Today in Labor History July 26 ADA took effect, 100 wounded "Battle of the Viaduct", Battle of Muckl

[Omaha Steve]

July 26


In Chicago, 30 workers are killed by federal troops, more than 100 wounded at the "Battle of the Viaduct" during the Great Railroad Strike - 1877 (There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America is Philip Dray’s sympathetic, thoughtful and highly readable history of the American labor movement, tracing unionism from the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1820s to organized labor’s decline in the 1980s and struggle for survival and growth today. In The UCS bookstore now)

July 26, 1894 - President Grover Cleveland appointed a United States Strike Committee to inquire into the causes of the Pullman strike and the subsequent walkout by the American Railway Union. Four months later, the commission issued its report, absolving the strikers and blaming Pullman and the railroads for the conflict.

Read more about the Pullman strike at http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/pullman.htm and http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1029.html

Battle of Mucklow, W.Va. in coal strike. An estimated 100,000 shots were fired; 12 miners and four guards were killed - 1912

President Truman issues Executive Order 9981, directing equality of opportunity in armed forces - 1948

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) took effect today. It requires employers to offer reasonable accommodations to qualified disabled employees and bans discrimination against such workers - 1992

Labor history found here: http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_07_26_2011