Labor history Sept 4, 14 year strike ends, 12,000 NYC taylors strike, “The working" Gompers, more

[Omaha Steve]

September 4

Twelve thousand New York tailors strike over sweatshop conditions - 1894

September 4, 1894 - The Pattern Makers League was formed.


September 4, 1950 - A huge crowd gathered at Soldier Field in Chicago for a tribute to American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers, who died in 1924. “The working people know no country,” Gompers said. “They are citizens of the world.” For more on Gompers, see http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/gompers.htm and http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/history/history/gompers.cfm

International Brotherhood of Bookbinders merged with Graphic Arts International Union - 1972 (Omaha Steve is a former GAU member)


What many believe was to become the longest strike in U.S. history, 600 Teamster-represented workers walk out at the Diamond Walnut processing plant in Stockton, Calif., after the company refused to restore a 30 percent pay cut they had earlier taken to help out the company. The two sides ultimately agreed to a new contract after 14 years - 1991

(Strike tells you something your school history books almost certainly did not: how working Americans for the past 125 years have used the strike again and again to win a degree of justice and fair play. Author Jeremy Brecher also examines the ever-shifting roles and configurations of unions, from the Knights of Labor of the 1800s, formed in reaction to the elitist trade unions of the day, to the AFL-CIO of the 1990s. In the UCS bookstore now.)

Labor history found here: http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_09_04_2011

[aquart]

1. Thank you for doing the work to remind us.

This isn't taught in our schools and could so easily be forgotten.

[pnorman]

2. I have very mixed feelings about Samuel Gompers. (Likewise with George Meany!!)

But I can't fault you on that Brechter book choicer!