Labor History in 2:00

Today in Labor History, May 26, the year was 1824.  That day was the first time when women workers in the United States left their jobs and walked out on strike.  It happened at the Slater Mill, part of New England’s rapidly growing textile industry. 

Today in Labor History, May 25, the year was 1986.  That was the day that more than five million people participated in “Hands Across America.” The event was organized to raise money to combat the problems of homelessness and hunger in the United States. 

Today in Labor History, May 24, the year was 1949.  That was the day a shot gun blast broke through a closed window and struck Victor Reuther, as he sat reading a newspaper in his living room. 

Today in Labor History, May 23, the year was 2003.  That was the day that the US Senate approved more than 300 billion dollars in tax cuts over the next decade.  The cuts barely passed.  Vice President Dick Cheney cast the deciding vote, 51-50.  

Today in Labor History, May 22, the year was 1969.  That was the day that began the first strike of the Chicago Teacher’s Union.  The strike lasted three days.  It won teachers a $100 per month pay raise.  

Today in Labor History, May 21, the year was 1946.  That was the day that Democratic President Harry Truman ordered government seizure of the nation’s bituminous coal mines.  800,000 United Mine Workers of America, led by John L. Lewis, had gone out on strike.  

Today in Labor History, May 20, the year was 1937.  That was the day that workers at the Jones and Laughlin plant in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania voted in the first ever union election in the United States’ steel industry under the National Labor Relations Board.  

Today in Labor History, May 19, the year was 1989.  That was the day that black author and Marxist theorist CLR James passed away.  James was born in Trinidad, at the time a Caribbean colony that was part of the British empire.  

Today in Labor History, May 18, the year was 1972.  That was the day that Maggie Kuhn stood before a group of reporters to tell them about her organization, the Gray Panthers.  The idea for the group had started two years earlier.  

Today in Labor History, May 17, the year was 1954.  That was the day the Supreme Court handed down their decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.  In the unanimous decision the court declared that racial segregation in public education was illegal.