Labor History in 2:00

On this day in Labor History the year was 1789.  Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789. This act established the plan for U.S. Supreme Court.  At first the Court was comprised of just six justices appointed by the President with Senate confirmation.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1969. President Richard Milhous Nixon issued the Philadelphia Plan. The goal of the plan was to require building trades unions to admit black members into their ranks. Nixon believed this would show him as a civil rights supporter without having to give in to the more radical demands of the civil rights movement. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 2006. Eleven Domino’s pizza delivery drivers in Pensacola, Florida formed what is thought to be the first ever union of pizza delivery drivers. The American Union of Pizza Delivery Drivers won recognition from the National Labor Relations Board as the bargaining agent for drivers at the Pensacola franchise. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day that labor activist, Mother Jones, led a march of miners’ children through the streets of Charleston, West Virginia. Her aim was to illustrate the effects of poverty.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1878. That was the day that socialist author Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland. A prolific writer, Sinclair wrote nearly 100 books and other publications. Upton Sinclair’s father and father’s relatives had been wealthy Southerners. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. More than 400,000 union members marched in labor’s first Solidarity Day demonstration in Washington, D.C. The demonstration was called by the AFL-CIO to protest the Reagan administration’s policies and the firing of striking air traffic controllers.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1830. That was the day that “Tom Thumb,” the first locomotive built in the U.S. raced a horse on a nine-mile course in Maryland.  

 

 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1868. That was the day that Susan B. Anthony, and a committee on female labor called for a vote for equal pay for equal work at the National Labor Congress. It was the second annual meeting of labor leaders from throughout the country. Anthony had begun publication of a newspaper, The Revolution. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1920. At noon, a horse-drawn wagon containing 100 pounds of dynamite pulled up across the street of the J.P. Morgan Chase Company on Wall Street in New York City. 500 pounds of cast-iron slugs were packed in with the dynamite.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1845.  5,000 female workers at the Allegheny Cotton Mills went on strike for a ten-hour day. The fast streams around Pittsburgh and Allegheny city were ideal to power cotton mills.  The mills were overheated and filled with dangerous dust.