Today in Labor History Dec 11, 10 days after an inspector approved coal dust removal 119 workers die

December 11

A small group of black farmers organize the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union in Houston County, Texas. They had been barred from membership in the all-white Southern Farmers’ Alliance. Through intensive organizing, along with merging with another black farmers group, the renamed Colored Alliance by 1891 claimed a membership of 1.2 million - 1886

Ten days after an Illinois State mine inspector approved coal dust removal techniques at New Orient mine in West Frankfort, the mine exploded, largely because of coal dust accumulations, killing 119 workers - 1951

The U.S Department of Labor announces that the nation's unemployment rate had dropped to 3.3 percent, the lowest mark in 15 years - 1968

December 11, 1981 - More than 500 people were massacred by units of the El Salvadoran military in the village of El Mozote. After being locked in their homes overnight, men, women and children were tortured and systematically executed. Eyewitness accounts led to an international investigation and, in 1992, exhumation of the remains. The El Mozote massacre was one of many attacks on peasants, workers and activists under U.S.-supported regimes in Central America during the Cold War.

Forty thousand workers go on general strike in London, Ontario—a city with a population of 300,000—protesting cuts in social services - 1995

Labor history found here: http://www.unionist.com/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_12_11_2010