Labor History in 2:00

October 10 - With a Push of a Button, Oceans Are Joined

On this day in Labor History the year was 1913.  At 2:02 in the afternoon President Woodrow Wilson at the White House touched of an explosion at the Gamboa Dike in Panama.  With that touch of a button the last barrier to joining the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Panama Canal went up in smoke.  The Chicago Tribunedescribed the scene in Panama, “Then suddenly came the muffled roar of the discharge of 1,600 pounds of dynamite, which sent a shower of water, mud, and rock high into the air, spreading out as it went upward, the whole heavily veiled in a cloud of smoke...As water began to pour through the rent made by the explosion...the crowd sent up a great cheer.” It was a momentous moment in the construction of the canal.  But that moment came at a staggering cost of workers lives. For more than twenty years the French and then the United States worked on the canal project. The US phase lasted for a decade. As many as 45,000 workers toiled on the canal during the peak years of construction.  These workers came from the United States, Europe, Asia, and Panama.  West Indians formed the core of the work crews.   These workers faced stifling heat, brutal work conditions, and poor accommodations.  Workers had to contend with ravaging disease, poisonous snakes and torrential rains.  Workers also faced racial discrimination.   West Indian workers earned half the hourly wages of US and European workers.  They also lived in much more crowded barracks. Worker deaths were so frequent that “frunery trains” ran to bring the bodies away from the construction site.  It is estimated that more than 27,000 men died building the canal.

October 9 - The End of the Boom Boom RoOm

On this day in Labor History the year was 1997. 

That was the day that a group of female employees at the investment firm Smith Barney came to a tentative agreement to settle a sexual harassment law suit against the firm. 

Smith Barney was one of the oldest Wall Street firms, with a reputation for respectability. 

But behind closed doors the firm more closely resembled what the Chicago Tribune described as a “fraternity-house atmosphere.” 

The accounts women told of their treatment at the firm were lewd and disgusting. 

In the basement of the Garden City, New York office there was a room called the “Boom, boom room,” where female employees were told to entertain clients. 

Fed up with this treatment, more than 20 women joined together and filed a class-action law suit. 

To settle the suit, the firm agreed to invest $15 million in diversity training, along with settlements to the harassed women. 

But sexual harassment of women in the financial industry was not only a problem at Smith Barney. 

Female brokers in Chicago filed a suit against Merrill Lynch, who agreed to a settlement with the plaintiffs.

Smith Barney also did not learn its lesson.

Just over a decade later, the firm again settled another sexual harassment law suit to the tune of 33 million. 

This time according to Forbes Magazine, the suit was filed by “four female brokers who accused Smith Barney of preventing them from competing fairly for new accounts, promotions and pay, and depriving women of equal training and sales support.” 

Over the course of fifteen years Merrill Lynch paid out almost half a billion dollars in discrimination suits to women and minority brokers.

October 8 - The Great Chicago Fire

On this day in Labor History the year was 1871. 

That was the day that the Great Chicago Fire began. 

The fire started in a barn on the property of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary. 

Legend pins the blame for starting a fire on a cow.

Whatever the cause, the fire spread quickly through the cities wooden houses. 

For two days the uncontrollable fire raged destroying everything in its path. 

In the wake of its devastation nearly 300 people died and 100,000 families had their homes destroyed. 

One person who lost her business in the fire was renowned labor leader Mother Jones. 

In her autobiography she wrote about the fire destroying her dress shop saying, “the great Chicago fire burned up our establishment and everything that we had.  The fire made thousands homeless.  We stayed all night and the next day without food on the lake front, often going into the lake to keep cool.” 

Millions of dollars were raised by the Chicago Relief and Aid Society to help those who needed help to rebuild.

While the society did provide significant aid, treatment varied along class lines.

To get assistance, the working class had to prove themselves worthy with personal references. 

Middle class applicants for aid were more likely to be quickly approved to get money to rebuild.

Working class people had to wade through long approval processes. 

Some never received that approval.  

The experience galvanized some members of the working class to organize for change. 

One of them was Mother Jones. 

She wrote, “From the time of the Chicago fire I became more and more engrossed in the labor struggle and I decided to take an active part in the efforts of the working people to better the conditions under which they worked and lived.”

October 7 - Housing Now!

On this day in Labor History the year was 1989. 

That was the day thousands of people marched on Washington to protest against homelessness.

They gathered to protest against massive cuts in federal housing funding.

President Reagan had cut the budget of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in half. 

The protesters hoped President George H. W. Bush would change this course. 

They called their protest, “Housing Now!".

Estimates of the crowd ranged from 40,000 to more than 200,000.

The New York Times described those who participated writing, “They came from far away as Miami and Beverly Hills, Memphis and Portland, Ore.  Some had walked from New York City.  They included homeless men and women, families who rent but can’t afford to buy homes, state and local officials and prominent figures…”

A delegation of 500 homeless people and allies came on buses from Chicago.

They were joined by famous participants that included Coretta Scott King, Susan Sarandon and a performance by Stevie Wonder.  

Union members joined the protest.

One of the participants interviewed by the New York Times was a 24-year old apprentice with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. 

Cassandra Benton told the paper, “Hopefully, now they will see everyone is unified. They’ll stop spending so much on weapons and other countries.” 

During the protest musician Tracy Chapman played her “Revolution,” a fitting song for the event. 

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, in January 2015, more than half a million people were homeless in the US. 

October 6 - Clinton Signs the Hatch Act

On this day in Labor History the year was 1993. 

That was the day that President Bill Clinton signed into law reforms to the Hatch Act. 

The Hatch Act was passed in 1939. 

It limited the political activity of federal employees. 

The act was passed due to accusations of alleged political cronyism by Democrats on New Deal projects. 

Half a century later, Congress loosened the restrictions. 

In his speech signing the reform, President Clinton explained the changes, “The Federal Employees Political Activities Act, which I'm about to sign, will permit Federal employees and postal workers on their own time to manage campaigns, raise funds, to hold positions within political parties. Still, there will be some reasonable restrictions. They wouldn't be able to run for partisan political office themselves, for example.” 

President Clinton described the importance of the changes, “We've been supporting democracy throughout the world…But here in our own country, millions of our own citizens have been denied one of the most basic democratic rights, the right to participate in the political process.” 

He ended his remarks by saying, “I look forward to the infusion and Federal and postal employee energy, expertise, and dedication into our political system that this bill makes possible.”

Today under the regulations of the act, most employees can assist in voter registration drives, attend fundraisers, contribute money, and distribute campaign literature. 

They can even run for office in non-partisan elections. 

They cannot use their jobs to influence elections or engage in political activity while on the clock. 

Today there remains a balancing act between protecting the free speech of federal employees, and keeping the government politically neutral.

 

October 5 - Hollywood’s Black Friday

On this day in Labor History the year was 1945. 

That was a day known as in Hollywood “Black Friday.” 

After World War II, the movie industry began to rake in profits. 

But they did not pass those on to their employees.

10,000 members of the Conference of Studio Unions, were on strike. 

They were part of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. 

They were also in a jurisdictional battle with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or IATSE, over who should represent set decorators.

The strike wore on for half a year.   

The studios had more than 100 films backlogged, and were able to wait out the strikers. 

But as the strike continued, and the studios remained silent, pressure mounted.  

Despite the tensions between the two unions, thousands of IATSE members refused to cross the picket lines.

On “Black Friday” the strikers decided to concentrate their efforts at the Warner Brothers Studio gate.

300 picketers gathered to hold the line.  

Scabs hired by Warner Brothers tried to drive through the worker’s pickets lines to the studio.  

Variety accounted what happened next.  “Strikers deployed from their barricades, halted the non-strikers and rolled three automobiles on their sides.  By noon reinforcements arrived from both sides.” 

Firemen were called in to turn their hoses on the striking workers. 

Warner Brothers security deployed tear gas. 

Common for the time accusations were hurled that the Conference of Studio Unions strikers were communists. 

As a result of the strike, the Conference of Studio Unions employees were assigned to other jobs in the studios. 

When they refused, they were locked out. 

The union never recovered. 

The violence at the Warner Brothers gate also helped to fuel the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act through congress, which eroded union protections.

October 4 - A Chain Reaction of Human Misery

On this day in Labor History the year was 1918. 

That was the evening that a series of explosions began at the T.A. Gillespie Company near Morgan, New Jersey. 

The explosions would destroy the plant and 300 buildings and kill an estimated 100 people.

The world was embroiled in war. 

The Unites States had entered the global conflict the year before. 

The nation’s factories were churning out munitions and other supplies for the war effort.  

On that fateful evening at Gillespie, workers were loading shells at the sprawling complex of 700 buildings that covered more than 2,000 acres. 

The initial explosion was likely an accident. 

Regardless the explosion was so severe that it cut the water lines to that part of the plant. 

Without water pressure, fire fighters struggled to douse the flames.

A chain reaction of explosions touched off as the fire spread in the plant. 

Houses in the nearby town shook from the massive explosions. 

Windows exploded and residents fled. 

Residents from three towns were evacuated due to the disaster. 

The New York Sun described the exodus as “streams of human misery—mothers and fathers, frightened children clutching still more frightened dogs; old, old people tottering along, all with the same dazed expressions on their faces, as if they scarcely realized what had happened.” 

When the fire was finally put out, nearly half of the plants buildings were destroyed. 

It was impossible to say exactly how many workers were killed, so bad was the carnage. 

Two members of the US Coast Guard died responding to the disaster. 

The disaster was then compounded, when a flu epidemic swept through the residents evacuated from nearby towns. 

The death toll and misery from these tragic events mounted even higher.

October 3 - Remembering Woody Guthrie

On this day in Labor History the year was 1967. 

That was the day that the “Dust-bowl Troubadour,” Woody Guthrie, died. 

Over the course of his life, Woody Guthrie wrote almost 3,000 songs. 

He was one of the thousands of people who took the road during the Great Depression, swept into wandering by the winds that churned the Dust Bowl.

In an interview with NPR, fellow folk music legend Pete Seeger described Guthrie’s influence, “We all read about music being part of people’s lives, but I hadn’t seen it in action until I met him.  The words that came out of his mouth and the music he made all flowed together with the life that he had led and I was greatly attracted to it and kind of tagged along with him for several months.  Woody showed me how to hitchhike and how to ride freight trains, how to sing in saloons.”

A 2013 article in Paste magazine summarized Guthrie’s legacy writing, “No artist…has ever expressed a deeper will to fight against oppression and the rights of “the little guy” than Woody Guthrie.”

Iconic author John Steinbeck wrote this vivid description, “Harsh-voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire on a rusty rim, there is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings.  But there is something more important for those who will listen.  There is the will of a people to endure and fight against oppression.  I think we call this the American spirit.”  

October 2 - Rebuilding in Tough Times

On this day in Labor History the year was 1935. 

That was the year that San Diego hosted the California Pacific International Exposition, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke the most memorable words about the rights of workers to organize. 

The goal of the exposition was to show case San Diego, and to boost the local economy, which had fallen on hard times in the Great Depression.

The exposition was held in Balboa Park.

Exhibits included history, science, industry and culture. 

To prepare for the expo, improvements were made to the park, paid for by the Works Progress Administration. 

The WPA was a New Deal era program designed to put people back to work on public infrastructure projects. 

The expo kicked off in May, and ran for 377 days, with a break during the winter months.

More than 7 million people visited the park for the expo.

Two of those visitors was President Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. 

As part of his trip, the President gave a speech to 60,000 people at Balboa Stadium.

Earlier that year had signed the Wagner Act otherwise known as the National Labor Relation Act, which guaranteed private sector workers the right to joins and form a union. 

The President spent part of his Expo speech celebrating that achievement. 

He declared, “a changing civilization has raised new problems with respect to the relationship between the employer and the employed. It is now beyond partisan controversy that it is a fundamental individual right of a worker to associate himself with other workers and to bargain collectively with his employer.”

President Roosevelt went on to acknowledge, “New laws, in themselves, do not bring a millennium.”  

The passage of the law helped to launch a new wave of union organizing across U.S. industry.

Creating a prosperous working class.

October 1 - The Jerry Level

On this day in Labor History the year was 1851. 

That was the day that William Henry, a black cooper, or barrel maker who went by the name of Jerry was arrested in Syracuse, New York. 

First he was told that he was being arrested for theft. 

But then he learned that federal marshals had arrested him for violating the Fugitive Slave Law, passed the year before. 

Jerry had escaped slavery in Missouri. 

The anti-slavery Liberty Party was holding its convention in nearby church. 

When word came about Jerry’s arrest, a crowd rushed to release him. 

Once released he was quickly recaptured and returned to custody. 

But then a large crowd, numbering more than 2,000 gathered to free Jerry from the office where he was being held. 

According to research done by the Syracuse University Library, the first person into the office was J. M. Clappe, an iron worker likely chosen for his brawn. 

The crowd was able to free Jerry and hide him until he could escape into Canada. 

Clappe also had to flee to Canada to avoid arrest, along with eight others. 

Nineteen people were indicted for participating in the rescue. 

Only one person was convicted, and he died before he could appeal. 

In turn, the abolitionists won an indictment against the marshal who had arrested Jerry.

They charged him with kidnapping.  

Although the marshal was acquitted, it gave the abolitionists a chance to publicly challenge the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act.

Each year until 1858 a Jerry Rescue celebration commemorated the event.

Abolitionists referred to the “Jerry Level” as a standard for justice. 

In 2001 a monument to the rescue was dedicated in Clinton Square, in downtown Syracuse New York.