Today's Labor History

​This week’s Labor History Today podcast: The Great Postal Strike, Watergate and “Casey Jones, the Union Scab” ; Longtime labor lawyer Jules Bernstein on the 1970 postal strike, AFL-CIO president George Meany on the Watergate scandal, and Pete Seeger on “Casey Jones, the Union Scab.
Last week’s show: Neutron Jack, Joker and Parasite
 
March 20
Michigan authorizes formation of workers’ cooperatives. Thirteen are formed in the state over a 25-year period. Labor reform organizations were advocating "cooperation" over "competitive" capitalism following the Civil War and several thousand cooperatives opened for business across the country during this era. Participants envisioned a world free from conflict where workers would receive the full value of their labor and freely exercise democratic citizenship in the political and economic realms - 1865

The American Federation of Labor issues a charter to a new Building Trades Dept. Trades unions had formed a Structural Building Trades Alliance several years earlier to work out jurisdictional conflicts, but lacked the power to enforce Alliance rulings - 1908

Members of the International Union of Electrical Workers reach agreement with Westinghouse Electric Corp., end a 156-day strike - 1956

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that employers could not exclude women from jobs where exposure to toxic chemicals could potentially damage a fetus - 1991

Three hundred family farmers at a National Pork Producers Council meeting in Iowa protest factory-style hog farms - 1997

March 21
American Labor Union founded - 1853

March 22
Mark Twain, a lifelong member of the International Typographical Union (now part of CWA), speaks in Hartford, Conn., extolling the Knights of Labor’s commitment to fair treatment of all workers, regardless of race or gender - 1886

The Grand Coulee Dam on Washington state’s Columbia River begins operation after a decade of construction. 8,000 workers labored on the project; 77 died - 1941

800 striking workers at Brown & Sharpe in Kingstown, R.I., are tear-gassed by state and local police in what was to become a losing 17-year-long fight by the Machinists union - 1982

A 32-day lockout of Major League Baseball players ends with an agreement to raise the minimum league salary from $68,000 to $100,000 and to study revenue-sharing between owners and players - 1990

A bitter six and one-half year UAW strike at Caterpillar Inc. ends. The strike and settlement, which included a two-tier wage system and other concessions, deeply divided the union - 1998
 
- David Prosten 

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