Thursday, December 27, 2012

Today in Labor History

December 27  --  SOURCE: Union Communications Services, Inc.

President Roosevelt seizes the railroads to avert a nationwide strike. His decision to temporarily place the railroads under the “supervision” of the War Department prompts the five railroad brotherhoods to agree to his offer to arbitrate the wage dispute - 1943


December 26  

Knights of Labor founded. Constitution bars from membership “parasites,” including stockbrokers and lawyers - 1869
2012.12.24-history-power-in-a-union(There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America is a sympathetic, thoughtful and highly readable history of the American labor movement that traces unionism from the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1820s to organized labor’s decline in the 1980s and the struggle for survival and growth today.)





 December 25

A dynamite bomb destroyed a portion of the Llewellyn Ironworks in Los Angeles, where a bitter strike was in progress - 1910
 2012.12.24-history-calumet-tragedy

December 24

Seventy two copper miners’ children die in panic caused by a company stooge at Calumet, Mich., who shouted “fire” up the stairs into a crowded hall where the children had gathered.  They were crushed against closed doors when they tried to flee - 1913

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