Today's Labor History

This week’s Labor History Today podcast: SCOTUS bans LGBTQ workplace discrimination; Queer history of the UAW.
Last week’s show: Painters join Black Lives Matter protests; the history of black police in America; Race and Rebellion.

June 27
The Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the "Wobblies," is founded at a convention in Chicago. The Wobblie motto: "An injury to one is an injury to all." - 1905
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Congress passes the National Labor Relations Act, creating the structure for collective bargaining in the United States - 1935

A 26-day strike of New York City hotels by 26,000 workers – the first such walkout in 50 years – ends with a five-year contract calling for big wage and benefit gains - 1985

A.E. Staley locks out 763 workers in Decatur, Ill. The lockout was to last two and one-half years – 1993

June 28
Birthday of machinist Matthew Maguire, who many believe first suggested Labor Day. Others believe it was Peter McGuire, a carpenter - 1850

President Grover Cleveland signs legislation declaring Labor Day an official U.S. holiday - 1894

The federal government sues the Teamsters to force reforms on the union, the nation's largest. The following March, the government and the union sign a consent decree requiring direct election of the union's president and creation of an Independent Review Board - 1988

June 29
What is to be a 7-day streetcar strike begins in Chicago after several workers are unfairly fired. Wrote the police chief at the time, describing the strikers’ response to scabs: "One of my men said he was at the corner of Halsted and Madison Streets, and although he could see fifty stones in the air, he couldn't tell where they were coming from." The strike was settled to the workers’ satisfaction - 1885

An Executive Order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the National Labor Relations Board. A predecessor organization, the National Labor Board, established by the Depression-era National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933, was struck down by the Supreme Court - 1934

IWW strikes Weyerhauser and other Idaho lumber camps - 1936

Jesus Pallares, founder of the 8,000-member coal miners union, Liga Obrera de Habla Esanola, is deported as an "undesirable alien." The union operated in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado - 1936

- David Prosten

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