Labor history September 27 Striking workers starving children, Joe McCarthy, Triangle strike, more

[Omaha Steve]

September 27

Striking textile workers in Fall River, Mass. demand bread for their starving children - 1875

And this: September 27, 1875 - In Fall River, Massachusetts, textile workers went on strike, demanding bread for starving children. In the latter half of the 19th century, about one out of every six children between the ages of 10 and 15 were working -- in textile mills, print shops, coal mines and factories. Their labor was often critical to their families’ survival.

The International Typographical Union renews a strike against the Los Angeles Times and begins a boycott that runs intermittently from 1896 to 1908. A local anti-Times committee in 1903 persuades William Randolph Hearst to start a rival paper, the Los Angeles Examiner. Although the ITU kept up the fight into the 1920s, the Times remains nonunion to this day - 1893


International Ladies' Garment Workers Union begins strike against Triangle Shirtwaist Co. This would become the "Uprising of the 20,000," resulting in 339 of 352 struck firms—but not Triangle—signing agreements with the union. The Triangle fire that killed 246 would occur less than two years later - 1909
(David Von Drehle’s Triangle: The Fire that Changed America vividly recounts the tragic fire but also tells us of life in the city during the early 1900s and brings us into the stories of the young women who lost their lives in the blaze. Von Drehle tells of their struggles against oppressive, inhumane conditions and poverty-level wages -- work lives not that different from many of today’s immigrant workers. In the UCS bookstore now.)

September 27, 1954 - A U.S. Senate Committee called for the censure of Joe McCarthy, marking the beginning of the end of a repressive, anti-democratic era. Today, McCarthy’s name has become synonymous with ignorance and hate.

Twenty-nine west coast ports lock out 10,500 workers in response to what management says is a worker slowdown in the midst of negotiations on a new contract. The ports are closed for 10 days, reopen when Pres. George W. Bush invokes the Taft-Hartley Act - 2002

Labor history found here: http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_9_27_2011

[rasputin1952]

1. Great Post!...

:hi: