Clerks, teamsters and building service workers at Boston Stores in Milwaukee strike at the beginning of the Christmas rush. The strike won widespread support—at one point 10,000 pickets jammed the sidewalks around the main store—but ultimately was lost. Workers returned to the job in mid-January with a small pay raise and no union recognition - 1934 The SS Daniel J. Morrell, a 603-foot freighter, breaks in two during a strong storm on Lake Huron. Twenty-eight of its 29 crewmen died; survivor Dennis Hale was found the next day, near frozen and floating in a life raft with the bodies of three of his crew mates. He had survived for nearly 40 hours in frigid temperatures wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, a life jacket, and a pea coat - 1966 National Labor Relations Board rules that medical interns can unionize and negotiate wages and hours - 1999 photo: house staff physicians (interns and residents) of Long Island College Hospital vote to join the Committee of Interns and Residents in 2008. At a rally tomorrow with hundreds of low-wage workers, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre will join elected officials and clergy, contracted service workers at National Airport and Dulles as they announce plans to hold a strike vote over the holiday season against Huntleigh Corporation. The crowd will demand that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority ensure contractors pay their workers $15 an hour at the event, which is one of 20 happening at airports nationwide. The rally -- organized by SEIU 32BJ -- is at noon in DCA's historic lobby. Click here for details and to RSVP. To mark the fourth anniversary of the Tazreen fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a new Solidarity Center photo essay depicts the system of exploitation in the global garment industry that made the fire at Tazreen so devastating -- it killed more than 110 garment workers and gravely injured thousands more -- and showcases how workers have been standing together since the disaster to fight for safer working conditions and greater respect for their rights at work. Click here to see more. William Sylvis, founder of the National Labor Union, born - 1828 National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, precursor to IBEW, founded - 1891 A total of 154 men die in a coal mine explosion at Marianna, Pa. Engineer and General Superintendent A.C. Beeson tells the local newspaper he had been in the mine a few minutes before the blast and had found it to be in perfect condition - 1908 Some 400 New York City photoengravers working for the city’s newspapers, supported by 20,000 other newspaper unionists, begin what is to become an 11-day strike, shutting down the papers - 1953 |