers. The UAW had embarked on a massive organizing drive throughout the country. Days earlier, the GM sit-down strike had begun in Atlanta, spread to Kansas City and would eventually reach Flint, Michigan. But the UAW was also organizing parts suppliers like Midland, who produced car body frames for the industry. The UAW first used the tactic of the sit-down strike ten days earlier at the Bendix Products brake plant in South Bend, Indiana. There, workers had just organized with the UAW. They braved eight days in an unheated factory during winter, demanding the company union be dismantled. At Midland, workers stayed in the plant, stating they would hold out till Christmas if they had to. Within a week, the Midland strike had idled 72,000 workers at Chrysler, Plymouth, Dodge, Desoto, Briggs and Ford’s Lincoln-Zephyr plants. Stakes were so high at Midland that strikers threw a suspected company spy out a second story plant window. Just as Midland workers returned victorious to their job ten days later, thousands of others began sitting down at their jobs. Rubber workers in Akron, glass workers in Ottawa, Illinois, bus drivers in Flint, Kelsey Hayes brake workers and aluminum workers just two blocks from Midland were all sitting down for union recognition, wage increases and better working conditions. The massive strike wave had begun.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1829.
That was the day that William Sylvis was born in Armagh, Pennsylvania.
Growing up he was one of twelve children.
His father was a wagon maker and taught him the trade.
At the age of eighteen he became an iron working apprentice.
His skill took him to Philadelphia, where he found work.
But iron work was changing.
More and more foundries were hiring unskilled labor, or helpers, to assist in production.
They could pay these workers significantly less, and undercut the wages of the skilled iron moulders.
In response William joined his local iron moulders union.
But he knew if they were to really have any power as workers, they would need to join together with other locals.
In 1863 he brought together 21 locals to form the Iron Moulders International Union.
Three years later, he embarked on an even more ambitious project—forming a national labor organization for workers across the trades.
Under his leadership the National Labor Union grew to 300,000 members strong.
William shared his thoughts on the importance of labor in a speech to the Iron Moulders Union in 1864 saying quote,
“If workingmen and capitalists are equal co-partners, composing one vast firm by which the industry of the world is carried on and controlled, why do they not share equally in the profits? Why does capital take to itself the whole loaf, while labor is left to gather up the crumbs? Why does capital roll in luxury and wealth, while labor is left to eke out a miserable existence in poverty and want?”
Sadly after all these years, William’s questions are still being asked today.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947.
That was the day that front page of the Chicago Tribune printed a banner headline “Newspaper Printers Quit!”
1,600 members of the International Typographical Union Local 16 had gone out on strike against six Chicago newspapers.
The key reason for the strike was wages.
The union also wanted the publishers to agree to only hire union labor.
The walkout was part of a wave of printers’ strikes in the United States and Canada.
In all, union members from 43 newspapers from 27 cities went on strike.
Most newspapers were able to keep printing during the walkouts.
But many had to reduce the number of editions or make changes in how the paper was produced.
According to the an article published by the Associated Press, “Some are using a photoengraving process to circumvent their composing rooms while others continue to the use of normal methods.”
The Chicago strike wore on for twenty-two months.
The strike also became an important labor struggle after the passage of the Taft-Hartley legislation.
The legislation, approved by Congress earlier that year over President Harry Truman’s Veto, restricted the rights of labor unions including outlawing the closed shop.
Since the typographical unions were some of the oldest trade unions in the country, the strike became an important battleground over how Taft-Hartley would be interpreted.
The American Newspaper Publishers Association hoped that Taft-Hartley could be a tool in smashing the strike.
The courts sided with the publishers and demanded the union drop their demand for a closed shop.
The union did win a ten-dollar raise, a little more than two-thirds the amount they asked for during the strike.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947 that was the day that the US House of Representatives found ten Hollywood writers and directors in contempt for their alleged ties to Communism.
The decision was based on the House Un-American Activities Committee’s finding the ten to be in contempt the week before.
More than forty screenwriters, directors and producers were brought before the committee to testify about allegations of rampant Communist activities in the movie-making industry.
During the Cold War fear of Communism reached a fevered pitch.
This included the fear that Communists were infiltrating Hollywood to spread their message to the public through the movies.
Ten refused to answer the committee’s questions or to name names of other potential Communists.
Each of the ten was fined $1,000, sentenced to a year in prison, and blacklisted from working in Hollywood.
Perhaps the most well-known of the ten was one of Hollywood’s leading screenwriters, Dalton Trumbo.
He served 11 months in federal prison for refusing to cooperate with House Un-American Activities Committee.
While he was blacklisted he wrote the screen play for Roman Holiday, the romantic film starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.
Since Trumbo could not take credit for the film, another screenwriter friend put his name on it.
Roman Holiday won the 1953 Academy Award for best screenplay.
Three years later another Trumbo script, The Brave One also received the Academy Award.
Finally, in 1960 Trumbo worked on Stanley Kubrick’s acclaimed film Spartacus.
Kubrick refused to remove Trumbo from the credits—busting the blacklist.
In 2015, actor Bryan Cranston starred in a film about Trumbo’s life.
During the House Un-American Activities Committee’s hearings, the Screen Actors Guild passed a resolution that members had to disavow any ties to the Communist Party.
They also elected actor Ronald Regan president of their union.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1887.
That was the day of the Thibodaux Massacre, in Louisiana just southwest of New Orleans.
Thousands of African American sugar cane workers had gone out on strike.
Before the Civil War, sugar cane, like other southern crops had been harvested by enslaved labor.
After the war, planters put laws and practices into place to control and repress the newly freed labor force.
By the late 1880s one of those practices was paying sugar cane workers in scrip.
Instead of actual money workers received scrip only redeemable at the planters’ stores.
This let planters set the prices for goods and keep their workers in debt.
The Knights of Labor began to organize the bayou sugar workers through their Local Assembly 8404.
The union presented the Louisiana Sugar Producers Association, which represented 200 of the largest planters, with a list of demands.
The list included the end of scrip payment and a small wage increase.
The planters refused.
The union called a strike to begin on November first, during a key time in the sugar harvest.
Outraged planters brought in scabs to replace the strikers and militia troops to protect the scabs.
They evicted strikers from their plantation homes.
Many evicted black workers made their way to the black section of Thibodaux.
White armed men began to picket around the black neighborhood.
Two of these white picketers were fired on by an unknown person.
In retaliation, for more than two hours the vigilantes rained gun fire on black strikers and their families.
At least thirty people, and possibly many more were killed.
The strike was crushed.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1919. That was the day four leaders of the Carpenters union were shot dead in Bogalusa, Louisiana.
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the International Union of Timber Workers had embarked on an organizing drive of white and black workers at Great Southern Lumber Company. Bogalusa functioned as a company town. Lumber bosses controlled company housing, local politicians and ruled the town with an iron fist.
By 1919, the two unions began organizing among loggers and sawmill workers in the region. The UBC initially organized among white skilled workers, while the IUTW organized among unskilled, mostly black workers. They soon stepped up efforts to organize jointly.
Historian Stephen Norwood notes that when Great Southern threatened to forcibly break up a union meeting among black workers, armed white union men arrived to defend the meeting. By September, 95% of the workforce was organized when the company instituted a lockout.
On November 21, a posse of local businessmen fired on the home of leading black organizer, Sol Dacus, who narrowly escaped. The following day, armed white union carpenter leaders, Stanley O’Rourke and J.P. Bouchillon escorted Dacus to the Central Trades and Labor Council offices. 150 special policemen were immediately dispatched. They began firing upon union headquarters, killing O’Rourke, Bouchillon and two other union leaders, Thomas Gaines and Lem Williams. Dacus was nearly lynched and escaped with his life to New Orleans.
Norwood concludes the gun battle “represents probably the most dramatic display of interracial labor solidarity in the Deep South during the first half of the twentieth century.” For historian William P. Jones, the anti-union violence and racial terror would culminate in 1923 with a massacre of the Florida lumber town of Rosewood.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1942.
That was the day the completion of the Alaskan Highway or Alcan, was celebrated at Soldier’s Summit.
There had been proposals for a highway connecting the United States to Alaska since the early 1920s.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt moved quickly to organize its approval and construction.
By March 1942, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers broke ground on the $138 million project.
More than 10,000 troops were assigned to highway construction.
Over a third were comprised of newly formed black regiments.
Thousands of pieces of construction equipment were moved through the railroads, including steam shovels, blade graders, tractors, trucks, bulldozers, snowplows, cranes and generators.
In a matter of eight months, workers carved out 1700 miles of road between Dawson Creek, British Columbia, through the Yukon to Delta Junction in Alaska, under the most treacherous environmental conditions.
Workers arrived in wintery Dawson Creek, pitching their sleeping quarters in snowdrifts.
By spring , workers battled flooding rivers, equipment sinking into thick mud and fears of Japanese bombers.
By summer, mosquitoes, dubbed “bush bombers,” were so bad workers had to eat under netting.
Black workers also battled relentless racism.
The Army was still segregated.
Black troops faced racist presumptions about their capacity to carry out hard labor.
They were determined to break down stereotypes.
By fall, white and black bulldozer drivers coordinating the work together were celebrated in the pages of the Army’s Yank magazine, Time and the New York Times.
Some historians consider the integrated work crews a factor in President Truman’s later move to desegregate the armed forces.
According to The New York Times, the Federal Highway Administration calls the Alcan “the road to civil rights.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 1896.
That was the day anarchist and labor activist Rose Pesotta was born.
Her name, Rakhel Peisoty, was changed, like so many others’, at Ellis Island.
She had fled tsarist Russia in 1913 as a teenager and soon found work in New York City’s garment shops.
She readily joined the ILGWU, becoming a national organizer by 1920.
In the late 1920s, Rose went to Los Angeles in an attempt to organize Latina sweatshop workers.
There she helped women workers establish a bilingual labor journal and assisted them in winning a key strike for recognition and higher wages in 1933.
She soon ascended to the position of union vice president and worked closely with the newly formed CIO.
Rose traveled far and wide to organize garment workers.
She led successful strikes throughout the United States and in Montreal and Puerto Rico.
By 1936, she was on the picket lines with striking rubber workers in Akron, Ohio and autoworkers in Flint, Michigan.
She increasingly found herself at odds with ILGWU head, David Dubinsky and other top male union officials over persistent sexism, her radical politics and her opposition to the no-strike pledge during World War II.
Rose resented the fact that though women comprised the overwhelming majority of the union’s membership, she continued to be the only woman union officer.
Frustrated by the chauvinism she experienced, Rose resigned from her post as vice president and later from the ILGWU executive board in 1944.
She continued as a sewing machine operator, remained active at the local level and published two memoirs.
Later in life, she aligned herself with the Civil Rights Movement.
Rose Pesotta died of cancer in 1965.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1863.
That was the day President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.
It is considered one of Lincoln’s greatest speeches.
Generations of students have been assigned to commit it to memory.
The two-minute speech carries a deep significance in our country’s history.
Lincoln delivered the speech at the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Four months earlier, the Union had defeated Confederate forces at the Battle of Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.
Casualties on both sides totaled nearly 50,000 over the course of the three-day battle.
This battle, coupled with the fall of Vicksburg, is often considered a turning point in the war to end the slave labor system.
Lincoln’s speech served to redefine the war’s purpose.
Originally, the emphasis had been one of preserving the Union.
Now, Lincoln drew upon the Declaration of Independence to also highlight the national struggle for human equality.
Lincoln began his speech with the acknowledgment that the nation was “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
He ended the Gettysburg Address stating, “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”
Most Republicans praised the speech.
But historian Eric Foner notes in his biography of Lincoln, that “many Democrats denounced Lincoln for unilaterally redefining the war’s purpose, which they insisted, had nothing to do with equality.”
In 2015, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation published an edited volume, Gettysburg Replies.
It features 272-word essays by presidents, historians, poets, actors, scientists and others about the lasting influence of the Gettysburg Address.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1993.
That was the day 21,000 attendants, mostly women, caught American Airlines by surprise in their first strike ever against the company.
80% of all fights were cancelled a week before Thanksgiving as solid picket lines formed at forty airports across the country.
CEO Robert Crandell, who commanded a $ million a year salary and preferred the nickname “fang,” was at a loss when flight attendants refused to be bullied by threats of scab replacements.
Hoping to smash seniority and scheduling rights, he cancelled all vacations for months.
Crandall’s claims to company losses could hardly be believed after the company reported third-quarter profits of $118 million.
Attendants were fed up with years of concessionary contracts that reduced their wages by as much as 40%.
One woman picketer summed up the company’s attitude: “We’re just a bunch of skirts.”
The strike was so popular that pilots and Teamsters often joined picketers.
In New York City, 200 members of Local 1199 hospital workers walked the picket line in solidarity.
Fed up machinists at United Airlines in Denver were so inspired, they staged a solidarity sickout the first day of the strike.
Four days later, President Clinton intervened to end the strike and force binding arbitration.
While many saw this as a victory, workers returned to their jobs under the same conditions that forced them to strike while they waited for arbitrators to render a decision.
Two years later, arbitrators finally rendered a decision.
They awarded American the right to reduce staffing on some flights.
But attendants would win a 17% wage increase and retain most work rules.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1785.
That was the day the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York was founded.
Twenty-two skilled craftsmen, with the motto, “By Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand,” met on Pine Street to form a benevolent organization that could provide cultural, educational and social services to craftsmen and their families.
Two months later, founders met for their annual meeting.
They represented many of the city’s trades including hatters, butchers, sail makers, bolters and comb makers.
In his book, Chants Democratic, historian Sean Wilentz states, the General Society was “intended to be a semi-political umbrella organization for all of the city’s independent mechanics, to help oversee the trades and secure favorable legislation from local and national government. The group captured the ideal of mutuality and craft pride essential to artisan fraternities since the Middle Ages.”
The General Society opened one of the city’s first free schools at a time when there were no public schools.
It established a tuition-free Mechanics Institute, the General Society Library and Lecture Series.
The Mechanics Institute, founded in 1858, continues to provide free evening trades-related instruction.
The Library, established in 1820 is the second oldest library in New York City.
It is also one of the few remaining membership circulating libraries.
Its collections and archives span two centuries.
The General Society continues its tradition of public lectures in the form of The Labor, Literature and Landmarks Series.
More recently, it has added the Artisan Lecture Series that features lectures by master artisans.
The series also promotes the work and art of skilled craftsmen.
The General Society has been at its current location at 20 west 44th Street since 1885.
On this day in labor history, the year was 2006.
That was the day mounted police charged 50 janitors and their supporters during a protest in Houston.
SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign had been organizing for years throughout the South and Southwest.
Modeled on success achieved in California, SEIU broadened their campaign to Houston and Miami.
The union called a month long strike against the cities’ largest cleaning companies.
Protests and civil disobedience actions continued throughout the strike.
Hundreds of strikers routinely marched through the streets of Houston, beating drums and hauling bags of garbage into the middle of intersections to highlight the key services they provided to the city.
They were subject to repeated threats of firings and arrests.
When police charged at the janitors, it served to turn public support in favor of the strikers.
By the end of the month, Tom Balanoff and SEIU Local 1 in Chicago claimed victory for 5300 Houston janitors.
The Chicago local had been central to the three-year campaign in Houston.
Incomes doubled and janitors finally had health insurance, paid vacations and holidays.
The Chicago Tribune detailed the campaign in a November 25 article.
The union lobbied building owners and major corporations who held contracts with the cleaning companies.
The union worked to gain a foothold among the janitors, sending in seasoned Latino janitors from Chicago to help with organizing.
The SEIU also committed millions of dollars to the organizing drive, setting aside $1 million alone in strike funds.
At a victory rally, union leader Flor Aguilar proclaimed, “No one thought that a group of poor Latinos form Houston would be able to win anything, but today we can lift our heads up very high.”
On this day in labor history, the year was 2014.
That was the day four workers were killed and a fifth injured during a chemical leak at a DuPont insecticide plant near Houston.
The plant used methyl mercaptan in its production of insecticides.
24,000 pounds of the deadly chemical were released through two valves in a poorly ventilated building onsite.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board found numerous flawed safety procedures, design problems and inadequate planning.
Days earlier, liquid methyl mercaptan had solidified in piping, causing a blockage.
Workers attempted to clear it by spraying the pipes with hot water.
They didn’t realize they had cleared the blockage, which then created high-pressure buildup of the chemical in other piping.
When two workers went to drain those pipes in a routine procedure, they were overcome by toxic vapor.
Another two workers answering the subsequent distress call were also killed.
DuPont blamed workers for the release of the toxic gas.
But the CSB found a number of violations.
The building where the release occurred had an inadequate toxic gas detection system, ventilation fans were not working and workers were not required to wear additional breathing protection for tasks they performed there.
Line-clearing procedures were faulty, routinely exposing workers to toxic fumes.
The Board also found that DuPont worked to conceal from environmental regulators, as many as four major releases of methyl mercaptan two days before workers were killed.
The CSB asserted that design flaws prompted months of clogs before the deadly incident.
More generally, they noted the design of the building that housed the pesticide unit inherently increased the threat of exposure to workers and the public.
DuPont opted to close the plant in 2016 rather than meet recommendations of federal regulators.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1978.
That was the day OSHA published its lead standard.
The standard reduced permissible exposure by 75% to protect nearly a million workers from damage to nervous, urinary and reproductive systems.
As early as 1908, Alice Hamilton, the mother of occupational medicine, noted that lead had endangered workers as far back as “the first half-century after Christ.”
In their book, Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, historians Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner add that “throughout her distinguished career, Hamilton was deeply involved in uncovering the relationship between lead and disease in the American workforce.”
Hamilton’s groundbreaking research on the effects of lead paved the way for a growing uproar against its continued use.
After the Occupational Safety and Health Act passed in 1970, occupational and public health activists pushed hard for a lead standard.
A new generation of industrial hygienists emphasized how unsound, industry-driven conclusions regarding “safe lead levels” impacted women workers and workers of color.
Industry had long asserted that women and African-Americans were simply more susceptible to lead poison, which served to justify discrimination in hiring.
Some unions accepted these terms, if only to demand a stringent lead standard that included immediate implementation of engineering controls.
But leading hygienists like Jeanne Stellman blasted these arguments.
Stellman insisted such conclusions reflected racial and gender bias rather than any credible scientific evidence.
She added that men, women and children, regardless of race or ethnicity, were all adversely affected by lead exposure.
The final standard adopted was considered a compromise.
Discrimination in hiring has continued and enforcement proves difficult.
But even a watered-down standard was too much for the lead industry.
They have been fighting it ever since.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1974.
That was the day Karen Silkwood was killed in a mysterious car crash.
Though her death was ruled a one car accident, some maintain she was forced off the road.
Silkwood was a union activist and representative for Local 5-283 of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers.
She worked at Kerr McGee’s Cimarron plutonium plant in Crescent, Oklahoma, making plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods.
Meryl Streep popularized her life in the 1983 film, Silkwood.
Karen’s union loyalty only grew after the company crushed a strike in 1972.
She was elected to the union bargaining committee just as the company moved to force a decertification election.
She also served as a union health and safety rep.
Silkwood found a number of apparent violations: routine contamination exposure, faulty respiratory equipment, falsified inspection records, and improper storage of radioactive material.
She met with OCAW leader, Tony Mazzocchi to highlight safety issues in a campaign to beat back decertification.
It worked.
Then Karen testified before the Atomic Energy Commission, worried about her own contamination.
It was clear her home was contaminated too.
She worked tirelessly to gather the documentation and the evidence, detailing the company’s life-threatening negligence.
And on this day, Karen Silkwood was headed to Oklahoma City to meet Mazzocchi’s assistant, Steve Wodka and a New York Times reporter to present evidence she collected.
She never made it.
Her car was found with rear end damage, near skid marks, in a ditch along Route 74.
While the company attempted to smear her as a drug addicted lesbian who deliberately contaminated herself, they would eventually settle with her family for nearly $1.4 million.
Karen Silkwood became a model and a hero for women workers and all those who fight for safe workplaces.
On this day in labor history, the year was 1954.
That was the day Ellis Island closed its doors.
More than 12 million immigrants had passed through its gates since its opening in 1892.
Those steerage and third-class passengers coming to America were processed at the island between 1892 and 1924.
They were routinely subject to medical inspections to determine they were free of disease.
Legal inspections included questions regarding birth, occupation, destination, finances and criminal record.
Its busiest year was 1907 with more than a million arriving to enter the United States.
During World War I, the Island was used as a detention center for presumed enemies and those considered foreign-born subversives.
After Congress passed the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924, arrivals entering the country slowed to a trickle.
Then Ellis Island became primarily a detention and deportation center.
During World War II, thousands of Germans, Italians and Japanese made up the majority of those detained, awaiting deportation.
It also served as a military hospital for returning servicemen and training center for the Coast Guard.
By 1950, Ellis Island served as a holding center for arriving Communists and Fascists, who were prevented entrance under the recently passed Internal Security Act.
A Norwegian seaman who had overstayed his leave was released the day the Island closed and told to catch the next ship back to Norway.
In 1965, President Johnson made Ellis Island part of the National Park Service.
A massive restoration of the Island began in 1984, organized by Lee Iacocca’s Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation.
It reopened as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in 1990, featuring numerous exhibits, publicly accessible immigration records and the award-winning film documentary, “Island of Hope, Island of Tears.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1887.
That was the day that four men were hung in Chicago for their alleged role in the bombing at a labor rally at the city’s Haymarket Square a year earlier.
Eight men were put on trial.
Although the prosecution did not prove any of the men had ties to the bombing, five were sentenced to die.
Louis Lingg died in jail before the execution could take place.
The others were martyred for their support of the labor movement and the fight for the eight-hour day.
Three of those executed were born in Germany.
August Spies and Adolph Fischer, worked for a Chicago German-language, worker’s newspaper.
George Engel owned a toy store.
Backlash against foreign-born anarchists helped stoke public hysteria over Haymarket.
The final martyr was southern-born Albert Parsons, the editor of The Alarm, an English-language workers paper.
The day after they died, the Chicago Tribunereported on the brutality of their execution, “Then begins a scene of horror that freezes the blood. The loosely-adjusted nooses remain behind the left ear and do not slip to the back of the neck. Not a single neck is broken, and the horrors of a death by strangulation begin....”
Thousands of mourners joined the funeral procession of the five slain men.
In 1893, Governor John Peter Altgeld granted the three defendants still a jail a full pardon.
The monument to the Haymarket eight stands at Forest Home Cemetery, just west of Chicago—drawing visitors from across the world to remember these martyrs for the eight-hour movement.
May Day is celebrated as the worker’s holiday around the world in commemoration of the events in Chicago.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1887.
That was the day that Louis Lingg died in prison, awaiting execution for his alleged role in a bombing at a worker’s rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago the year before.
Louis was born in Germany.
His father worked for a lumber mill.
One day, while trying to clear a log jam, his father fell into an icy river.
Although Louis’ father lived, he could no longer carry the same work load.
The company fired him, despite his twenty years of service.
Louis began to question a labor system that would let this happen.
He became a carpenter’s apprentice.
Louis then traveled to Switzerland, where he became acquainted with anarchist worker groups.
Finally, in 1885, Louis made his way to the United States and Chicago.
There he joined the Carpenters and Joiners Union.
He became an outspoken advocate for the cause of the eight-hour day.
The movement had great success in Chicago and on May 1st, or May Day, thousands marched in the streets for the eight-hour cause.
But when a bomb was thrown at a workers’ rally three day later, the backlash against the labor movement was swift and brutal.
Eight men, including Louis, stood trial and were convicted despite a lack of evidence tying them to the bombing.
Louis Lingg and four others were sentenced to death by hanging.
But the day before the sentence was to be carried out, Louis lit a cigar in his prison cell.
The cigar was packed with explosives.
The explosion left Louis in agony for hours before he finally died.
Some believe he committed suicide rather than die at the hands of the legal system.
Others believe he was murdered.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1952.
That was the day that the labor movement lost Philip Murray.
Philip was born in Scotland in 1886 to an Irish Catholic family.
His father was a coal miner and a union leader.
Philip followed his father into the mines at just the age of ten years old.
The Father and son made the trip to the Pennsylvania coal fields together, when Philp was sixteen.
They saved enough money, and then sent for the rest of their family.
One day Philip got into an altercation with one of his bosses.
Not only was he fired, his family was kicked out of their company home.
From that point on Philip was dedicated to the union cause as the only hope for working people.
He rose through the ranks of the United Mine Workers, becoming Vice President by the time he was thirty-three.
He worked closely with legendary United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis.
During the 1930s there became a nation-wide drive to organize industrial workers.
Philip was appointed to lead the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, a key sector for the industrial effort.
The steelworker campaign met with historic success.
They reached a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel, the giant of the industry.
Philip went on to become the first President of the United Steelworkers of America, as well as President of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Under his leadership industrial labor became a powerful force.
But that force was checked by the passage of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act in 1947.
The anti-communist hysteria of the Red Scare also took its toll on the CIO, forcing Philip to expel some of the most radical unions from the organization.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1897.
That was the day that Dorothy Day, a leader of the Catholic Worker Movement, was born in Brooklyn, New York.
As a young girl her family moved to San Francisco.
Her father lost his job as a sportswriter due to the devastating earthquake of 1906, and the family relocated again to Chicago.
In 1932 she met Peter Maurin, and together they founded the Catholic Worker Movement, a faith-based social justice effort.
The Catholic Workers opened what they called houses of hospitality to serve those in need.
Dorothy also helped co-found the Catholic Worker, a monthly newspaper that became a voice for poor and working people.
While writing for the paper, Dorothy traveled and visited with some of the most exploited workers in the country.
She talked with migrant agricultural workers in California, and was arrested for supporting the United Farm Workers in 1973.
In 1940, she visited the Hooverville encampment in Seattle, Washington.
Dorothy’s reporting vividly demonstrated how her faith informed her activism.
She wrote, “The rain poured down. Underneath was mud, ankle deep, and the long lane that cut between the rows of shacks reflected the grey clouds in its pools… But Christ is there, I thought sadly, there in the mud, in the shacks with His poor. With them he is trying to find a place to lay His head. With them, He hungers and with them He suffers fatigue of body and soul. “Behold, Oh God, our Redeemer, and look upon the face of Thy Christ ,” there in the dumps, among the creatures who still are men. Have pity on them, and on us, who permit such things to be.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1959.
That was the day that the US Supreme Court handed down a decision that would be a blow to the cause of labor.
Striving for the kind of major gains they had won in 1956.
The half a million members of United Steelworkers of America once again went out on strike.
The steel industry was extremely profitable and the workers demanded to share in the fruits of their labor.
Management wanted the ability to introduce new technology and policies to cut hours and employees.
The strike wore on for more than 100 days.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the steelworkers back to the plants.
He argued that the Taft-Hartley act gave him the legal means to issue the order.
A decade earlier Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act over President Harry Truman’s veto as a way to curtail union rights.
The Steelworkers protested the constitutionality of the law, all the way to the Supreme Court.
The union lost.
In making its decision, the court referenced President Eisenhower’s explanation of the impact of the strike. “The strike has closed 85 percent of the nation's steel mills, shutting off practically all new supplies of steel. Over 500,000 steel workers and about 200,000 workers in related industries, together with their families, have been deprived of their usual means of support. Present steel supplies are low, and the resumption of full-scale production will require some weeks. If production is not quickly resumed, severe effects upon the economy will endanger the economic health of the nation."
The next January, the union and management signed a new contract.
The workers received a 7 cents an hour raise, a new automatic cost-of-living adjustment, improvements to their pension and health care benefits, job protections against proposed automation.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1982.
That was the day that eleven women graduated from the New York City Fire Academy.
They were the first women firefighters ever to serve in the city of New York since the department was founded in 1865.
The inclusion of women firefighters did not come easily to New York.
In 1977 for the first-time women were allowed to apply to be firefighters.
Although many women had passed the written part of the exam they were continually denied employment because all failed the physical test.
The women sued citing discrimination.
One of the leaders of the suit was applicant Brenda Berman.
The Federal District Court in Brooklyn sided with the women.
Not everyone was happy about the decision.
A group of demonstrators came to City Hall before the graduation, with signs reading “I want to be save by Firemen.”
The Uniformed Firefighters Association challenged the ruling.
They tried to block the ceremony in the courts, arguing that training requirement had been changed to accommodate the women.
Despite the legal challenges the ceremony went on as scheduled.
In his speech Mayor Ed Koch said, “As all of us have known all along, bravery and valor know no sex.”
After the graduation, the controversy over women firefighters continued.
The women often faced sexual harassment on the job, and vilification on the editorial pages of city newspapers.
Bumper stickers reading “Don’t send a girl to do a man’s job” could be seen on the car bumpers of many male firefighters and at the city firehouses.
The women firefighters stood up to the harassment, testifying before the City Council and holding street demonstrations to bring awareness to their plight.
On this day in Labor History, the year was 1916.
That was the day, when what came to be known as the Everett Massacre, took place in Washington State.
The Everett Shingle Workers Union had gone out on strike in May.
Organizers from the Industrial Workers of the World came to the area to support the strike and to make a stand for free speech.
Over the summer, tensions began to mount.
The police began to arrest IWW speech makers.
Then, in August, violence erupted between strike breakers and picketers at the Jamison Mill.
The IWW decided to bring in a group of about 300 members for a free speech rally.
They came from Seattle by two steamer boats.
But the first boat was met at the docks by the sheriff and a large group of armed deputies.
A gun battle broke out.
One passenger, Ernest Nordstrom, told the harrowing tale of what happened to the Seattle Union Record saying, “I couldn’t swear to where the first shot came from, but as it comes to me, I thought the first shot was a warning shot not to go ashore. After that there were shots—gee whiz—all kinds of shots, and when they commenced, all ran to the other side and the boat began to tip.”
The passengers avoided capsizing the boat, and turned around to flee back to Seattle.
At least five IWW members on board were killed, along with two of the deputies.
After the violence, the Shingle Workers union called off their strike.
74 IWW members were arrested, but only one stood trial. None were convicted.
Ernest Nordstrom followed up with, “I am sure there is no excuse for this whatsoever-there need have been no bloodshed.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1879.
That was the day that Will Rogers was born in Oologah, Indian Territory, in what later became Oklahoma.
Rogers grew up on a ranch, and by 10th grade had dropped out of school to be a cowboy.
Skilled with a lasso, he became a cowboy entertainer first in vaudeville then in silent film.
Rogers also had a syndicated column and a radio show where he became a popular political commentator.
With quick wit and humor Rogers helped to shape public opinion.
He brought humor to serious issues in a way later echoed by the likes of John Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
Rogers often talked about the plight of the American worker.
In 1931 he was asked to give a radio address for President Herbert Hoover’s Organization on Unemployment.
Rogers expressed the urgency of the unemployment that was sweeping the nation during the Great Depression.
He said, “The only problem that confronts this country today is at least 7,000,000 people are out of work.
That’s our only problem. There is no other one before us at all. It's to see that every man that wants to is able to work, is allowed to find a place to go to work, and also to arrange some way of getting a more equal distribution of the wealth in country…So here we are in a country with more wheat and more corn and more money in the bank, more cotton, more everything in the world—there’s not a product that you can name that we haven't got more of it than any other country ever had on the face of the earth—and yet we’ve got people starving.”
On this day in Labor History the year was 1979.
That was the day that became known as the Greensboro massacre.
Members of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi party shot and killed five participants in a demonstration held by the Workers Viewpoint Organization, later called the Communist Workers Party.
Workers Viewpoint organizers had come to Greensboro in an effort to strengthen the unions at the Cone Mills textile plants.
At the time, Cone Mills was the largest producer of denim in the world.
African American millworkers faced discrimination and dangerous conditions, including breathing in textile dust that was known to potentially cause brown lung disease.
Tensions between the communist organizers and the Ku Klux Klan began to mount.
Disagreements also arose between the communists and other union organizing efforts in Greensboro.
The Workers Viewpoint group decided to hold a “Smash the Klan” demonstration.
They coordinated the route of the march with the local police.
But on that fateful day no police were there to provide protection.
In broad daylight cars filled with Klansmen and Nazi members drove up and opened fire on the demonstrators.
Five people fell dead.
A criminal trial was held in 1980, and a federal Civil Rights trial took place in 1984.
Both times the defendants were acquitted by all-white juries.
In 2004, Greensboro began a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to address their community history.
The second chapter of the final report, recounts how Milano Caudle, the Nazi who owned one of the vehicles driven that day, later bragged in an interview “that the Klan “destroyed the damn union” with its actions against the marchers.”
After the tragedy, there was a strong backlash in the press against the communist organizers.
On this day in Labor History the year was 1955.
That was the day that the song “Sixteen Tons” first made an appearance on the Billboard country music chart.
It would reach the top spot and stay there for ten weeks.
Sixteen Tons told the story of the hard lives faced by coal miners.
The song talks about falling into debt at the “company store” a reality faced by many coal mining families.
The song had first been recorded by Merle Travis in the mid 1940s.
The song borrowed lyrics from things that Merle heard from his father, who was a coal miner.
Merle Travis sung the songs of working people.
He was labeled a Red and Communist, and during that era many stations would not play his music.
Sixteen Tons was recorded again by “Tennessee” Ernest Jennings Ford in 1955.
“Tennessee” Ernie’s grandfather and uncle had both worked in the mines.
Tennessee began to perform Sixteen Tons to enthusiastic crowds.
He then recorded it as a B side to his single “You Don’t Have to Be a Baby to Cry” for Capitol Records.
But the B side recording became the hit.
The song was so popular, it jumped off the country charts, and took the pop music number one spot for eight weeks and became a Gold Record.
Since then Sixteen Tons has been covered by a variety of artists from Johnny Cash to Tom Jones and Tom Morrello to ZZ Top and has become a true labor standard.