This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Mourn for the dead, fight like hell for the living! Last week’s show: Ludlow: My name is Louis Tikas.
April 30 An explosion at the Everettville mine in Everettville, W. Va., kills 109 miners, many of whom lie in unmarked graves to this day - 1927 Obama Administration’s National Labor Relations Board implements new rules to speed up unionization elections. New rules are largely seen as a counter to employer manipulation of the law to prevent workers from unionizing. These rules were subsequently undone under the Trump administration in December 2019. - 2012 May 1 Women weavers form union, Fall River, Mass - 1875 John L. Lewis is elected president of the United Mine Workers. Fifteen years later he is to be a leader in the formation of what was to become the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) -1920 With the Great Depression in full force, the year 1932 opens with 14 million unemployed, national income down by 50%, breadlines that include former shopkeepers, businessmen and middle-class housewives. Charity is overwhelmed: only one-quarter of America’s unemployed are receiving any help at all - 1932 Workers begin to acquire credits toward Social Security pension benefits. Employers and employees became subject to a tax of one percent of wages on up to $3,000 a year - 1937 Adolph Strasser, head of the Cigar Maker’s Union and one of the founders of the AFL in 1886, died on this day in Forest Park, Ill. - 1939 Country music legend Hank Williams attends what was to be his final Musician’s union meeting, at the Elite Café in Montgomery, Ala. He died of apparent heart failure three days later, at age 29 - 1953 Members of the Transport Workers Union and Amalgamated Transit Union working for the New York transit system begin what is to be a successful 12 day strike. Fiery TWU leader Mike Quill, jailed for several days during the strike, then hospitalized, died three days after his release from the hospital - 1966 After nine months of negotiations the United Transportation Union comes into existence, the product of merger between four railroad brotherhoods. The union represents rail, bus, mass transit and airline workers - 1969 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) takes effect, over objections of labor - 1994 May 2 Conference of hundreds of industrial unionists in Chicago leads to formation of IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as Wobblies - 1905 In what became known as Palmer Raids, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer arrests 4,000 foreign-born labor agitators. He believed Communism was “eating its way into the homes of the American workman,” and Socialists were causing most of the country’s social problems - 1920 An underground explosion at Sago Mine in Tallmansville, W. Va., traps 12 miners and cuts power to the mine. Eleven men die, mostly by asphyxiation. The mine had been cited 273 times for safety violations over the prior 23 months - 2006 Comments are closed.
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