Today in Labor History

August 10  --  Union Communications Services, Inc.

The Air Line Pilots Association is founded at a meeting in Chicago attended by 24 activists from across the country - 1931

Hundreds of Transport Workers Union members descend on a New York City courthouse, offering their own money to bail out their president, Mike Quill, and four other union leaders arrested while making their way through Grand Central Station to union headquarters after picketing the Interborough Rapid Transit offices in lower Manhattan - 1935

President Roosevelt signs amendments to the 1935 Social Security Act, broadening the program to include dependents and survivors' benefits - 1939

Construction on the St. Lawrence Seaway begins. Ultimately 22,000 workers spent five years building the 2,342-mile route from the Atlantic to the northernmost part of the Great Lakes - 1954

I.W. Abel, president of the United Steel Workers of America from 1965 to 1977, dies at age 79 - 1987

President Barack Obama signs a $26 billion bill designed to protect 300,000 teachers, police and others from layoffs spurred by budgetary crises in states hard-hit by the Great Recession - 2010