TODAY IN LABOR HISTORY

10,000 demonstrators celebrate textile workers’ win of a 10-percent pay hike and grievance committees after a one-month strike, Lowell, Mass. - 1912

Ludlow massacre:  Colorado state militia, using machine guns and fire, kill about 20 people -- including 11 children -- at a tent city set up by striking coal miners - 1914

An unknown assailant shoots through a window at United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther as he is eating dinner at his kitchen table, permanently imparing his right arm. It was one of at least two assassination attempts on Reuther. He and his wife later died in a small plane crash under what many believe to be suspicious circumstances - 1948

National Association of Post Office Mail Handlers, Watchmen, Messengers & Group Leaders merge with Laborers - 1968

United Auto Workers members end a successful 172 day strike against International Harvester, protesting management demands for new work rules and mandatory overtime provisions - 1980

Eleven workers are killed, 17 injured when BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling platform explodes in the Gulf of Mexico. Lax, profit-focused procedures "that saved ... significant time and money" for BP and other companies were found to blame. An estimated 5 million barrels of oil gushed into the Gulf before the well was capped after 85 days - 2010

Sources:
Toil and Trouble, by Thomas R. Brooks; American Labor Struggles, by Samuel Yellen; IWW calendar, Solidarity Forever; Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor, edited by Robert E. Weir and James P. Hanlan; Southwest Labor History Archives/George Meany Center; Geov Parrish’s Radical History; workday Minnesota; Andy Richards and Adam Wright, AFL-CIO Washington DC Metro Council (graphics research).