Today's Labor History

This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Christopher Martin, author of No Longer Newsworthy: How the Mainstream Media Abandoned the Working Class. Plus Florence Reece and Rebel Diaz ask “Which Side Are You On?” and this week’s Labor History in 2.
Last week’s show: Confederate monuments and the Knights of Labor

Eugene Debs and three other trade unionists arrested after Pullman Strike - 1894

Actors Equity is recognized by producers after stagehands honor their picket lines, shutting down almost every professional stage production in the country. Before unionizing, it was common practice for actors to pay for their own costumes, rehearse long hours without pay, and be fired without notice - 1919
photo: Actor Brandon Tynan: "Friends, Brothers, Sisters, Countrymen, lend me your ears ... Behind us we have more than five million men and women. The ship of hope – the AFL ... Now, dear public, our great public. You have always stood for justice ... Will you stand up and show that you are with us, and join us in our cry of Equity! Equity!!, Equity!!!" —Speech from the strike benefit performance

Some 675,000 employees struck ATT Corp. over wages, job security, pension plan changes and better health insurance. It was the last time CWA negotiated at one table for all its Bell System members: divestiture came a few months later. The strike was won after 22 days - 1983

Television writers, members of both the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW), end a 22 week strike - 1988

August 8
Delegates to the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly elect 35-year-old Charles James, leader of the Boot and Shoe Workers local union, as their president. He was the first African-American elected to that leadership post in St. Paul, and, many believe, the first anywhere in the nation - 1902

Cripple Creek, Colo. miners strike begins - 1903

Cesar Chavez is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton, becoming the first Mexican-American ever to receive the honor - 1994

August 9
Twenty people, including at least nine firefighters, are killed in Boston’s worst fire. It consumed 65 downtown acres and 776 buildings over 12 hours - 1872

Knights of Labor strike New York Central railroad, ultimately to be defeated by scabbing - 1890

Nine men and one woman meet in Oakland, Calif. to form what was to become the 230,000-member California School Employees Association, representing school support staff throughout the state - 1927

73,000 Bell Atlantic workers end a successful two-day strike over wages and limits on contracting out of work - 1998

The United Steelworkers and Amicus, the largest manufacturing union in the United Kingdom, announce formation of a strategic alliance to work on a range of mutual concerns - 2005

- David Prosten

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