Today in Labor History

October 03  --  Union Communications Services, Inc.
The state militia is called in after 164 high school students in Kincaid, Ill., go on strike when the school board buys coal from the scab Peabody Coal Co. - 1932

The Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America is founded in Camden, N.J. It eventually merged with the Int’l Association of Machinists, in 1988 - 1933

Pacific Greyhound Lines bus drivers in seven western states begin what is to become a 3-week strike, eventually settling for a 10.5-percent raise - 1945

The United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) is formed as a self-governing union, an outgrowth of the CIO's Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee. UPWA merged with the Meatcutters union in 1968, which in turn merged with the Retail Clerks in 1979, forming the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) - 1943

The United Auto Workers calls for a company-wide strike against Ford Motor Co., the first since Ford’s initial contract with the union 20 years earlier - 1961

Folk singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie ("This Land is Your Land", "Union Maid" and hundreds of others) dies of Huntington's disease in New York at the age of 55 - 1967
(The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon: Before there was Woody Guthrie, there was Joe Hill, legendary American songwriter and labor hero. This definitive, well-illustrated biography of Joe Hill includes explosive new evidence pointing to his innocence of the crime for which he was executed nearly a century ago.)

Baseball umpires strike for recognition of their newly-formed Major League Umpires Association, win after one day - 1970