Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1869, the nation’s first black labor convention was held in Washington, D.C., with 214 delegates forming the Colored National Labor Union. In 1933, construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began in San Francisco. Ten of the 11 deaths on the job came when safety netting beneath the site—the first-ever use of such equipment—failed under the stress of a scaffold that had fallen. Nineteen other workers were saved by the net over the course of construction. They became members of the informal Halfway to Hell Club.
Today’s labor quote is by Sir Francis Bacon: “Knowledge is power.” Sir Francis Bacon, who also said: “Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.”