Labor history Nov 5 Debs born, massacre 7 Wobblies killed, 50 wounded, 12,000 strike, more

November 5

Eugene V. Debs - labor leader, socialist, three-time candidate for president and first president of the American Railway Union, born - 1855

And this: November 5, 1855 - Labor leader and socialist Eugene V. Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. "The strike is a weapon of the oppressed, of men capable of appreciating justice and having the courage to resist wrong and contend for principle," he said.

Everett, Wash., massacre, at least seven Wobblies killed, 50 wounded and an indeterminate number missing - 1916

November 5, 1918 - The Farmer Labor Party appeared on the ballot in Minnesota for the first time. David Evans, a hardware merchant from Tracy, ran for governor and Tom Davis, a prominent Minneapolis labor attorney, sought the office of attorney general. Neither was elected, but a new political movement was born. The Farmer Labor campaign that year was headed by E.G. Hall, president of the Minnesota Federation of Labor.


Some 12,000 television and movie writers begin what was to become a three-month strike against producers over demands for an increase in pay for movies and television shows released on DVD and for a bigger share of the revenue from work delivered over the Internet - 2007

Labor history found here: http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_11_5_2011

My hometown.
I remember my G'Pa talking about the strikes and the Wobblies. He was born 1886.
He was a union man, all his family and his all his sons were blue collar, the sons enlisted during WW2.
I remember growing up in Everett in the 50's, it was surrounded by pulp and paper mills and logs were sent down the river. NO pollution laws, lots of smog.
Almost everyone was dependent at one level or the other on the mills and the small port in that town.
A boy grew to manhood virtually certain that he would go to work in the mills like his father and his grandfather had.
They made a good living, women stayed home and raised the kids, you could afford to buy a house, have a car, and few people had any notion of going deeply in debt or charging anything longer than a week's tab at the grocery store, which was always paid on payday, on Friday. Interest free, of course.