Labor history Oct 7 Joe Hill organizer for IWW born, Hollywood’s "Battle of the Mirrors

[Omaha Steve]

October 7

Joe Hill, labor leader and song writer, born in Gavle, Sweden - 1879

And this: October 7, 1879
Joe Hill was born Joseph Hillstrom in Gavle, Sweden. He emigrated to the United States, where he became a songwriter, poet and organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, the “Wobblies.” He was convicted of murder on dubious evidence and in 1915 was shot by a firing squad in Utah. His parting words, to IWW co-founder “Big Bill” Haywood, have inspired many in the decades since: “Don’t mourn. Organize.”

The Structural Building Trades Alliance (SBTA) is founded, becomes the AFL’s Building Trades Dept. five years later. SBTA’s mission: to provide a form to work out jurisdictional conflicts - 1903


Hollywood’s "Battle of the Mirrors." Picketing members of the Conference of Studio Unions disrupted an outdoor shoot by holding up large reflectors that filled camera lenses with blinding sunlight. Members of the competing IATSE union retaliated by using the reflectors to shoot sunlight back across the street. The battle went on all day, writes Tom Sito in "Drawing the Line" - 1946
<"Tom Sito, by virtue of his unique position as one of the leading animators of the current generation, a student of world history, and a former head of the Screen Cartoonists Union himself, is the perfect person to document this subject. And he does so with hundreds of sharp anecdotes, witty quotes, and his own clever writing style." - Jerry Beck, Author, The Animated Movie Guide. 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_10_7_2011