Today's Labor History

This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Roediger on "The Sinking Middle Class"; Feurer on Mother Jones' legacy 
KU historian David Roediger talks with The Heartland Labor Forum radio show about his new book, The Sinking Middle Class. The Forum also pays homage to the most iconic woman leader in labor history; labor historian Rosemary Feurer on the life and legacy of Mother Jones. On Labor History in 2: A Chain Reaction of Human Misery.
Last week’s show: “Despotism on Demand” 

October 9
United Hebrew Trades is organized in New York by shirtmaker Morris Hillquit and others. Hillquit would later would become leader of the Socialist Party - 1888

Retail stock brokerage Smith Barney reaches a tentative sexual harassment settlement with a group of female employees. The suit charged, among other things, that branch managers asked female workers to remove their tops in exchange for money and one office featured a "boom boom room" where women workers were encouraged to "entertain clients." The settlement was never finalized: a U.S. District Court Judge refused to approve the deal because it failed to adequately redress the plaintiff's grievances - 1997

October 10
Six days into a cotton field strike by 18,000 Mexican and Mexican-American workers in Pixley, Calif., four strikers are killed and six wounded; eight growers were indicted and charged with murder - 1933 photo courtesy UC Calisphere

October 11
The Miners’ National Association is formed in Youngstown, Ohio, with the goal of uniting all miners, regardless of skill or ethnic background - 1873

Nearly 1,500 plantation workers strike Olaa Sugar, on Hawaii’s Big Island - 1948

- David Prosten

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