Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Today in Labor History

October 03

The state militia is called in after 164 high school students in Kincaid, Ill. go on strike when the school board buys coal from the scab Peabody Coal Co. - 1932

The Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America is founded in Camden, N.J. It eventually merged with the International Association of Machinists, in 1988 - 1933

Pacific Greyhound Lines bus drivers in seven western states begin what is to become a three-week
strike, eventually settling for a 10.5 percent raise - 1945

The United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) is formed as a self-governing union, an outgrowth of the CIO's Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee. UPWA merged with the Meatcutters union in 1968, which in turn merged with the Retail Clerks in 1979, forming the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) - 1943

The United Auto Workers calls for a company-wide strike against Ford Motor Co., the first since Ford’s initial contract with the union 20 years earlier - 1961

Folk singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie ("This Land is Your Land", "Union Maid" and hundreds of others) dies of Huntington's disease in New York at the age of 55 - 1967
[Woody Guthrie: A Life “There is a book out right now. It’s called Woody Guthrie: A Life. It’s by this fellow Joe Klein... and it’s really, it’s really a great book." - Bruce Springsteen. Available in the UCS bookstore now.]

Baseball umpires strike for recognition of their newly-formed Major League Umpires Association, win after one day - 1970



Today in #LaborHistory: Oct 3, 1909 -via- 'Rip & Ron'

Elizabeyth Gurley Flynn, "The Rebel Girl", was arrested (and jailed) in Missoula, MT, for leading and participating in a "free speech fight." City fathers had determined that IWW members could NOT speak on sidewalks and street corners - a decision to be soon overturned.

"She, however, was treated with kid gloves when she was jailed on Oct. 3. But she sent a message to the IWW office in Spokane describing the makeshift cell she and others were held in.
"It's a filthy, dirty hole under the firehouse stable, where all the filthy excrement of the place pours down upon the prisoners," she said." - from http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_a80ba83e-9b67-11de-942e-001cc4c002e0.html

"The first attention paid to the speakers by the officers was on last Monday evening, after some soldiers from Fort Missoula had complained that they had been attacked in an anarchistic manner by a woman orator." - from http://freespeechfight.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/oct-1-1909-missoulas-lenient-and-liberal-police/

"Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, alias Mrs. J. A. Jones, arch disturber, organizer and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World, and a woman of considerable power as a speaker and of unquestioned courage when engaged in the work of her organization, was arrested here tonight while persistently attempting to hold an advertised open air meeting in the business section." - from http://freespeechfight.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/oct-3-1909-flynn-woman-of-considerable-power-unquestioned-courage/
 
 

No comments: