Today in Labor History March 26

 

San Francisco brewery workers began a 9-month strike as local employers followed the union-busting lead of the National Brewer’s Association and fired their unionized workers, replacing them with scabs. Two unionized brewers refused to go along, kept producing beer, prospered wildly and induced the Association to capitulate. A contract benefit since having unionized two years earlier, certainly worth defending: free beer. – 1868

Congress amended the Immigration Act of 1907 to specifically bar the entrance of “paupers, anarchists, criminals and the diseased”. The move was specifically designed to limit entry of Eastern and Southern European immigrants, many of whom were becoming radicalized by the deplorable working and living conditions in late 19th and early 20th century America. – 1910

A mining disaster at Jed, West Virginia killed 83 workers. – 1912