Today's Labor History

​This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Cutting along the Color Line
Quincy Mills, Professor of History at the University of Maryland in College Park, talks about black barbers, the evolution of their trade, and its political meaning as a skilled form of labor.
Plus: poet Martin Espada reads his poem "Castles for the Laborers and Ballgames on the Radio," written for his friend, historian Howard Zinn. This week’s Labor History in 2: The Amistad.
Last week’s show: A travel guide to labor landmarks

September 4
Twelve thousand New York tailors strike over sweatshop conditions - 1894
What many believe was to become the longest strike in U.S. history, 600 Teamster-represented workers walk out at the Diamond Walnut processing plant in Stockton, Calif., after the company refused to restore a 30 percent pay cut they had earlier taken to help out the company. The two sides ultimately agreed to a new contract after 14 years - 1991

September 5
20,000 to 30,000 marchers participate in New York's first Labor Day parade, demanding the eight-hour day - 1882
Palmer raids on all Wobbly halls and offices in 48 cities in U.S. Alexander Palmer, U.S. Attorney General, was rounding up radicals and leftists - 1917
Ten thousand angry textile strikers, fighting for better wages and working conditions, besiege a factory in Fall River, Mass., where 300 strikebreakers are working. The scabs are rescued by police using tear gas and pistols on the strikers - 1934
General strike begins across U.S. maritime industry, stopping all shipping. The strikers were objecting to the government's post-war National Wage Stabilization Board order that reduced pay increases negotiated by maritime unions - 1946

September 6
One of the worst disasters in the history of U.S. anthracite mining occurred at the Avondale Mine, near Scranton, Pa., when a fire originating from a furnace at the bottom of a 237 foot shaft roared up the shaft, killing 110 miners - 1869
Tony Boyle, former president of the United Mine Workers, is charged with murder in the 1969 deaths of former UMW rival Joseph A. Yablonski and his wife and daughter - 1973

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

- David Prosten; photo: Labor Day Parade Float in New York City, early 20th century. Photo via New York Department of Labor

---