This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Socialist fairy tales. Last week’s show: Pueblo steelworkers’ historic strike.
October 7 Hollywood’s "Battle of the Mirrors." Picketing members of the Conference of Studio Unions disrupted an outdoor shoot by holding up large reflectors that filled camera lenses with blinding sunlight. Members of the competing IATSE union retaliated by using the reflectors to shoot sunlight back across the street. The battle went on all day, writes Tom Sito in "Drawing the Line" – 1946 October 8 Thirty of the city's 185 firefighters are injured battling the Great Chicago Fire, which burned for three days – 1871 October 9 Retail stock brokerage Smith Barney reaches a tentative sexual harassment settlement with a group of female employees. The suit charged, among other things, that branch managers asked female workers to remove their tops in exchange for money and one office featured a "boom boom room" where women workers were encouraged to "entertain clients." The settlement was never finalized: a U.S. District Court Judge refused to approve the deal because it failed to adequately redress the plaintiff's grievances - 1997 Comments are closed.
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