Today's Labor History

Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast, featuring Joe McCartin, Tula Connell and Chris Bangert-Drowns on the trial of anti-war Wobblies and the postal worker’s wildcat strike.

March 23
Trial of 101 Wobblies, charged with opposing the draft and hindering the war effort, begins in Chicago - 1918

Norris-La Guardia Act restricts injunctions against unions and bans yellow dog contracts, which require newly-hired workers to declare they are not union members and will not join one - 1932
 
Five days into the Post Office’s first mass work stoppage in 195 years, President Nixon declares a national emergency and orders 30,000 troops to New York City to break the strike. The troops didn’t have a clue how to sort and deliver mail: a settlement came a few days later - 1970
 
Coalition of Labor Union Women founded in Chicago by some 3,000 delegates from 58 unions and other organizations - 1974
 
Fifteen workers die, another 170 are injured when a series of explosions rip through BP’s Texas City refinery. Investigators blamed a poor safety culture at the plant and found BP management gave priority to cost savings over worker safety - 2005
 
March 24
Groundbreaking on the first section of the New York City subway system, from City Hall to the Bronx. According to the New York Times, this was a worker’s review of the digging style of the well-dressed Subway Commissioners: "I wouldn't give th' Commish'ners foive cents a day fer a digging job. They're too shtiff" - 1900
 
March 25
Toronto printers strike for the 9-hour day in what is believed to be Canada’s first major strike - 1872
 
First “Poor People’s March” on Washington, in which jobless workers demanded creation of a public works program.  Led by populist Jacob Coxey, the 500 to 1,000 unemployed protesters became known as “Coxey’s Army” - 1894
 
A total of 146 workers are killed in a fire at New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a disaster that would launch a national movement for safer working conditions - 1911
 
An explosion at a coal mine in Centralia, Ill., kills 111 miners. Mineworkers President John L. Lewis calls a 6-day work stoppage by the nation’s 400,000 soft coal miners to demand safer working conditions - 1947
Compiled/edited by Union Communication Services