Today in Labor History

December 03 -- SOURCE: Union Communications Services, Inc.

Textile strikers win 10-hour day, Fall River, Mass. - 1866

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passes an ordinance setting an eight-hour workday for all city employees - 1867

IWW union Brotherhood of Timber Workers organized - 1910

Canada’s Quebec Bridge, spanning the St. Lawrence River, opened to traffic on this day after the deaths of 89 construction workers in the course of the job. A flawed design was blamed for a 1907 collapse that killed 75; another 13 died in 1916 when a hoisting device failed as the central span was being lifted - 1919

General strike begins in Oakland, Calif., started by female department store clerks - 1946

The express passenger train "20th Century Limited" ends over 60 years of service when it takes its last run from New York City to Chicago - 1967

5,000 union construction workers in Oahu, Hawaii march to City Hall in protest of a proposed construction moratorium by the City Council - 1976

Arrests began today in Middleton, NJ of teachers striking in violation of a no-strike law. Ultimately 228 educators were jailed for up to seven days before they were released following the Middleton Township Education Association's agreement to take the dispute to mediation - 2001

Working Class Heroes

Today in #LaborHistory: Dec 3, 1910 -via- 'Rip and Ron'

Lumber workers in Western Louisiana formed Brotherhood of Timber Workers Union. A response to a decade or more of mistreatment and abuse by employers - the 'Lumber Barons.'

"These labor disorders led to the formation in 1906 of the Southern Lumber Operators' Association, whose primary concern was to prevent organized labor from gaining any foothold in area lumber mills." - from http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ocbbb
...

"Everywhere, except in the Lake Charles district of Louisiana, where the I. W. W.'s influence has already begun to make itself felt, the workers took the promise of the Trust that, if they would return to work and not form a labor union, the Trust pledged its "word of honor" to restore the old wages and hours just as soon as "prosperity" came back." - from http://www.workerseducation.org/crutch/pamphlets/lumber/ch010.html

"The movement spread quickly across Eastern Texas and Western Louisiana in response to a decade of substandard living conditions, regimented lives, and a lack of job security." - from http://cenlamar.com/2007/05/09/the-historic-tale-of-the-brotherhood-of-timber-workers/