Today's Labor History

Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast, with Joe McCartin, Carl Goldman and Debbie Goldman. PLUS: Lane Windham on Frances Perkins; Congressman David Bonior on the Civilian Conservation Corps, Bill Fletcher on the GM wildcat strike, and Saul Schniderman on the origins of Joe Hill's “There Is Power In A Union.” 

The Sailors’ Union of the Pacific, a union of mariners, fishermen and boatmen working aboard U.S. flag vessels, is founded in San Francisco - 1885
 
The Knights of Labor picket to protest the practices of the Southwestern Railroad system, and the company's chief, high-flying Wall Street financier Jay Gould. Some 9,000 workers walked off the job, halting service on 5,000 miles of track. The workers held out for two months, many suffering from hunger, before they finally returned to work - 1886
 
Joe Hill’s song “There is Power in a Union” appears in Little Red Song Book, published by the Wobblies - 1913
 
With the Great Depression underway, hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers demonstrated in some 30 cities and towns; close to 100,000 filled Union Square in New York City and were attacked by mounted police - 1930
 
Int’l Brotherhood of Paper Makers merges with United Paperworkers of America to become United Papermakers & Paperworkers - 1957
 
The federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act is enacted - 1970
 
Predominantly young workers at a Lordstown, Ohio, GM assembly plant stage a wildcat strike, largely in objection to the grueling work pace: at 101.6 cars per hour, their assembly line was believed to be the fastest in the world - 1972
 
President Jimmy Carter invoked the Taft-Hartley law to halt the 1977-78 national contract strike by the United Mine Workers of America. The order was ignored and Carter did little to enforce it. A settlement was reached in late March - 1978
 
The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the nation’s unemployment rate soared to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983, as cost-cutting employers slashed 651,000 jobs amid a deepening recession - 2009 ​
Compiled/edited by Union Communication Services

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