Labor History in 2:00

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.”