This Weekend In Labor History

July 29
The Coast Seamen's Union merges with the Steamship Sailors’ Union to form the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific - 1891

A preliminary delegation from Mother Jones' March of the Mill Children from Philadelphia to President Theodore Roosevelt's summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, publicizing the harsh conditions of child labor, arrives today. They are not allowed through the gates – 1903
(The Autobiography of Mother Jones: Mary Harris Jones—“Mother Jones”—was the most dynamic woman ever to grace the American labor movement. Employers and politicians called her “the most dangerous woman in America” and rebellious working men and women loved her as they never loved anyone else.)

Nineteen firefighters die while responding to a blaze at the Shamrock Oil and Gas Corp. refinery in Sun Ray, Texas - 1956

Following a 5-year table grape boycott, Delano-area growers file into the United Farm Workers union hall in Delano, Calif., to sign their first union contracts - 1970

July 30
President Lyndon Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965, establishing Medicare and Medicaid - 1965

Former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa disappears. Declared legally dead in 1982, his body has never been found - 1975
United Airlines agrees to offer domestic-partner benefits to employees and retirees worldwide - 1999

July 31
Members of the National Football League Players Association begin what is to be a 2-day strike, their first. The issues: pay, pensions, the right to arbitration and the right to have agents - 1970

Fifty-day baseball strike ends - 1981

The Great Shipyard Strike of 1999 ends after Steelworkers at Newport News Shipbuilding ratify a breakthrough agreement which nearly doubles pensions, increases security, ends inequality, and provides the highest wage increases in company and industry history to nearly 10,000 workers at the yard. The strike lasted 15 weeks - 1999
- compiled/edited by David Prosten at Union Communication Services.

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