Today's Labor History

Labor History Today (11/10): Debs, Sanders, Socialism and 2020
Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. Leon Fink talks with Patrick Dixon about Eugene Debs, Bernie Sanders, American socialism and the 2020 race for president of the United States.
On this week’s Cool Things from the Meany Archive, Alan Wierdak and Chloe Danyo explore a document from two decades ago that links the newly-formed [email protected] with a push to include alternative medicine in Medicare for All legislation.
Last week's show: (11/3/19): Precarious work in the movies
 
259 miners died in the underground Cherry Mine fire. As a result of the disaster, Illinois established stricter safety regulations and in 1911, the basis for the state’s Workers Compensation Act was passed - 1909

A Western Federation of Miners strike is crushed by the militia in Butte, Mont. - 1914

The Holland Tunnel opens, running under the Hudson River for 1.6 miles and connecting the island of Manhattan in New York City with Jersey City, NJ. Thirteen workers died over its seven-year-long construction - 1927

GM workers’ post-war strike for higher wages closes 96 plants - 1945

Striking typesetters at the Green Bay, Wisc. Press Gazette start a competing newspaper, The Green Bay Daily News. With financial support from a local businessman who hated the Press Gazette, the union ran the paper for four years before their angel died and it was sold to another publisher. The Gannett chain ultimately bought the paper, only to fold it in 2005 - 1972

- David Prosten. Photos: Left: Cross-section of Holland tunnel during construction shows the crucial ventilation ducts. Photo: New York Public Library. Right: Tunnel construction workers, or "sandhogs," tighten a bolt in the tunnel's arched ceiling. Photo: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. photo courtesy TribecaTrib