Labor history Aug 31, 10,000 striking miners 16 dead, "Solidarity" workers movement founded, more

August 31

John Reed forms the Communist Labor Party in Chicago. The Party’s motto: "Workers of the world unite!" - 1919

10,000 striking miners began a fight at Blair Mountain, W.Va., for recognition of their union, the UMWA. Federal troops were sent in, and miners were forced to withdraw 5 days later, after 16 deaths - 1921

The Trade Union Unity League is founded as an alternative to the American Federation of Labor, with the goal of organizing along industrial rather than craft lines. An arm of the American Communist Party, the League claimed 125,000 members before it dissolved in the late 1930s - 1929


"Solidarity" workers movement founded as a strike coordination committee at Lenin Shipyards, Gdansk, Poland. The strike launched a wave of unrest in the Soviet Union that ultimately led to its dissolution in 1991 - 1980

August 31, 1985 - The Twin Cities P-9 Support Committee brought its first food caravan to Austin, Minnesota, to aid the Hormel strikers. More than 100 tons of food was donated.

325,000 unionists gathered in Washington, D.C. for a Solidarity Day march and rally for workplace fairness and healthcare reform - 1991

And this: August 31, 1991 - More than 350,000 union members marched in sweltering weather in Washington, D.C., to demand workplace fairness and health care reform. The event was the second Solidarity Day demonstration (the first took place 10 years before, following the PATCO firings).

Detroit teachers begin what is to become a nine day strike, winning smaller class sizes and raises of up to four percent - 1999

Labor history found here: http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_8_31_2011

http://www.adn.com/2011/09/03/2048246/we-benefit-because-unions-fought.html
We benefit because unions fought for workers' rights

(snip)
Exactly 90 years ago this week, an estimated 15,000 coal miners in Logan County, W.Va., formed an armed militia to fight back against an army of police and strikebreakers backed by abusive coal operators. They wore red bandanas around their necks to identify themselves -- thus the term "redneck." Habeas corpus was suspended. More than 100 people were killed, hundreds more wounded and 985 arrested. Today, people still find old, abandoned weapons in the woods -- a stark reminder of the Battle of Blair Mountain.

The year before, in 1920, detectives from Baldwin-Felts (think Blackwater) arrived via the morning train in Matewan, W.Va., to evict families living at the Stone Mountain Coal Camp. After forcing several families from their homes, the detectives ate dinner and then walked back to the train station. Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield, an ardent supporter of the miners' struggle to organize, intervened on their behalf. Chief Hatfield attempted to arrest the evictors from Baldwin-Felts. Detective Albert Felts countered with an arrest warrant for Hatfield. Matewan Mayor Cabell Testerman cried foul. All the while, struggling armed miners quietly surrounded the detectives. The ensuing clash, which killed 10, including the Felts brothers and Mayor Testerman, became known as the Matewan Massacre and was a turning point for miners' rights. Unfortunately today, the Matewan Massacre is but a footnote in history.

Six years earlier, on April 20, 1914, the Colorado National Guard attacked a tent city of 1,200 striking mine workers, riddling their canvas tents with machine guns. Dozens were killed in Colorado's Ludlow Incident, including two women and 11 children who suffocated and burned to death. Nearly 200 more would die in the strike. They rest in anonymity. The mining company evicted workers and their families and they were forced to live in tents that winter. Historian Howard Zinn described the Ludlow Massacre as "the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history."