July 1

Some 1,100 streetcar workers strike in New Orleans, spurring the creation of the po’ boy sandwich by a local sandwich shop owner and one-time streetcar man. "Whenever we saw one of the striking men coming," Bennie Martin later recalled, "one of us would say, ‘Here comes another poor boy.’" Martin and his wife fed any striker who showed up – 1929

Also on this date: Steel workers in Cleveland begin what was to be an 88-week strike against wage cuts. Homestead, Pennsylvania steel strike: seven strikers and three Pinkertons killed as Andrew Carnegie hires armed thugs to protect strikebreakers. Amalgamated Assn. of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers stages what is to become an unsuccessful three-month strike against U.S. Steel Corp. Subsidiaries. One million railway shopmen strike. Nat'l Assn. of Post Office & General Service Maintenance Employees, United Fed. of Postal Clerks, Nat'l Fed. of Post Office Motor Vehicle Employees & Nat'l Assn. of Special Delivery Messengers merge to become American Postal Workers Union. International Jewelry Workers Union merges with Service Employees International Union. Graphic Arts International Union merges with International Printing & Graphic Communications Union to become Graphic Communications International Union, now a conference of the Teamsters. Copper miners begin a years-long long, bitter strike against Phelps-Dodge in Clifton, AZ. Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union merges with International Ladies' Garment Workers Union to form Union of Needletrades, Industrial & Textile Employees. International Chemical Workers Union merges with United Food & Commercial Workers Int'l Union. The Newspaper Guild merges with Communications Workers of America. United American Nurses affiliate with the AFL-CIO.

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