Labor history Nov 4, 6,000 Steelworkers members win settlement, 3,000 dairy farmers demonstrate, mo

[Omaha Steve]

November 4

Populist humorist Will Rogers was born on this day near Oologah, Indian Territory (later Oklahoma). One of his many memorable quotes: “I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.” - 1879

November 4, 1924 - Nellie Taylor Ross was elected governor of Wyoming, the first woman ever elected to a governorship. Wyoming was the first state to grant women the right to vote and the first to allow them to serve on juries. In 1933, Taylor Ross became the first woman appointed director of the United States Mint, a position she held for 20 years.

Some 3,000 dairy farmers demonstrate in Neillsville, Wisc., ultimately leading to the freeing of jailed leaders of a milk strike over low prices set by large dairy plants. Tons of fresh milk were dumped on public roads, trains carrying milk were stopped, some cheese plants were bombed during the fight - 1933

After a struggle lasting more than two years, 6,000 Steelworkers members at Bridgestone/ Firestone win a settlement in which strikers displaced by scabs got their original jobs back. The fight started when management demanded that the workers accept 12-hour shifts - 1996


In Reviving the Strike: How Working People can Regain Power and Transform America, author Joe Burns says that workers will need to rediscover the power of the strike. Not the ineffectual strike of today, where employees meekly sit on picket lines waiting for scabs to take their jobs, but the type of strike capable of grinding industries to a halt -- the kind employed up until the 1960s. Burns draws on economics, history and current analysis in arguing that the labor movement must redevelop an effective strike based on the now outlawed traditional labor tactics of stopping production and workplace-based solidarity. In the UCS bookstore now.

Labor histroy found here: http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_11_4_2011