This week’s Labor History Today podcast: The Memorial Day Massacre; Last week's show: Forced labour during the ”Dirty Thirties”. June 3 International Ladies Garment Workers Union founded – 1900 A Federal child labor law, enacted two years earlier, was declared unconstitutional – 1918 June 4 The House of Representatives approves the Taft-Hartley Act. The legislation allows the President of the United States to intervene in labor disputes. President Truman vetoed the law but was overridden by Congress - 1947 The AFL-CIO opens its new headquarters building, in view of the White House - 1956 Gov. Jerry Brown signs the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the first law in the U.S. giving farmworkers collective bargaining rights. The legislation came after years of effort by the United Farm Workers union - 1975 June 5 Thirty-five members of the Teamsters, concerned about the infiltration of organized crime in the union and other issues, meet in Cleveland to form Teamsters for a Democratic Union - 1976 This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Forced labour during the ”Dirty Thirties”; Last week's show: Blood, guts, and organizing. May 23 An estimated 100,000 textile workers, including more than 10,000 children, strike in the Philadelphia area. Among the issues: 60-hour workweeks, including night hours, for the children - 1903 Ten thousand strikers at Toledo, Ohio’s Auto-Lite plant repel police who have come to break up their strike for union recognition. The next day, two strikers are killed and 15 wounded (photo) when National Guard machine gun units open fire. Two weeks later the company recognized the union and agreed to a 5 percent raise - 1934 U.S. railroad strike starts, later crushed when President Truman threatens to draft strikers – 1946 May 24 After 14 years of construction and the deaths of 27 workers, the Brooklyn Bridge over New York’s East River opens. Newspapers call it “the eighth wonder of the world” - 1883 2,300 members of the United Rubber Workers, on strike for 10 months against five Bridgestone-Firestone plants, agree to return to work without a contract. They had been fighting demands for 12-hour shifts and wage increases tied to productivity gains - 1995 - David Prosten This week’s Labor History Today podcast: The Haymarket Martyrs Monument: Past, Present, Future; Last week's show: We Mean to Make Things Over: A History of May Day. May 9 Japanese workers strike at Oahu, Hawaii’s Aiea Plantation, demanding the same pay as Portugese and Puerto Rican workers. Ultimately 7,000 workers and their families remained out until August, when the strike was broken - 1909 Longshoremen’s strike to gain control of hiring leads to general work stoppage, San Francisco Bay area - 1934 Hollywood studio mogul Louis B. Mayer recognizes the Screen Actors Guild. SAG leaders reportedly were bluffing when they told Mayer that 99 percent of all actors would walk out the next morning unless he dealt with the union. Some 5,000 actors attended a victory gathering the following day at Hollywood Legion Stadium; a day later, SAG membership increased 400 percent - 1937 May 10 Thanks to an army of thousands of Chinese and Irish immigrants, who laid 2,000 miles of track, the nation’s first transcontinental railway line was finished by the joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines at Promontory Point, Utah – 1869 U.S. & Canadian workers form Western Labor Union. It favors industrial organization and independent labor party politics - 1898 A federal bankruptcy judge frees United Airlines from responsibility for pensions covering 120,000 employees - 2005 - David Prosten This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Industrial murder at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory; Last week's show: Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver. April 1 Players begin the first strike in the 75-year history of the National Hockey League. They win major improvements in the free agency system and other areas of conflict, and end the walkout after 10 days - 1992 Longest newspaper strike in U.S. history, 114 days, ends in New York City. Workers at nine newspapers were involved - 1963 More than 2,000 workers strike the Draper Corp. power loom manufacturing plant in Hopedale, Mass., seeking higher wages and a nine-hour workday. Eben S. Draper, president of the firm -- and a former state governor -- declares: "We will spend $1 million to break this strike" and refuses to negotiate. The strike ended in a stalemate 13 weeks later - 1913 April 2 The Supreme Court declares unconstitutional a 1918 Washington, D.C. law establishing a minimum wage for women - 1923 Major league baseball players end a 232-day strike, which began the prior August 12 and led to the cancellation of the 1994 postseason and the World Series - 1995 April 3 20,000 textile mill strikers in Paterson, NJ gather on the green in front of the house of Pietro Botto, the socialist mayor of nearby Haledon, to receive encouragement by novelist Upton Sinclair, journalist John Reed and speakers from the Wobblies. Today, the Botto House is home to the American Labor Museum - 1913 Martin Luther King Jr. returns to Memphis to stand with striking AFSCME sanitation workers. This evening, he delivers his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech in a church packed with union members and others. He is assassinated the following day - 1968 - David Prosten |