AUGUST 22
1945 – Five flight attendants form the Air Line Stewardesses Association, the first Labor union representing flight attendants. They were reacting to an industry in which women were forced to retire at the age of 32, remain single, and adhere to strict weight, height and appearance requirements. The association later became the Association of Flight Attendants, now a division of the Communications Workers of America.
1980 – Joyce Miller, a vice president of the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers, becomes first female member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council.
1986 – The Kerr-McGee Corp. agrees to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million, settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit. She was a union activist who died in 1974 under suspicious circumstances on her way to talk to a reporter about safety concerns at her plutonium fuel plant in Oklahoma.
AUGUST 23
1912 – The U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations is formed by Congress, during a period of great labor and social unrest. After three years, and hearing witnesses ranging from Wobblies to capitalists, it issued an 11-volume report frequently critical of capitalism. The New York Herald characterized the Commission’s president, Frank P. Walsh, as “a Mother Jones in trousers.”
1927 – Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, accused of murder and tried unfairly, were executed on this day. The case became an international cause and sparked demonstrations and strikes throughout the world.
1966 – Seven merchant seamen crewing the SS Baton Rouge Victory lost their lives when the ship was sunk by Viet Cong action en route to Saigon.
AUGUST 24
1877 – The Gatling Gun Co. — manufacturers of an early machine gun — writes to B&O Railroad Co. President John W. Garrett during a strike, urging their product be purchased to deal with the “recent riotous disturbances around the country.” Says the company: “Four or five men only are required to operate (a gun), and one Gatling… can clear a street or block and keep it clear.”
1970 – United Farm Workers Union begins lettuce strike.
AUGUST 25
1819 – Birth of Allan Pinkerton, whose strike-breaking detectives (“Pinks”) gave us the word “fink.”
1925 – Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters founded at a meeting in New York City. A. Philip Randolph became the union’s first organizer.
AUGUST 26
1919 – Fannie Sellins and Joseph Starzeleski are murdered by coal company guards on a picket line in Brackenridge, Pa. Sellins (from St. Louis) was a United Mine Workers of America organizer and Starzeleski was a miner.
1920 – After three-quarters of the states had ratified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, women win their long struggle for the vote.
1932 – With America in the depths of the Great Depression, the Comptroller of the Currency announces a temporary halt on foreclosures of first mortgages.
1970 – The Women’s Strike for Equality is staged in cities across the U.S., marking the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, under which women won the right to vote. A key focus of the strike — in fact, more accurately a series of marches and demonstrations — was equality in the workplace. An estimated 20,000 women participated, some carrying signs with the iconic slogan, “Don’t Iron While the Strike is Hot.” Another sign: “Hardhats for Soft Broads.”
2003 – More than 1,300 bus drivers on Oahu, Hawaii, begin what is to become a five-week strike.
AUGUST 27
1934 – Some 14,000 Chicago teachers who have gone without pay for several months finally collect about $1,400 each.
1950 – President Truman orders the U.S. Army to seize all the nation’s railroads to prevent a general strike. The railroads were not returned to their owners until two years later.
AUGUST 28
1963 – The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom — the Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have A Dream” speech march — is held in Washington, D.C., with 250,000 participants. The AFL-CIO did not endorse the march, but several affiliated unions did.
2017 – Effective today, the hourly minimum wage in St. Louis MO was reduced from $10 to $7.70 due to action by the Republican-controlled MO state legislature, prohibiting cities from setting a minimum wage rate higher than the state rate.
(Compiled by David Prosten, founder of Union Communication Services)
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