Today's Labor History

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September 7
Federal employees win the right to receive Workers' Compensation insurance coverage - 1916

September 8
Employers give in to the demands of thousands of Wobblies-led striking railroad car production workers in McKees Rocks, Pa., agree to improved working conditions, 15-percent hike in wages and elimination of a "pool system" that gave foremen control over each worker’s pay – 1909

Workers give up their Labor Day weekend holidays to keep the munitions factories working to aid in the war effort. Most Labor Day parades are canceled in respect for members of the Armed Services – 1942

Five Liberty ships named after labor leaders were launched this Labor Day. They were built by union labor in Kaiser and Bethlehem shipyards on both coasts. The ships were named after the late leaders Andrew Fruseth of the Sailors Union of the Pacific and the International Seamen’s Union; Peter J. McGuire of the Carpenters; James Duncan of the Granite Cutters; John W. Brown of the Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America; and John Mitchell of the Mine Workers - 1942

United Farm Workers union begins historic national grape boycott and strike, Delano, Calif. - 1965
Some 2,600 Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) workers begin what is to be a successful 6-day strike for higher pay and against a two-tier wage system - 1997

September 9
In convention at Topeka, Kan., delegates create the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America. The men who repaired the nation's rail cars were paid 10 or 15¢ an hour, working 12 hours a day, often seven days a week - 1890

More than a thousand Boston police officers strike after 19 union leaders are fired for organizing activities. Massachusetts Gov. Calvin Coolidge announced that none of the strikers would be rehired, mobilized the state police, and recruited an entirely new police force from among unemployed veterans of the Great War (World War I) - 1919

Sixteen striking Filipino sugar workers on the Hawaiian island of Kauai are killed by police; four police died as well. Many of the surviving strikers were jailed, then deported – 1924 (below)

​United Auto Workers President Leonard Woodcock is named in Pres. Richard Nixon’s “Enemy’s List,” a White House compilation of Americans Nixon regarded as major political opponents. Another dozen union presidents were added later. The existence of the list was revealed during Senate Watergate Committee hearings - 1973
Compiled/edited by Union Communication Services

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