Today in Labor History

July 21 -- Union Communications Services, Inc.

Local militiamen are called out against striking railroad workers in Pittsburgh. The head of the Pennsylvania Railroad advises giving the strikers "a rifle diet for a few days and see how they like that kind of bread." - 1877

Compressed air explosion kills 20 workers constructing railroad tunnel under the Hudson River - 1880

IWW leads a strike at Hodgeman's Blueberry Farm in Grand Junction, Mich. - 1964

Radio station WCFL, owned and operated by the Chicago Federation of Labor, takes to the airwaves with two hours of music. The first and only labor-owned radio station in the country, WCFL was sold in 1979 - 1926

A die-cast operator in Jackson, Mich., is pinned by a hydraulic Unimate robot, dies five days later. Incident is the first documented case in the U.S. of a robot killing a human - 1984