Labor History in 2:00

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 announce 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 employe...

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.