Today's Labor History

Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. On this week’s show, Korey Hartwich remembers the founding of National Nurses United…a look at the history of graduate student organizing with Chad Frazier of the Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees…Bill Fletcher on the founding of the Colored National Labor Union…Operating Engineers 99’s Don Havard on the formation of the National Union of Steam Engineers of America.
PLUS: The Labor History Today podcast wins second place in the Best Audio/Podcast/Radio Broadcast category of the annual International Labor Communications Association Labor Media Contest! 

Textile strikers win 10-hour day, Fall River, Mass. - 1866

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passes an ordinance setting an eight-hour workday for all city employees - 1867

IWW union Brotherhood of Timber Workers organized - 1910

General strike begins in Oakland, Calif., started by female department store clerks, who went on strike at two city department stores that refused to let workers organize. The local Labor Council declared a "Work Holiday," and 100,000 workers walked off their jobs. The retail workers won the right to unionize five months later - 1946

The express passenger train "20th Century Limited" ends over 60 years of service when it takes its last run from New York City to Chicago - 1967

5,000 union construction workers in Oahu, Hawaii march to City Hall in protest of a proposed construction moratorium by the City Council - 1976

Arrests began today in Middleton, NJ of teachers striking in violation of a no-strike law. Ultimately 228 educators were jailed for up to seven days before they were released following the Middleton Township Education Association's agreement to take the dispute to mediation - 2001 
 
photo: Oakland general strike, Kahn's Department Store. November 1946. Photographer unknown. Gelatin silver print. Collection of Oakland Museum of California. The Oakland Tribune Collection. Gift of ANG Newspapers.

Labor history courtesy Union Communication Services

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