Today in Labor History

January 25  --  SOURCE: Union Communications Services, Inc.

Sojourner Truth addresses first Black Women’s Rights convention - 1851

The Sheet Metal Workers Int'l Association (SMWIA) is founded in Toledo, Ohio, as the Tin, Sheet Iron and Cornice Workers’ International Association - 1888

United Mine Workers of America founded in Columbus, Ohio. The union’s constitution barred racial, religious and ethnic discrimination - 1890

Two hundred miners are killed in an horrific explosion at the Harwick mine in Cheswick, Pa., Allegheny County. Many of the dead lay entombed in the sealed mine to this day - 1904

The Supreme Court upholds “Yellow Dog” employment contracts, which forbid membership in labor unions. Yellow Dog contracts remained legal until 1932 - 1915

Some 16,000 textile workers strike in Passaic, N.J. - 1926

Working Class Heroes

Today in #LaborHistory : January 25 -- via -- Transport Workers Union

The Kent Avenue Sit-down Strike
January 25, 1937

During the fifth week of a sit-down strike at a General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, TWU leaders were faced with the perfect opportunity to try out the seemingly effective and new kind of strike in their own city, in the borough of Brooklyn. At the Kent Avenue power plant two BMT boil room engineers were dismissed from work and given three minutes to leave the plant because of their involvement with TWU. The two men had spent ten years working at the plant, which was the sole source of electric power for the entire New York City subway network. Quill was outraged by the dismissal and inspired by Flint’s plant workers, who had gained much national attention, to stage a sit-in of TWU’s own. The Kent Ave. sit-in proved to be the most important and defining moment for the longevity of the union.

Quill and the 35 TWU members who worked at the plant hatched a radical, unexpected and audacious plan, unsure of what to expect but hopeful that the surprise factor would be enough to win the fight against the BMT. Led by two of the plant’s union men, Ed Pollock and Joe Fody, union workers bolted the doors from inside the plant at three p.m., as 31 union day-shift workers took their positions at the switches that controlled each section of NYC’s subway system. Standing on top of a car in front of the plant, Quill announced that if the fired men were not reinstated by six a.m. the next day all switches would be pulled and the BMT would stop, paralyzing all of the city’s subway lines and seriously disrupting the lives of 2.4 million BMT riders.

Only 35 out of 505 men at the Kent plant were TWU members, but the 460 non-union men quickly agreed to help, wore TWU pins and remained loyal to their mission to get the two boiler room engineers reinstated.

Photo: Mike Quill, President and founder of the TWU, stood on top of a soapbox as he held a shop gate meeting outside of the IRT Powerhouse. ~De
http://www.twu.org/OurUnion/OurHistory/DefiningMoments.aspx