This week’s Labor History Today podcast: The Haymarket Martyrs Monument: Past, Present, Future; Last week's show: We Mean to Make Things Over: A History of May Day. May 9 Japanese workers strike at Oahu, Hawaii’s Aiea Plantation, demanding the same pay as Portugese and Puerto Rican workers. Ultimately 7,000 workers and their families remained out until August, when the strike was broken - 1909 Longshoremen’s strike to gain control of hiring leads to general work stoppage, San Francisco Bay area - 1934 Hollywood studio mogul Louis B. Mayer recognizes the Screen Actors Guild. SAG leaders reportedly were bluffing when they told Mayer that 99 percent of all actors would walk out the next morning unless he dealt with the union. Some 5,000 actors attended a victory gathering the following day at Hollywood Legion Stadium; a day later, SAG membership increased 400 percent - 1937 May 10 Thanks to an army of thousands of Chinese and Irish immigrants, who laid 2,000 miles of track, the nation’s first transcontinental railway line was finished by the joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines at Promontory Point, Utah – 1869 U.S. & Canadian workers form Western Labor Union. It favors industrial organization and independent labor party politics - 1898 A federal bankruptcy judge frees United Airlines from responsibility for pensions covering 120,000 employees - 2005 - David Prosten Comments are closed.
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