Labor History in 2:00

February 11 - Cutting Corners on Safety at Sequoyah I

On this day in labor history, the year was 1981.

That was the day at least eight workers at Sequoyah I nuclear reactor in Tennessee were exposed to radioactive coolant.

The reactor was part of the vast Tennessee Valley Authority that provided electrical power to the region.

Sequoyah I had just been commissioned and was already off to a bad start.

First, on January 19, 1981, a generator tube malfunctioned, forcing a complete shut down.

Then on February 11, an operator error triggered an emergency alert.

An Auxiliary Unit Operator was working his first day on the new job without proper training.

He inadvertently opened the wrong valve during a safety test.

The operator misunderstood his instructions and recognized his mistake immediately.

But when he tried to alert the control room, they were too busy responding to the developing crisis to answer his call.

Reactor water sprayed for 10 minutes before it was finally shut off.

As many as 14 workers were contaminated by the coolant.

Some scientists contend that the release of reactor vessel water was inadvertent and part of the design of the cooling system.

Others argue that, in order to cut costs, management had decided to use radioactively contaminated water as emergency coolant rather than the more expensive fresh, uncontaminated water.

Steam leaks, tube malfunctions and overflowing drainage tanks were just some of the reported failures at the plant in the following years.

Between 1985 and 1988, Sequoyah was forced to shut down again after an independent review concluded that the plant did not comply with current safety standards.

Today the plant supplies electricity to more than 1.3 million homes.

February 10 - Forty-Three Workers Buried Alive

On this day in labor history, the year was 1973.

That was the day the worst industrial disaster in Staten Island took place.

Staten Island housed the world’s largest Liquefied Natural Gas storage tank.

The Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation owned the tank and operated a pipeline system that stretched from Texas to the East Coast.

The tank measured 272 feet across and was as tall as an 11-story building.

When leaks were suspected, the company had the tank emptied and shut down.

Workers had been repairing the torn Mylar insulation in the tank’s liner for months.

But then, vapors released during the repair process ignited the lining.

This created extreme temperature and pressure rise, which caused an explosion inside the tank.

The entire 6” thick concrete dome covering the tank immediately crumbled and rained down on workers inside.

Concrete and Excavating Laborers Local 731 reported that 40 workers and 3 safety inspectors were inside at the time.

None of them survived.

The explosion caused a massive crater.

Smoke billowed out for over five hours.

Investigations revealed that nitrogen, Freon 11 and oxygen, and not LNG, caused the explosion.  But the cause was never determined.

Some 25 years later, the New York Planning Board began re-evaluating a moratorium on LNG facilities, in place since 1978.

They concluded that: "The government regulations and industry operating practices now in place would prevent a replication of this accident.

The fire involved combustible construction materials and a tank design that are now prohibited.

Although the exact causes may never be known, it is certain that LNG was not involved in the accident and the surrounding areas outside the facility were not exposed to risk."

February 9 - Organizing Bloody Harlan

On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.

That was the day Sheriff Theodore Middleton and his deputies in Harlan County shot into the house of UMWA organizer Marshall Musick, killing his 15 year-old son, Bennett.  

Musick organized for UMWA’s District 19.

He traveled all over Harlan County. As a district organizer, he was beaten, arrested, and evicted from company housing repeatedly.

Some of the mines were organized in Harlan County but barely.

Many coal operators controlled area sheriff departments and restricted daily life of miners and their union representatives.

Organizing drives started in January 1937.

Union men faced extreme physical violence.

Organizers were tear gassed in early January.

Their cars were dynamited later that month.

Musick and his wife were shot at and warned repeatedly to leave town.

Another organizer had his door busted down by deputies and his house ransacked.

Musick finally agreed to leave town to keep his family safe.

When he arrived in Pineville on February 9, he learned his son had been killed in a firestorm of bullets shot into his house.

On March 22, the LaFollette Committee on Civil Liberties opened hearings into Bloody Harlan.

It lasted for six weeks.

The high court drama appeared every day in the Courier Journal.

The Justice Department indicted 69 Harlan County Coal Operators and law officers for criminal conspiracy to violate the Wagner Act.

Meanwhile, the new National Labor Relations Board answered UMWA charges and found in the union’s favor.

The Board issued a cease and desist order against interference with union activity and ordered the reinstatement of 60 coal miners.

Union membership soared to 9000.

The UMWA would continue for decades to fight to keep Harlan County organized.

February 8 - Butte Copper Miners Join the 1919 Strike Wave

On this day in labor history, the year was 1919.

That was the day copper miners in Butte, Montana went on strike.

Mine owners announced a $1 a day wage cut when copper prices slumped in financial markets.

Swayed by the power of the Seattle General Strike then in progress, miners associated with the IWW and the Metal Mine Workers Union, Local 800 formed their own Soldiers’, Sailors’, and Workers’ Council.

They issued a call for a general strike.

For days, area trade unionists honored picket lines, left their jobs and held meetings to debate joining a general strike.

The streetcar workers shut down public transportation for five days.

Soldiers returning from the war helped man picket lines.

The labor paper, Butte Daily Bulletinreported the post-war economy left returning war heroes penniless and working in dangerous mines.

While solidarity was unanimous among workers, their unions had yet to pass formal resolutions.

Immediately, Montana’s governor, Sam V. Stewart, called in the 44^th Infantry to crush the strike. Infantrymen bayoneted nine strikers, when they tried to stop the anti-labor Butte Daily Post from being distributed.

Spirits were high by the end of the first week as official voting began.

The streetcar men went back to work, citing no grievances with their employer.

Then the engineers followed. Finally the IBEW caved.

They worried the engineers would take their jobs, as they had done in a 1917 strike.

The IWW and local 800 called off the strike, fearing continuation would be fatal.

Though most of the troops were soon withdrawn, one company stayed to ensure labor peace at the local water and electric works.

Butte would remain under federal military occupation until the end of 1920.

February 7 - Strike at Cripple Creek

On this day in labor history, the year was 1894.

That was the day, gold miners in Cripple Creek, Colorado walked out on strike.

Mine owners increased the workday from 8 to 10 hours.

They refused to increase workers pay accordingly.

Workers immediately affiliated with the Western Federation of Miners. Local 19 leader, John Calderwood demanded a return to the 8-hour day at the previous wage, but the mine owners refused.

About 6 weeks into the strike, the larger gold mines imported scabs.

Violence soon followed.

The El Paso county sheriff demanded the governor call out the state militia.

But Colorado’s governor, Davis Waite was Populist. He recalled the troops upon learning they would be used as strike breakers.

Soon the mine owners raised their own private army of 100 troops, which grew to over 1200.

By May, miners armed themselves.

They took over a mine in Victor and blew it up when deputies arrived with scabs.

Governor Waite ordered the owners’ private army disbanded and called the militia out to defend strikers.

The mine owners agreed to return to the 8-hour workday at no loss in pay, but refused to disband their army.

They arrested and beat hundreds of miners.

The owners finally disbanded the forces when the governor threatened the militia’s presence in Victor for a month to keep the scab army immobilized.

It was the first and probably only time a state militia was called out in defense of striking workers.

According to Erik Loomis,  “It was arguably organized labor’s biggest win in the Gilded Age.” Waite lost the next election.

But the victory meant enormous organizing gains for the WFM throughout the Rocky Mountain region.

February 6 - Philly Garment Workers Win!

On this day in labor history, the year was 1910. That was the day Philadelphia Garment workers ended their strike in victory.

 

The strike began just five days before Christmas. 7,000 young women walked out of area factories when they learned their shops were receiving orders from struck shops in New York City.

Often referred to as the  ‘Uprising of the 20,000,’ striking New York City garment workers had rocked the industry.

The number of strikers in Philadelphia soon grew to over 15,000.

The young women crafted their own demands.

They wanted shorter workdays, uniform wages, better pay and union recognition.

Close to 300 arrests were made in the first weeks of the strike.

Labor leaders like Big Bill Haywood and Mother Jones addressed picketers, walked the lines and offered financial support.

Mother Jones declared, “Let us live together or starve together. We will let New York know that we can also fight. We will march up and down the streets of Philadelphia in solid ranks until victory is ours.”

Strikers marched throughout the area to call out workers in many of the smaller shops.

Tragically, at least 7 were killed and a dozen or more seriously injured in a fire at a smaller shop that continued to operate throughout the strike.

When manufacturers agreed to some concessions but refused union recognition, the women would not settle, stating, “We will go back to work as a union or starve.”

Historian Daniel Sidorick notes the gains won “demonstrated the resolute determination of the strikers to see their struggle through to victory, even in defiance of their union leaders, when necessary, and to the amazement of almost all observers.”

February 5 - The Fight for Craft Governance

On this day in labor history, the year was 1900.

That was the day the newly formed Building Contractors Council locked out 40,000 building tradesmen in Chicago.

The Contractors Council was founded in opposition to the power of the Building Trades Council.

Solidarity among the trades galvanized their ability to determine wages and working conditions throughout the city.

Hard-won gains included use of sympathy strikes, restriction of laborsaving machinery and apprentices, and work pace and production limits.

In 1899, citywide building trades contracts expired.

Backed by financiers, manufacturers and engineers, the new council demanded the unions abandon these gains and cut all ties with the Building Trades Council.

The contractors cited the more than 20 walkouts at the Montgomery Ward construction site as but one example.

The bosses’ were driven to destroy what historian Andrew Wender Cohen refers to as ‘craft governance’ in the city.

Incredulous, the crafts refused to recognize the contractors council or its demands.

The contractors locked them out.

They brought in 6000 scabs to continue construction work throughout the city.

Pitched battles continued daily in the streets between locked out tradesmen and scabs.

Many contractors brought in cots and food to non-union workers, keeping them on job sites until completion.

Labor-friendly Mayor Carter Harrison II offered to mediate, but refused police protection of scabs.

The contractors built up their own private force.

Then they injected an added racial dimension to the conflict.

Among the non-union workers, some were black tradesmen, briefly hired as construction workers and job site guards.

The lockout ended in a 1901 defeat for the Building Trades, whose ranks were decimated by 90%.

The building trades bounced back and were soon a formidable force in Chicago.

February 4 - Solidarity on the Coast

On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.

That was the day victorious West Coast Maritime Workers ended their 99-day strike.

40,000 members of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific reasserted control of hiring halls, and won greater union recognition and wage increases.

The Federation was a short-lived coalition to unite longshoremen and seamen that anticipated the rise of the ILWU.

Since the 1934 strike, ship owners aimed to break the authority of union leader, Harry Bridges.

They engaged in relentless red baiting and deportation drives against Bridges.

In the weeks leading up to the strike, the ship owners looked to smash the solidarity among seamen and longshoremen through a planned lockout the previous September.

They stockpiled their warehouses, built up additional funds and promoted anti-union hysteria up and down the coast.

They entered into talks with the Federation during the summer of 1936, hoping to renegotiate terms originally set by arbitration awards soon to expire.

Three main West Coast shipping companies, Matson, Dollar and American-Hawaiian wanted to reverse earlier agreements regarding control of the hiring halls.

The unions stood strong against this attack on what was a cornerstone of union power.

They voted overwhelmingly to strike and walked out October 30.

As in 1934, the unions fought to defend its right to control the hiring hall.

This kind of control was the only mechanism that could prevent favoritism, discrimination, corruption and pay-offs in hiring.

In Irving Bernstein’s Turbulent Years, he notes that in addition to retention of control of hiring halls, the federation gained coast-wide uniformity in working conditions, in load limits and standardized rates.

The Federation may have been short-lived, but the roots of lasting ILWU power were firmly established.

February 3 - Anti-Trust Injunctions Used Against Labor

On this day in labor history, the year was 1908.

That was the day the Supreme Court ruled on the Loewe V. Lawlor case, also known as the Danbury Hatter’s Case.

In 1902, the United Hatters of North America attempted to organize the fur hat company, D.E. Loewe & Company.

Loewe refused to meet with the union.

The union struck and called for a nationwide boycott of Loewe hats.

The AFL assisted in popularizing the boycott.

They worked to convince retailers and customers not to buy from Loewe.

The company sued the union’s business agent and hundreds of its members.

Loewe claimed the union violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by interfering with interstate commerce.

The Sherman Act had been designed to control business monopolies, trusts and cartels, like Standard Oil company.

An 1893 case, United States v. Workingmen’s Amalgamated Council of New Orleans, established that the Sherman Act applied to labor unions as well.

In the Danbury Hatter’s Case, the Supreme Court ruled that the union combined to restrain trade or commerce among several states.

The union countered by arguing that the union did not interfere with the transportation of hats and were not themselves engaged in interstate commerce.

But the union lost.

In addition to violating the Sherman Act, the Court argued that individual union members could be held personally liable for damages incurred by their union.

The union was eventually held liable in damages amounting to about $235,000.

The AFL pushed back, demanding reforms in the Sherman Act.

Partial reforms came with the Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914.

But it would be another 20 years before the Norris-LaGuardia Act would exempt organized labor from antitrust injunctions.

February 2 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

On this day in labor history, the year was 1848.

That was the day the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed.

It signaled the end of the Mexican-American War.

The war began in May 1846 when the United States sought to expand its annexation of Texas.

It immediately became a partisan issue between pro- and anti-slavery forces.

Southern Democrats and slave plantation owners favored war with Mexico.

They hoped to undercut rising Northern industrial power with the expansion of slave territory.

Whigs and Northern abolitionists opposed the war for the same reason.

After almost two years of fighting, the war ended.

In exchange for $15 million, the United States gained 525,000 square miles of land.

This territory included all or parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Mexico gave up all claims to Texas and the Rio Grande was established as the border.

The initial Treaty promised protection of land and civil rights, and full citizenship for those Mexicans who stayed on the newly acquired territory.

These guarantees were deleted from the final ratification.

Expansionist aims reignited debates about the extension of slavery.

The newly formed Free Soil Party gained traction with its campaign “to limit, localize and discourage slavery.”

Their banner read “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men.”

Antagonisms were briefly tempered with the Compromise of 1850.

This allowed California to be admitted as a free state.

It also prevented the outlawing of slavery in the new territories.

The slave trade was banned in the District of Columbia.

But a new and more stringent Fugitive Slave Law was enacted.

Debates regarding expansion of slavery would rage on throughout the 1850s, culminating in the Civil War.

That was the day the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed.

It signaled the end of the Mexican-American War.

The war began in May 1846 when the United States sought to expand its annexation of Texas.

It immediately became a partisan issue between pro- and anti-slavery forces.

Southern Democrats and slave plantation owners favored war with Mexico.

They hoped to undercut rising Northern industrial power with the expansion of slave territory.

Whigs and Northern abolitionists opposed the war for the same reason.

After almost two years of fighting, the war ended.

In exchange for $15 million, the United States gained 525,000 square miles of land.

This territory included all or parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Mexico gave up all claims to Texas and the Rio Grande was established as the border.

The initial Treaty promised protection of land and civil rights, and full citizenship for those Mexicans who stayed on the newly acquired territory.

These guarantees were deleted from the final ratification.

Expansionist aims reignited debates about the extension of slavery.

The newly formed Free Soil Party gained traction with its campaign “to limit, localize and discourage slavery.”

Their banner read “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men.”

Antagonisms were briefly tempered with the Compromise of 1850.

This allowed California to be admitted as a free state.

It also prevented the outlawing of slavery in the new territories.

The slave trade was banned in the District of Columbia.

But a new and more stringent Fugitive Slave Law was enacted.

Debates regarding expansion of slavery would rage on throughout the 1850s, culminating in the Civil War.