Today in Labor History June 20 Taft-Hartley vetoed by Truman, 34 people are killed 1,300 arrested, [View All]

June 20

The American Railway Union, headed by Eugene Debs, is founded in Chicago. In the Pullman strike a year later, the union was defeated by federal injunctions and troops, and Debs was imprisoned for violating the injunctions - 1893

And this:
June 20, 1893 - The American Railway Union, headed by Eugene V. Debs, was founded. Its goal was the unification of all railroad workers – regardless of craft, race or ethnicity – into one big union.

Read more about the ARU at www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/debstory.htm and www.eugenevdebs.com/pages/union.html

An excellent book on Debs and the ARU is Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist by Nick Salvatore.


Henry Ford recognizes the United Auto Workers, signs contract for workers at River Rouge plant – 1941

Striking African American auto workers are attacked by KKK, National Workers League, and armed white workers at Belle Isle amusement park in Detroit. Two days of riots follow, 34 people are killed, more than 1,300 arrested - 1943


The Taft-Hartley Labor Management Relations Act, curbing strikes, is vetoed by President Harry S Truman. The veto was overridden three days later by a Republican-controlled Congress – 1947 (for more on U.S. labor laws, check out A Primer on American Labor Law, an accessible guide written for nonspecialists including local union officers and management representatives, stewards, rank-and-file activists and students of labor. Covers such topics as the National Labor Relations Act, unfair labor practices, the collective bargaining relationship, dispute resolution, the public sector, and public-interest labor law. In the UCS bookstore now)

Oil began traveling through the Alaska pipline. Seventy thousand people worked on building the pipeline, history's largest privately-financed construction project – 1977

Evelyn Dubrow, described by the New York Times as organized labor's most prominent lobbyist at the time of its greatest power, dies at age 95. The International Ladies' Garment Workers Union lobbyist once told the Times that "she trudged so many miles around Capitol Hill that she wore out 24 pairs of her Size 4 shoes each year." She retired at age 86 - 2006

Labor history found here: http://www.unionist.com/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_06_20_2011