Today in Labor History Jan 3, 500 farmers, black and white demand food for their starving families

[Omaha Steve]

January 3

The ship Thetis arrives in Hawaii with 175 Chinese field workers bound to serve for five years at $3 per month - 1852


Wobblie Tom Mooney tried in San Francisco for Preparedness Day bombing - 1917

In a familiar scene during the Great Depression, some 500 farmers, black and white, their crops ruined by a long drought, march into downtown England, Ark., to demand food for their starving families, warning they would take it by force if necessary. Town fathers frantically contacted the Red Cross; each family went home with two weeks’ rations - 1931

And this: January 3, 1931 - Some 500 farmers, their crops ruined by a long drought, marched into the business section of England, Arkansas, to demand food for their starving families. They said if it were not given for free, it would be taken by force. They got the food. It was one of scores of such incidents during the Great Depression.

The Supreme Court rules against the closed shop, a labor-management agreement that only union members can be hired and must remain members to continue on the job - 1949

AFL-CIO American Institute for Free Labor Development employees Mike Hammer and Mark Pearlman are assassinated in El Salvador along with a Peasant Workers’ Union leader with whom they were working on a land reform program - 1981

Labor history found here: http://www.unionist.com/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_01_03_2011