Today in Labor History - Friday, January 21, 2011

Today in labor history for the week of January 17, 2011  

January 17
Radical labor organizer and anarchist Lucy Parsons leads hunger march in Chicago; IWW songwriter Ralph Chaplin writes "Solidarity Forever" for the march - 1915

January 18
"Take This Job and Shove It," by Johnny Paycheck, is listed by Billboard magazine as the most popular song in the U.S. - 1978

January 19
Twenty strikers at the American Agricultural Chemical Co. in Roosevelt, N.J. were shot, two fatally, by factory guards. They and other strikers had stopped an incoming train in search of scabs when the guards opened fire - 1915

3,000 members of the Filipino Federation of Labor strike the plantations of Oahu, Hawaii. Their ranks swell to 8,300 as they are joined by members of the Japanese Federation of Labor - 1920

Yuba City, Calif. labor contractor Juan V. Corona found guilty of murdering 25 itinerant farm workers he employed during 1970 and 1971 - 1973

Bruce Springsteen makes an unannounced appearance at a benefit for laid-off 3M workers, Asbury Park, NJ - 1986

January 20
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) founded - 1920

January 21
750,000 steel workers walk out in 30 states, largest strike in U.S. history to that time - 1946

Postal Workers begin four-day strike at the Jersey City, N.J. bulk and foreign mail center - 1974

600 police attack picketing longshoremen in Charleston, S.C. - 2000

January 22
Birth of Terence V. Powderly, leader of the Knights of Labor - 1849

Five hundred New York City tenants battle police to prevent evictions - 1932 

Sources:
Toil and Trouble, by Thomas R. Brooks; American Labor Struggles, by Samuel Yellen; IWW calendar, Solidarity Forever; Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor, edited by Robert E. Weir and James P. Hanlan; Southwest Labor History Archives/George Meany Center; Geov Parrish’s Radical History; workday Minnesota; Andy Richards and Adam Wright, AFL-CIO Washington DC Metro Council (graphics research).