Today in Labor History Aug 5 Using clubs, police rout 1,500 jobless men, FDR & NLRB, Reagan & PATCO!

[Omaha Steve]

August 5

Using clubs, police rout 1,500 jobless men who had stormed the plant of the Fruit Growers Express Co. in Indiana Harbor, Indiana, demanding jobs - 1931

And this: August 5, 1931 - Some 1,500 jobless men stormed the plant of the Fruit Growers Express Co. in Indiana Harbor, Indiana, demanding they be given jobs to keep from starving. The company's answer was to call the city police, who routed the jobless with clubs.

During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the National Labor Board to enforce the right of collective bargaining. Ultimately declared illegal by the Supreme Court, it was replaced two years later by the National Labor Relations Board - 1933

August 5, 1981 - President Ronald Reagan fired 13,000 federal air traffic controllers for participating in an illegal work stoppage. The PATCO strike was a watershed for American workers, both because it marked a new, anti-worker mindset on the part of the U.S. government and corporations and because the American labor movement failed to build any mass resistance to this attack.


The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) took effect today. The first law signed by President Clinton, it allows many workers time off each year due to serious health conditions or to care for a family member - 1993 (The FMLA Handbook is a thorough, highly readable handbook, updated and expanded in early 2009, that will help every worker get the most out of the surprisingly comprehensive 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act. It explains how unions can protect workers who are absent from work for justifiable medical or family-care reasons; block compulsory "light-duty" work programs; force employers to allow part-time schedules; obtain attendance bonuses for workers absent for medical reasons; and much more. An important tool for every union’s arsenal.)


Labor history found here: http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_08_5_2011

[canoeist52]

1. The Family and Medical Leave Act

was the best legislation to come out of the Clinton Administration. It gave my husband the time he needed to spend with his father who was dying at home from bone cancer.

[Omaha Steve]

2. I agree, I just wish I had had room in the title for it

Also to point out the date was Aug 6, not the 5th as the title indicated.