Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Today in Labor History

September 05  --  Union Communications Services, Inc.

Between 20,000 and 30,000 marchers participate in New York's first Labor Day parade, demanding the 8-hour day - 1882
 
"Palmer raids" on all Wobbly halls and offices in 48 cities in U.S.  Alexander Palmer, U.S. Attorney General, was rounding up radicals and leftists - 1917
 
Ten thousand angry textile strikers, fighting for better wages and working conditions, besiege a factory in Fall River, Mass., where 300 strikebreakers are working. The scabs are rescued by police using tear gas and pistols on the strikers - 1934
 
General strike begins across U.S. maritime industry, stopping all shipping. The strikers were objecting to the government's post-war National Wage Stabilization Board order that reduced pay increases negotiated by maritime unions - 1946



September 04

Twelve thousand New York tailors strike over sweatshop conditions - 1894
 
More than 140 attendees at a benefit for a civil rights group are injured in the “Peekskill Riots” in Peekskill, N.Y.  The victims were among the 20,000 people leaving a concert featuring African-American Paul Robeson, well-known for his strong pro-unionism, civil rights activism and left-wing affiliations.  The departing concert-goers had to drive through a miles-long gauntlet of rock-throwing racists and others chanting "go on back to Russia, you niggers" and "white niggers" - 1949
 
Int’l Brotherhood of Bookbinders merged with Graphic Arts Int’l Union - 1972
 
In what many believe was to become the longest strike in U.S. history, 600 Teamster-represented workers walk out at the Diamond Walnut processing plant in Stockton, Calif., after the company refused to restore a 30-percent pay cut they had earlier taken to help out the company.  The two sides ultimately agreed to a new contract after 14 years - 1991

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