Today's Labor History

​This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Labor Day: no picnic in a pandemic
Peter Rachleff on the history and significance of Labor Day on the Union Yes Iowa podcast; anthropologist Paul Shackel remembers the 1897 Lattimer Massacre; from the Library of Congress’s brand-new America Works podcast, Greg Vaught, the singing gold mine worker from Elko, Nevada.
Plus, Pete Seeger remembers textile mill striker Ella Mae Wiggins, and on Labor History in 2: The Making of a National Treasure.
Last week’s show: We Do The Work; Working History.

September 18
The Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) is formally founded at an Ohio convention, during a period of serious corruption in the union. Two years earlier at an IBT convention in Las Vegas a union reform leader who (unsuccessfully) called for direct election of officers and a limit on officers’ salaries had been beaten by thugs - 1978

A 20-month illegal lockout of 2,900 Steelworkers members at Kaiser Aluminum plants in three states ends when an arbitrator orders a new contract. Kaiser was forced to fire scabs and fork over tens of millions of dollars in back pay to union members - 1999

September 19
Chinese coal miners forced out of Black Diamond, Wash. - 1885
400,000 to 500,000 unionists converge on Washington D.C. for a Solidarity Day march and rally protesting Republican policies - 1981

Upton Sinclair, socialist and author of "The Jungle"—published on this day in 1906—born in Baltimore, MD - 1878

September 20
According to folklorist John Garst, steel-drivin’ man John Henry, born a slave, outperformed a steam hammer on this date at the Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak Mountain Tunnel of the Columbus and Western Railway (now part of the Norfolk Southern) near Leeds, Ala. Other researchers place the contest near Talcott, W. Va. - 1887

International Hod Carriers, Building & Common Laborers Union of America changes name to Laborers' International Union - 1965

- David Prosten

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