Weekend Labor History

June 23
Charles Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, goes to Butte, Mont. in an attempt to mediate a conflict between factions of the miner’s local there. It didn’t go well. Gunfight in the union hall killed one man; Moyer and other union officers left the building, which was then leveled in a dynamite blast - 1914
 
Congress overrides President Harry Truman's veto of the anti-worker Taft-Hartley Act. The law weakened unions and let states exempt themselves from union requirements. Twenty states immediately enacted open shop laws and more followed - 1947
 
OSHA issues standard on cotton dust to protect 600,000 workers from byssinosis, also known as "brown lung" - 1978
 
A majority of the 5,000 textile workers at six Fieldcrest Cannon textile plants in Kannapolis, N.C., vote for union representation after an historic 25-year fight - 1999
 
June 24
Birth of Agnes Nestor, president of the Int’l Glove Workers Union and longtime leader of the Chicago Women's Trade Union League. She began work in a glove factory at age 14 - 1880
 
Seventeen workers are killed as methane explodes in a water tunnel under construction in Sylmar, Calif. - 1971
 
June 25
More than 8,000 people attend the dedication ceremony for The Haymarket Martyrs Monument in Chicago, honoring those framed and executed for the bombing at Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886 - 1893
(A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present: If your last serious read of American history was in high school—or even in a standard college course—you’ll want to read this amazing account of America as seen through the eyes of its working people, women and minorities. Zinn, a widely respected Boston University professor, turns history on its head with his carefully researched and dramatic recounting of America and its people—not just its bankers, industrialists, generals and politicians.)
 
Fair Labor Standards Act passes Congress, banning child labor and setting the 40-hour work week - 1938
 
At the urging of Black labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph, Franklin Roosevelt issues an executive order barring discrimination in defense industries - 1941
 
Congress passes the Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes Act over President Franklin Roosevelt’s veto. It allows the federal government to seize and operate industries threatened by strikes that would interfere with war production. It was hurriedly created after the third coal strike in seven weeks - 1943
 
A total of 21 workers are killed when a fireworks factory near Hallett, Okla., explodes - 1985
 
Decatur, Ill., police pepper-gas workers at A.E. Staley plant gate one year into the company's two-and-a-half-year lockout of Paperworkers Local 7837 - 1994
Compiled/edited by Union Communication Services 

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