Labor History in 2:00

January 21

On this day in labor history, the year was 1946.  US steel workers staged the greatest walkout in the history of the Steel industry.

Nearly 750,000 strikers shut down more than 1,200 steel plants in 30 states. 

January 20

Today in labor history, January 20, 1909, marked one of deadliest workplace disasters in Chicago history.  It took place a little over a mile off-shore near 71^st Street, on Lake Michigan. A group of predominantly Irish laborers were working on a tunnel to bring fresh water to the city’s growing south side.  

January 19

On This Day in Labor History, the year was 1920. That was the day 3,000 members of the Filipino Labor Union went on strike against the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association on the island of Oahu. Plantation Bosses intentionally recruited Filipino workers, in an effort to weaken the Japanese labor force on the island. The bosses pitted one group as strikebreakers against the other. 

January 18

Today in labor history, January 18, 1943 marks the death of the first woman general organizer appointed by the American Federation of Labor. Mary Kenney O'Sullivan was born the only child of working-class Irish immigrants, in Hannibal, Missouri.  

January 17

Today in labor history, January 17, 1915, the most popular labor song in the United States was completed in Chicago.  Ralph Chaplin, an Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) activist, artist and writer was in town for a demonstration against hunger.  He finished writing “Solidarity Forever,” a song he had started working on the year before at a Miner’s strike in West Virginia.  

January 16

Today in labor history, January 16, 1920 thousands of immigrant detainees and labor activists won the basic constitutional right to consult with an attorney.  These detainees were victims of the infamous Palmer Raids.  

January 15

Today in labor history, January 15, 1919 marked one of the strangest industrial disasters in U.S. History.  That winter day in Boston the weather shifted suddenly and temperatures began to rise.  A fifty foot storage container containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses began to make strange noises.  

January 14

Today in labor history, January 14, 1940, Julian Bond was born in Nashville Tennessee.  Bond was one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.  He helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as “snick.” 

January 13

On this day in labor history, The year was 1874 what came to be known as the “Tompkin’s Square Riot” took place in New York City.  The nation was caught in the clutches of the 1873 depression.  Unemployed New Yorkers called for a public works program to put people back to work.

January 12

On this day in labor history, the year was 1932, a very unusual army marched on Washington, D.C.  Pro-labor Catholic Priest, Father James Renshaw Cox led the march from Pennsylvania to the Nation’s Capital to demand a public work’s program to put people back to work. 

For more information on Cox's March  

http://web.stanford.edu/group/progressive/cgi-bin/?p=2153