METRO WASHINGTON LABOR COUNCIL AFL-CIO
  • Who We Are
    • Board & Staff
  • Programs
    • Community Services >
      • Mission
      • Donate Now
      • Programs
      • Funders
      • Archives
    • Political Action >
      • Archive
      • Mission
      • Elected Officials
      • Endorsements
      • DMV Voters Guide
      • 2018
      • 2016
      • 2015
      • 2014
      • Other
      • 2012
      • 2010
      • 2008
      • 2007
      • 2006
    • DC unemployment appeals
  • Affiliates
  • Calendar
  • Evening With Labor
    • Archive >
      • 2021 Evening With Labor
      • 2019 Evening With Labor
      • 2017 Evening With Labor
      • 2018 Evening With Labor
      • 2015 Evening With Labor
      • 2016 Evening With Labor
  • Hiring Hall
    • ADMINISTRATIVE
    • COMMUNICATIONS
    • INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
    • INTERNSHIPS
    • LEGAL
    • MISC
    • ORGANIZING
    • POLITICAL
    • RESEARCH
  • Sign up

Today's Labor History

2/8/2019

 
Picture
​Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. On this week’s show: labor historians Dana Frank and David Jepsen discuss the 1919 Seattle General Strike. Plus, Tom Zaniello on Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” and Kurt Stand on Joe McCarthy’s red-baiting attacks on federal workers and unions. 
 
February 08
Vigilantes beat IWW organizers for exercising free-speech rights, San Diego - 1912


February 09
Wobbly activist Tom Mooney convicted in bombing frame-up orchestrated by Pinkerton Detective Agency. He was pardoned and released 22 years later - 1917

Congress approves legislation allowing for a total of $940 million to be used for Depression-era relief projects. $790 million of this money was intended to be used to fund work relief and flood recovery programs - 1937
 
U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy falsely charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists. It seems that just about everyone else the Wisconsin senator didn’t like was a Communist as well, including scores of unionists. This was the beginning of "McCarthyism." He ultimately was officially condemned by the Senate and died of alcoholism - 1950


President Kennedy asks Congress to approve creation of the Medicare program, financed by an increase in Social Security taxes, to aid 14.2 million Americans aged 65 or older - 1961

Some 19,000 Boeing engineers and technical workers in Washington state and Oregon begin what is to become a 40-day strike over economic issues - 2000

February 10
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) founds the Building and Construction Trades Department as a way to overcome the jurisdictional conflicts occurring in the building and construction unions - 1908

Eleven members of the Carpenters’ union in Reesor Siding, Northern Ontario are shot, three fatally, by independent local farmer-settlers who were supplying wood to a Spruce Falls Power and Paper Co. plant. Some 400 union members were attempting to block an outbound shipment from the plant. The action came as the company was insisting on a pay freeze and two months of seven-day-a-week work - 1963

Forty workers are killed on Staten Island, N.Y., when a huge storage tank filled with liquefied gas explodes - 1973
 
Labor history courtesy Union Communication Services


Comments are closed.
    Picture
    Tweets by @DCLabor

    Constitution

    Documents

    Affiliate Social Media

    Union Plus

​COPYRIGHT METRO WASHINGTON LABOR COUNCIL AFL-CIO 2023
202-974-8150; [email protected]
  • Who We Are
    • Board & Staff
  • Programs
    • Community Services >
      • Mission
      • Donate Now
      • Programs
      • Funders
      • Archives
    • Political Action >
      • Archive
      • Mission
      • Elected Officials
      • Endorsements
      • DMV Voters Guide
      • 2018
      • 2016
      • 2015
      • 2014
      • Other
      • 2012
      • 2010
      • 2008
      • 2007
      • 2006
    • DC unemployment appeals
  • Affiliates
  • Calendar
  • Evening With Labor
    • Archive >
      • 2021 Evening With Labor
      • 2019 Evening With Labor
      • 2017 Evening With Labor
      • 2018 Evening With Labor
      • 2015 Evening With Labor
      • 2016 Evening With Labor
  • Hiring Hall
    • ADMINISTRATIVE
    • COMMUNICATIONS
    • INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
    • INTERNSHIPS
    • LEGAL
    • MISC
    • ORGANIZING
    • POLITICAL
    • RESEARCH
  • Sign up