Today in labor history for the week of May 12, 2008

May 12
Laundry & Dry Cleaning International Union granted a charter by the AFL-CIO - 1958

International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots merges with Longshoremens’ Association - 1971

May 13
Western Federation of Miners formed in Butte, Mont. - 1893

The Canadian government establishes the Department of Labour. It took the U.S. another four years - 1909

10,000 IWW dock workers strike in Philadelphia - 1913

May 15
The first labor bank opens in Washington, D.C., launched by officers of the Machinists. The Locomotive Engineers opened a bank in Cleveland later that year - 1920

Death of IWW song writer T-Bone Slim, New York City - 1942

May 16
Minneapolis general strike backs Teamsters, who are striking most of the city’s trucking companies - 1934

U.S. Supreme Court issues Mackay decision, which permits the permanent replacement of striking workers. The decision had little impact until Ronald Regan’s replacement of striking air traffic controllers (PATCO) in 1981, a move that signalled antiunion private sector employers that it was OK to do likewise - 1938

Black labor leader and peace activist A. Philip Randolph dies. He was president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and first black on the AFL-CIO executive board, and a principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington - 1979

May 17
First women’s anti-slavery conference, Philadelphia - 1838

Supreme Court outlaws segregation in public schools - 1954

May 18
Amalgamated Meat Cutters union organizers launch a campaign in the nation’s packinghouses, a campaign that was to bring representation to 100,000 workers over the following two years - 1917

Big Bill Haywood, a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies), dies in exile in the Soviet Union - 1928

Insurance Agents International Union and Insurance Workers of America merge to become Insurance Workers International Union (later to merge into the UFCW) - 1959

Oklahoma jury finds for the estate of atomic worker Karen Silkwood, orders Kerr-McGee Nuclear Co. to pay $505,000 in actual damages, $10 million in punitive damages for negligence leading to Silkwood’s plutonium contamination - 1979

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