Today's Labor History

This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Blue Wave? Labor and the Democratic coalition in the Southwest
Plus: Dorothy Day is born. Last week’s show: Organizing through the Divide

November 13
259 miners died in the underground Cherry Mine fire. As a result of the disaster, Illinois established stricter safety regulations and in 1911, the basis for the state’s Workers Compensation Act was passed - 1909

A Western Federation of Miners strike is crushed by the militia in Butte, Mont. - 1914

GM workers’ post-war strike for higher wages closes 96 plants - 1945

November 14
Women’s Trade Union League founded, Boston - 1903

The National Federation of Telephone Workers – later to become the Communications Workers of America – is founded in New Orleans - 1938

To “organize workers into a powerful industrial union,” United Mine Workers of America President, John L. Lewis called a meeting in Pittsburgh’s Islam Grotto, founding the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) - 1938

November 15
Founding convention of the Federation of Trades and Labor Unions is held in Pittsburgh. It urges enactment of employer liability, compulsory education, uniform apprenticeship and child and convict labor laws. Five years later it changes its name to the American Federation of Labor - 1881

- David Prosten

---