On November 10, 1933, workers at the Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota sat down on the job. Possibly the first sit-down strike in American history, the win these workers achieved helped set up the lab
This is the grave of Harry Orchard. Born Albert Horsley in 1866 in Ontario, the future Orchard was a rounder and a thug. He married and started a cheesemaking business, but then burned it for the insu
On October 18, 1981, the workers at Brown and Sharpe, one of the nation’s largest machine tool companies, went on strike at its plant in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. This strike would become t
On October 4, 1918, the T.A. Gillespie Shell Loading Plant near Sayreville, New Jersey exploded, killing approximately 100 workers making ammunition for the nation’s war effort during World War
On September 19, 1981, the AFL-CIO held Solidarity Day in Washington, D.C. This event was organized labor’s strongest reaction to the Reagan administration and although largely forgotten about t
During a few days when the headlines and thus this blog are understandably rather dominated by another, very important story, I’m still plugging away at my usual subjects, this time on the need
On September 6, 1919, New York theater owners and striking actors sign an agreement to end a bitter and acrimonious strike based around the really horrific working conditions the actors faced, transfo
My beliefs about Burning Man are well-established. Even before it was taken over by techbros, the idea of going to the desert with a bunch of other hippies, getting naked and doing whatever drugs in t