March 15 -- SOURCE:
Union Communications Services, Inc.
Official formation of the Painters Int’l Union - 1887
Supreme Court approves 8-Hour Act under threat of a national railway strike - 1917
Bituminous coal miners begin nationwide strike, demanding adoption of a pension plan - 1948
The Wall Street Journal begins a series alleging insider stock
deals at the union-owned Union Labor Life Insurance Co. (ULLICO). After
three years a settlement was reached with Robert Georgine, a building
trades leader serving as ULLICO president and CEO, requiring him to
repay about $2.6 million in profits from the sale of ULLICO stock,
forfeit $10 million in compensation and make other payments worth about
$4.4 million. All but two of the company’s directors were said to have
profited from the deals - 2002
Today
in history: March 15, 1810 - Radical African American abolitionist
David Ruggles born. Ruggles was an anti-slavery activist who was active
in the New York Committee of Vigilance and the Underground Railroad.
Unlike some in the abolitionist movement
that only relied on moral persuasion, Ruggles argued that fugitive
slaves and free Black people beset by kidnappers had a right to defend
themselves. He claimed to have led over six hundred people, including
friend and fellow abolitionist Frederick Douglass, to freedom in the
North. He opened the first African-American bookstore in the United
States and published many abolitionist articles and pamphlets, also
contributing to abolitionist newspapers such as The Emancipator and The
Liberator. His activism earned him many enemies - Ruggles was physically
assaulted and his business was destroyed through arson. There were two
known attempts to kidnap him and sell him into slavery in the South.
Ruggles was especially active against kidnappers - bounty hunters who
made a living by capturing escaped slaves.
See interview with author of a
recently-published book on Ruggles:
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