In other strike news, FairPoint strikers across Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire continue to hold the line despite bitter cold as the strike stretches into its’ fourth month. Mediation continued in Washington, D.C., last week, and the Fairpoint workers and their supporters stood strong on picket lines in solidarity with their bargaining teams at CWA and IBEW working for a fair contract.
For details on how to support the strike’s Solidarity Fund, go to dclabor.org.
Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1946, some 750,000 steel workers walked out in 30 states, the largest strike in U.S. history to that time…
In 1974, postal workers began four-day strike at the Jersey City, New Jersey bulk and foreign mail center, protesting an involuntary shift change. The wildcat strike was led by a group of young workers who identified themselves as “The Outlaws”…
And on this date in 2000, six hundred police attacked picketing longshoremen in Charleston, South Carolina.
Today’s labor quote is by Bill Burrus:
“Those unions that enjoy the right to strike have no guarantee that sacrificing their jobs and their livelihood will result in victory but they nevertheless engage in lengthy strikes, not because they are assured of winning but because they are determined to fight.”
Bill Burrus in 2001 became the first black president of the American Postal Workers’ Union in the organization’s 220-year history and the first black American ever elected president of a national union. He stepped down in 2010.