Today's Labor History

​This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Labor Day: no picnic in a pandemic
Peter Rachleff on the history and significance of Labor Day on the Union Yes Iowa podcast; anthropologist Paul Shackel remembers the 1897 Lattimer Massacre; from the Library of Congress’s brand-new America Works podcast, Greg Vaught, the singing gold mine worker from Elko, Nevada.
Plus, Pete Seeger remembers textile mill striker Ella Mae Wiggins, and on Labor History in 2: The Making of a National Treasure.
Last week’s show: We Do The Work; Working History.

The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers union calls off an unsuccessful three-month strike against U. S. Steel Corporation subsidiaries - 1901

Gastonia, N.C. textile mill striker and songwriter Ella Mae Wiggins (photo), 29, the mother of nine, is killed when local vigilantes, thugs and a sheriff's deputy force the pickup truck in which she is riding off the road and begin shooting - 1929

A striker is shot by a bog owner (and town elected official) during a walkout by some 1,500 cranberry pickers, members of the newly-formed Cape Cod Cranberry Pickers Union Local 1. State police were called, more strikers were shot and 64 were arrested. The strike was lost - 1933

Congress passes the Landrum-Griffin Act. The law expands many of the anti-labor provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, increasing union reporting requirements and restricting secondary boycotting and picketing - 1959

- David Prosten

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