Labor History in 2:00

June 15 - Metal Trades Department Established

On this day in Labor History the year was 1908. That was the day that the Executive Board of the American Federation of Labor established its Metal Trades Department.  The goal was to coordinate the organizing and legislative efforts of those in the many metal trades. 

June 14 - Miner Shot Dead Trying to Organize

On this day in Labor History the year was 1921. During that summer the battle waged over the efforts to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coal mines. The miners had been evicted from their company homes, and had established tent colonies. One was located at Lick Creek.  

June 13 - Trouble in the Ranks

On this day in Labor History the year was 1914.  That was the day that the Miner’s Union Day parade was scheduled in Butte, Montana.  In spite of the festivities trouble was brewing down in the copper mines. 

June 12 - Hog Butcher for the World

On this day in Labor History the year was 1904.  That was the day that 18,000 workers in the Chicago’s stockyards went out on strike.  Work in the stockyards was often brutal and dangerous. Thousands of workers toiled in the yards, many of them immigrants from Eastern Europe.  

 

June 11 - Death of an Icon

On this day in Labor History the year was 1969. That was the day that labor leader John L. Lewis died. Born to a Welsh-American Coal mining family in Iowa, Lewis became the leading champion of industrial unionism in the 1930s. 

June 10 - A Decision Supporting Workers

On this day in Labor History the year was 1946.  That was the day that the US Supreme Court handed down a decision that would have massive implication for American workers. The case was known as Anderson V. Mount Clemens Pottery.  

June 9 - McCarthy’s Downfall

On this day in Labor History the year was 1954.  That was the day that marked the public downfall of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. Senator McCarthy had become the public face of anti-Communist hysteria during the Cold War.  He used his position as Senator to make wild accusations against alleged communists in the US Government.

June 8 - Striking Miner Shot Down By Colorado State Militia

On this day in Labor History the year was 1904. That was the day that John Carley, a union miner, was shot down in Dunnville, Colorado.  He was part of a strike in the Cripple Creek gold mining region.  

June 7 - Strike at Loray Mills

On this day in Labor History the year was 1929. That was the day that Police Chief Orville Aderholt was shot and killed, at a camp of striking textile workers in Gastonia, North Carolina.  The textile mills had fallen on hard times in the 1920s.  

June 6 - Mine Owners Riot in Cripple Creek

On this day in Labor History the year was 1894.  That was the day that the Colorado state militia troops came to Cripple Creek to intervene in a mining strike. But unlike every other time in US mining history that a state militia was called out, the state troops did not have their guns pointed at the miners.