Labor History in 2:00

April 25 - Strikebreaking in South Carolina

On this day in Labor History the year was 1969. 

The Governor of South Carolina sent 1,000 state troopers and National Guardsmen to Charleston.

They were sent there to deal with striking hospital workers who wanted union recognition.  

April 24 - The Deadly Cost of Fashion

On this day in Labor History the year was 2013. 

That was the day of the deadliest workplace disaster in garment industry history. 

More than 1,100 workers lost their lives when a factory complex building collapsed in Bangladesh.  

April 23 - Remembering Ida Mae Stull

On this day in Labor History the year was 1980. That was the day that Ida Mae Stull passed away.

She is widely considered to be the first woman coal miner in United States history.  

April 22 - Remembering Hazel Dickens

On this day in Labor History the year was 2011. 

That was the day the labor movement lost one of its most poignant voices. 

Hazel Dickens was born in Mercer County, West Virginia in 1935.  It was coal country. 

April 21 - The National Coal Strike of 1894

On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. The nation was in the grip of deep depression. 

Unemployment soared. Workers wages and hours were cut dramatically in virtually every industry.  

April 20 - The Ludlow Massacre

On this day in Labor History the year was 1914 the bloody anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre. 

11,000 miners had gone on strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation, owned by one of the wealthiest men in the world, John D. Rockefeller.  

April 19 - Terrorists Bomb Oklahoma City

This marks the day one of the most horrendous acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. History occurred in Oklahoma City. 

A truck bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people

April 18 - Employment Discrimination Ends at NYC Bus Companies

You have more than likely heard of Rosa Parks, and how she heroically sat down on a bus to help end segregation in Montgomery, Alabama.  But did you know discrimination often barred black bus drivers, even in northern cities? 

April 17 - The Spirit of Solidarity

On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. This marks the day that more than 4,000 furniture makers walked off the job in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  

April 16 - 581 Killed in Texas City Disaster

On this day in Labor History the year was 1947. 

The day dawned unseasonably cool in Texas City, TX, a port city forty miles south of Houston on the Gulf of Mexico.