This Week In Labor History October 2-8

OCTOBER 2
1934 – American Federation of Labor officially endorses campaign for a six-hour day, five-day workweek.
1949 – Joining with 400,000 coal miners already on strike, 500,000 CIO steel workers close down the nation’s foundries, steel and iron mills, demanding pensions and better wages and working conditions.
2007 – Starbucks Workers Union baristas at an outlet in East Grand Rapids, Mich., organized by the Wobblies, win their grievances after the National Labor Relations Board cites the company for Labor law violations, including threats against union activists.

OCTOBER 3
1932 – The state militia is called in after 164 high school students in Kincaid, Ill., go on strike when the school board buys coal from the scab Peabody Coal Co.
1933 – The Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America is founded in Camden, N.J. It eventually merged with the Int’l Association of Machinists in 1988.
1945 – Pacific Greyhound Lines bus drivers in seven western states begin what is to become a three-week strike, eventually settling for a 10.5 percent raise.
1961 – The United Auto Workers calls for a company-wide strike against Ford Motor Co., the first since Ford’s initial contract with the union 20 years earlier.

OCTOBER 4
1927 – Work begins on the carving of Mt. Rushmore, a task 400 craftsmen would eventually complete in 1941. Despite the dangerous nature of the project, not one worker died.
1945 – President Truman orders the U.S. Navy to seize oil refineries, breaking a 20-state post-war strike.
1916 – The United Mine Workers of America votes to re-affiliate with the AFL-CIO after years of on-and-off conflict with the federation.
1995 – Distillery, Wine & Allied Workers Int’l Union merges with United Food & Commercial Workers Int’l Union.

OCTOBER 5
1945 – A strike by set decorators turns into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, Calif., when scabs try to cross the picket line. The incident is still identified as “Hollywood Black Friday” and “The Battle of Burbank.”
1976 – The UAW ends a three-week strike against Ford Motor Co. when the company agrees to a contract that includes more vacation days and better retirement and unemployment benefits.
2004 – Some 2,100 supermarket janitors in California, mostly from Mexico, win a $22.4 million settlement over unpaid overtime.

OCTOBER 6
1918 – First National Conference of Trade Union Women.
1927 – The first “talkie” movie, The Jazz Singer, premiers in New York City. Within three years, according to the American Federation of Musicians, theater jobs for some 22,000 musicians who accompanied silent movies were lost, while only a few hundred jobs for musicians performing on soundtracks were created by the new technology.
1986 – Some 1,700 female flight attendants win 18-year, $37 million suit against United Airlines. They had been fired for getting married.
1995 – Thirty-two thousand machinists begin what is to be a successful 69-day strike against the Boeing Co. The eventual settlement brought improvements that averaged an estimated $19,200 in wages and benefits over four years and safeguards against job cutbacks.

OCTOBER 7
1879 – Joe Hill, Labor leader and songwriter, born in Gavle, Sweden.
1903 – The Structural Building Trades Alliance (SBTA) is founded, becomes the AFL’s Building Trades Dept. five years later. SBTA’s mission: to provide a forum to work out jurisdictional conflicts.
1946 – 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.

OCTOBER 8
1871 – Thirty of the city’s 185 fire fighters are injured battling the Great Chicago Fire, which burned for three days.
1982 – In Poland, the union Solidarity and all other Labor organizations are banned by the government.
1985 – Upholsterers’ Int’l Union of North America merges with United Steelworkers of America.

(Compiled by David Prosten, founder Union Communication Services)