Labor History in 2:00

On this day in Labor History the year was 1936. 50,000 people gathered in the small town of Mount Olive, in southern Illinois. They had come to commemorate a new memorial to renowned labor leader Mother Jones and the honor mine workers who had lost their lives. Five special trains and twenty-five Greyhound buses helped bring the crowd to the Union Miners Cemetery. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1933. That was the day that forty armed cotton growers shot at a group of striking workers in the small town of Pixley, California.  That year a wave of labor unrest had swept through the fields of California’s agriculture industry. Nearly 50,000 workers participated in strikes throughout the year.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1888. That was the day that the United Hebrew Trades was founded in New York City. The new effort was patterned after the United German Trades. The goal was to organize Yiddish speaking workers.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1986. Female flight attendants won an important legal victory. Can you imagine losing your job because you decided to get married? It might have happened if you were a flight attendant working in the mid-Twentieth century. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1879. The man who came to be known as Joe Hill was born Joel Emmanuel Hagglund in Gavle, Sweden.  Hill traveled the United States organizing for the grassroots labor organization the Industrial Workers of the World. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1996 fifteen thousand workers at the General Motors Plant in Quebec walked off the job. Members of the Canadian Auto Workers union were frustrated with their wages. They were also angry about layoffs and GM’s moves to outsource some of the auto production to non-unionized labor. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1983. That was the day that Lech Walesa was awarded the Noble Peace prize for his work founding the Solidarity union of Poland. The son of a carpenter, Walesa worked as an electrician in a shipyard.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1946.  That was the day President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9639.  It ordered the US Navy to seize control of more than four dozen oil refineries across the country.  As World War II was drawing to a close, workers in many industries were growing increasingly restless. They had seen company owners rake in record profits, and the workers felt they had not received their fair share. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1943. That was the day the United Packinghouse Workers of America was chartered under the CIO. The new union was the result of the CIO’s Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee. Started in 1937 the Organizing Committee was an effort to build a union that broke down barriers between races and crafts in the meatpacking industry.  

Did you enjoy a cup of coffee to start your day this morning?  On this day in Labor History the year was 2007. That was the day that Starbucks agreed to post information about union rights on an employee bulletin board at its store in Grand Rapids Michigan. The International Workers of the World were attempting to organize the baristas at that store.