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"New calendar proposal: Strikeuary; strikerch; strikeril; strikeay; strikeune; strikely; strikegust; striketember; striketober; strikevember; strikecember" Matt Rubin is a digital organizer. photo: at the Heaven's Hill strike; hear more on this week's Your Rights At Work radio show.  This week’s Labor History Today podcast: This week's show: The Battle of Virden. Last week's show: Sharecroppers’ struggles for rights and power.
October 15 Pres. Woodrow Wilson signs the Clayton Antitrust Act – often referred to as "Labor’s Magna Carta" – establishing that unions are not "conspiracies" under the law. It for the first time freed unions to strike, picket and boycott employers. In the years that followed, however, numerous state measures and negative court interpretations weakened the law - 1914 October 16 Queen Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, is beheaded during the French Revolution. When alerted that the peasants were suffering due to widespread bread shortages, lore has it that she replied, “Let them eat cake.” In fact she never said that, but workers were, justifiably, ready to believe anything bad about their cold-hearted Royalty - 1793 Abolitionist John Brown leads 18 men, including five free blacks, in an attack on the Harper's Ferry ammunition depot, the beginning of guerilla warfare against slavery - 1859 October 17 Labor activist Warren Billings is released from California's Folsom Prison. Along with Thomas J. Mooney, Billings had been pardoned for a 1916 conviction stemming from a bomb explosion during a San Francisco Preparedness Day parade. He had always maintained his innocence - 1939 Salt of the Earth strike begins by the mostly Mexican-American members of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union Local 890 in Bayard, N.M. Strikers' wives walked picket lines for seven months when their men were enjoined during the 14-month strike against the New Jersey Zinc Co. A great movie (trailer below), see it! - 1950 Twelve New York City firefighters die fighting a blaze in midtown Manhattan - 1966 Industrial Union of Marine & Shipbuilding Workers of America merges with International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers - 1988 - David Prosten.  IATSE, the Stage Employees union, announced yesterday that unless an agreement is reached, union members will begin a nationwide strike on Monday, October 18 at 12:01 a.m., PDT. "The pace of bargaining doesn’t reflect any sense of urgency,” IATSE president Matt Loeb said. “Without an end date, we could keep talking forever. Our members deserve to have their basic needs addressed now.” Loeb said the union will continue bargaining with the producers this week in the hopes of reaching an agreement that addresses core issues, such as reasonable rest periods, meal breaks, and a living wage for those on the bottom of the wage scale.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is relocating yet another show due to a labor dispute between management at the Music Center at Strathmore and the union representing employees in the ticket office. The orchestra announced Tuesday it is moving the Oct. 23 performance of Marin Conducts Rachmaninoff to the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and offering ticket-holders comparable seats and either free parking or a shuttle from Montgomery County. On Sept. 15, the BSO said it was moving two concerts from the North Bethesda venue while management continued negotiations with I.A.T.S.E. Local 868, the union representing ticket office workers. The next week, the orchestra announced the cancellation of two October concerts at the venue and relocation of another. The union has said Strathmore is using the pandemic to eliminate full-time jobs in the ticket office and reduce hours for part-time employees.
CBS Baltimore |