 The Haymarket Massacre/Riot/Affair; Pete Seeger at 100: Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. Timothy Messer-Kruse on "The enduring power of the Haymarket Square bomb: uncovering the hidden history of a failed revolutionary uprising in America." From the Our Daily Worker/Our Daily Lives Brown Bag series at Michigan State University. Plus: celebrating Pete Seeger’s 100th birthday with the R.J. Phillips Band.
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 permits United Airlines to legally abandon responsibility for pensions covering 120,000 employees - 2005 May 11 Nationwide railway strike begins at Pullman, Ill (photo). Nearly 260,000 railroad workers ultimately joined the strike to protest wage cuts by the Pullman Palace Car Co. - 1894 Seventeen crewmen on the iron ore freighter Henry Steinbrenner die when the ship, carrying nearly 7,000 tons of ore, sinks during a violent storm on Lake Erie. Another 16 crewmen survived - 1953 May 12 Laundry & Dry Cleaning Int’l Union granted a charter by the AFL-CIO - 1958 Int’l Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots merges with Longshoremen’s Association - 1971 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raid the Agriprocessors, Inc. slaughterhouse and meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, arresting nearly 400 immigrant workers. Some 300 are convicted on document fraud charges. The raid was the largest ever until that date. Several employees and lower and mid-level managers were convicted on various charges, but not the owner—although he later was jailed for bank fraud and related crimes - 2008 Labor history courtesy Today In Labor History. Comments are closed.
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