 Lessons from the Burgerville Workers Union: Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. On this week’s show: Patrick Dixon talks with Luis Brennan, one of the Burgerville Workers Union organizers in Portland, Oregon. And, inspired by the recent legal victory by nurses at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Alan, Ben and Chloe scoured the University of Maryland’s Meany Labor Archives for some cool things illustrating the history of organizing by health care workers (photo). Plus: the conclusion of our discussion with Clint Burelson and Len Shindel about two historic 1970 strikes: the wildcat by 200,000 postal workers and a strike by 150 Garrett County roads workers in western MD.
A pioneering sit-down strike is conducted by workers at a General Tire Co. factory in Akron, Ohio. The United Rubber Workers union was founded a year later. The tactic launched a wave of similar efforts in the auto and other industries over the next several years - 1934 The Women’s Day Massacre in Youngstown, Ohio, when police use tear gas on women and children, including at least one infant in his mother's arms, during a strike at Republic Steel. One union organizer later recalled, "When I got there I thought the Great War had started over again. Gas was flying all over the place and shots flying and flares going up and it was the first time I had ever seen anything like it in my life..." - 1937 ILWU begins a 4-day general strike in sugar, pineapple, and longshore to protest convictions under the anti-communist Smith Act of seven activists, "the Hawaii Seven." The convictions were later overturned by a federal appeals court - 1953 Labor history courtesy Union Communication Services. Comments are closed.
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