Today in Labor History

March 09  --  Union Communications Services, Inc.

The Westmoreland County (Pa.) Coal Strike—known as the "Slovak strike" because some 70 percent of the 15,000 strikers were Slovakian immigrants—begins on this date and continues for nearly 16 months before ending in defeat. Sixteen miners and family members were killed during the strike - 1912

(The New Urban Immigrant Workforce: Organizing Innovations: This ground-breaking look at immigrant labor organizing and mobilization today draws on participant observation, ethnographic interviews, historical documents, and new case studies. The writers provide real evidence of immigrants’ eagerness for collective action and organizing, and they argue that this desire to organize stems from the immigrants’ social isolation.)

Spurred by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S. Congress begins its 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation. Just one of many programs established to help Americans survive the Great Depression: The Civilian Conservation Corps, which put 2.5 million young men on the government payroll to help in national conservation and infrastructure projects - 1933

Work begins on the $8 billion, 800-mile-long Alaska Oil pipeline connecting oil fields in northern Alaska to the sea port at Valdez. Tens of thousands of people worked on the pipeline, enduring long hours, cold temperatures and brutal conditions. At least 32 died on the job - 1974