Labor History in 2:00

On this day in Labor History the year was 1905. It was the tenth day of the convention in Chicago, Illinois, where William (“Big Bill”) Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, and Daniel De Leon and Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party founded the Industrial Workers of the World.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. At 3 AM an alarm sounded in the town of Homestead, Pennsylvania. The steelworkers who lived in the town were on strike. Andrew Carnegie was the owner of the mill, located just outside of Pittsburgh.  

The great orator and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, was invited to speak at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York.  The speech he gave that day would go down as one of his most powerful. 

Do you consider the right to join and form a union of your choosing a fundamental human right?  The United Nations does!  And on this day in Labor History the year was 1950.  On that day the United Nations formally put into force the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize.

On this day on labor history the year was 1860. That was the day Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father abandoned the family when Charlotte was an infant leaving them in poverty. This forced them to move around frequently.  Charlotte’s education suffered as a consequence as she attended seven schools in four years. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. That was the day that 3,800 workers at the Carnegie Steel Company, in Homestead, Pennsylvania were thrown into the streets and locked out of their jobs. The plant was located seven miles south-east of Pittsburgh. The general manager of the plant, Henry Clay Frick, was determined to break the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1983. That was the day that began a three year struggle by copper workers in Arizona. 

The contract for 13 unions in the mining towns that included Clifton and Morenci had expired. Many of the workers were Latino. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1998. If you were trying to drive to work on that Tuesday morning in mid-town Manhattan you were probably late. Forty thousand construction workers took to the streets in a massive protest. They shut down more than 200 building projects

On this day in Labor History the year was 1936.  Jesus Pallares, a Chicano miner and union organizer was deported from the United States. He was charged with having communist sympathies, and declared an “undesirable alien.”  

President Grover Cleveland had a growing problem. The nation was in the midst of a deep depression. 

Unrest amongst working people was mounting. The workers at the Chicago Pullman Palace Car factory had declared a boycott against the company.