In what may have been baseball’s first labor strike, the Detroit Tigers refuse to play after team leader Ty Cobb was suspended after he went into the stands and beat a fan who had been heckling him. Cobb was reinstated and the Tigers went back to work after the team manager’s failed attempt to replace the players with a local college team whose pitcher gave up 24 runs. – 1912
The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen started organizing in packing houses across the United States, ultimately bringing their membership from 6,500 in 1917 to 100,000 by 1919. – 1917
Big Bill Haywood, a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies), died in exile in the Soviet Union. – 1928
Atlanta transit workers, objecting to a new city requirement that they be fingerprinted as part of the employment process, went on strike. They relented and returned to work six months later. – 1950
Insurance Agents International Union and Insurance Workers of America merged to become Insurance Workers International Union (later to merge into the UFCW). – 1959
An Oklahoma jury found for the estate of atomic worker Karen Silkwood and ordered Kerr-McGee Nuclear Company to pay $505,000 in actual damages and $10 million in punitive damages for negligence leading to Silkwood’s plutonium contamination. – 1979
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