Labor History in 2:00

October 26 - Completion of the Erie Canal

On this day in Labor History the year was 1825. That was the day the construction of the Erie Canal was completed. 

The 363 mile canal connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, by way of the Hudson River. The project was started in 1817. 

October 25 - Tragic Death of a Working Class Hero

On this day in Labor History the year was 2002.  That was the day that the working people of the United States lost one of their greatest champions in Washington.  Two-term Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone died tragically in a plane crash.  

October 24 - Minimum Wage

On this day in Labor History the year was 1934.  That was the day that the first minimum wage law went into effect in the United States. The minimum was twenty-five cents an hour. The wage law was part of the Fair Labor Standards Act passed earlier that year.   

October 23 - The Cause and Effect of Unskilled Temps

On this day in Labor History the year was 1989.  At 1:05 in the afternoon a massive explosion rocked the town of Pasadena, Texas, near Houston. The explosion was so large it registered as a 3.5 on the Richter scale, used to measure earthquakes. 

October 22 - Taking Advantage of the Shot Heard ‘Round the Boardroom

On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority voted to decertify Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. The PATCO union had gone on strike earlier that year over wages, hours, and working conditions. 

October 21 - Organizing Paradise and Making it Better

On this day in Labor History the year was 1999. That was the day that 270 workers from the Embassy Vacation Resorts in Maui voted to join Local 5 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees. Local 5 got its start in Hawaii in 1938.  

October 20 - Merle Travis, Songs of the Working Man

On this day in Labor History the year was 1983. That was the day that musician Merle Travis died.  Known for his unique finger-picking guitar style, Travis wrote songs that captured the hard life of the coal miner.  

October 19 - In the Streets and at the Shareholder Meetings

On this day in Labor History the year was 1980. In what the Chicago Sun Times called it the “biggest labor management war of the last two decades.” The battle for union recognition at ten J.P. Stevens’s textile plants ended in victory.  

October 18 - Walking in Their Shoes

On this day in Labor History, and we are going all the way back to 1648. More than a hundred years before the American Revolution, an early trade organization was founded in the Colony of Massachusetts. They called themselves the “Company of Shoemakers.”  

October 17 - The Making of a Monopoly

On this day in Labor History, the year was 1877. That was the day that John D. Rockefeller, and his company Standard Oil struck a deal with the Pennsylvania Railroad that would cement his monopoly on the nation’s oil refineries. In the early 1870s Rockefeller was building his oil empire out from its center in Cleveland, Ohio.