Sunday, October 07, 2012

Today in Labor History

October 07

Joe Hill, labor leader and song writer, born in Gavle, Sweden - 1879
[The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon is the definitive, well-illustrated biography of Joe Hill, legendary American songwriter and labor hero, with explosive new evidence pointing to his innocence of the crime for which he was executed nearly a century ago. The Man Who Never Died does justice to Joe Hill's extraordinary life and its controversial end. Drawing on extensive new evidence, Adler deconstructs the case against his subject and argues convincingly for the guilt of another man. It reads like a murder mystery set against the background of the raw, turn-of-the-century West. In the UCS bookstore now.]

The Structural Building Trades Alliance (SBTA) is founded, becomes the AFL’s Building Trades Dept. five years later. SBTA’s mission: to provide a form to work out jurisdictional conflicts - 1903

Hollywood’s "Battle of the Mirrors." Picketing members of the Conference of Studio Unions disrupted an outdoor shoot by holding up large reflectors that filled camera lenses with blinding sunlight. Members of the competing IATSE union retaliated by using the reflectors to shoot sunlight back across the street. The battle went on all day, writes Tom Sito in Drawing the Line - 1946


October 06

First National Conference of Trade Union Women - 1918

1,700 female flight attendants win 18-year, $37 million suit against United Airlines. They had been fired for getting married - 1986

Thirty-two thousand machinists begin what is to be a successful 69-day strike against the Boeing Co. The eventual settlement brought improvements that averaged an estimated $19,200 in wages and benefits over four years and safeguards against job cutbacks - 1995

Today in #LaborHistory: Oct 7 -via- unionist.com

The Structural Building Trades Alliance (SBTA) is founded, becomes the AFL’s Building Trades Dept. five years later. SBTA’s mission: to provide a form to work out jurisdictional conflicts - 1903

"At the meeting of National officers of the Building Trades National and International organizations to-day, a general plan for the creation of what will be known as the Structural Building Trades Alliance of America was agreed upon." - from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0813FB3F5D11738DDDA90994D8415B838CF1D3

"Operating on a one-union, one-vote system, the SBTA initially proposed to accept only "primary" trades, like the Carpenters, Plumbers, and Electrical Workers, as members." - from http://www.history.umd.edu/Gompers/SBTA.htm
 
 

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