Today in Labor History July 1 Several numerous items

[Omaha Steve]

July 1

Steel workers in Cleveland begin what was to be an 88-week strike against wage cuts - 1885

Homestead, Pennsylvania steel strike. Seven strikers and three Pinkertons killed as Andrew Carnegie hires armed thugs to protect strikebreakers - 1892

The Amalgamated Assn. of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers stages what is to become an unsuccessful three-month strike against U.S. Steel Corp. Subsidiaries - 1901

July 1, 1911 - The Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union awards a charter to the Minneapolis waiters union.

One million railway shopmen strike - 1922

And this: July 1, 1922 - Railroad shop workers walked off their jobs in what became known as the “Big Strike.” The unions eventually lost and many members were blacklisted.

Read more about "The Big Strike" in this article in the Workday Minnesota history section: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_2968

Some 1,100 streetcar workers strike in New Orleans, spurring the creation of the po’ boy sandwich by a local sandwich shop owner and one-time streetcar man. "Whenever we saw one of the striking men coming," Bennie Martin later recalled, "one of us would say, ‘Here comes another poor boy.’" Martin and his wife fed any striker who showed up - 1929

Nat'l Assn. of Post Office & General Service Maintenance Employees, United Fed. of Postal Clerks, Nat'l Fed. of Post Office Motor Vehicle Employees & Nat'l Assn. of Special Delivery Messengers merge to become American Postal Workers Union - 1971

International Jewelry Workers Union merges with Service Employees International Union - 1980

Graphic Arts International Union merges with International Printing & Graphic Communications Union to become Graphic Communications International Union, now a conference of the Teamsters - 1983


Copper miners begin a years-long long, bitter strike against Phelps-Dodge in Clifton, Ariz. Democratic Gov. Bruce Babbitt repeatedly deployed state police and National Guardsmen to assist the company over the course of the strike, which broke the union - 1983 (Strikes Around the World: Case Studies of 15 Countries examines whether strikes are going out of fashion or are an inevitable feature of working life. This unique study draws on the experience of fifteen countries around the world -- The United States, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Covering the high and low points of strike activity over the period 1968–2005, the study shows continuing evidence of the durability, adaptability and necessity of the strike. In the UCS bookstore now.)

Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union merges with International Ladies' Garment Workers Union to form Union of Needletrades, Industrial & Textile Employees - 1995

International Chemical Workers Union merges with United Food & Commercial Workers Int'l Union - 1996

The Newspaper Guild merges with Communications Workers of America - 1997

United American Nurses affiliate with the AFL-CIO - 2001

Labor histroy found here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_07_1_2011 & here: http://www.unionist.com/today-in-labor-history