November 7

Some 1,300 building trades workers in eastern Massachusetts participated in
a general strike on all military work in the area to protest the use of
open-shop (a worksite in which union membership is not required as a
condition of employment) builders. The strike held on for a week in the face
of threats from the U.S. War Department – 1917
_[Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits: A Century of Building Trades History
follows the history of the Building and Construction Trades Department of
the AFL-CIO from the emergence of building trades councils in the age of the
skyscraper. Author Grace Palladino makes the history of the building trades
come alive, taking the reader through treacherous fights over jurisdiction
as new building materials and methods of work evolved; and describes
numerous Department campaigns to improve safety standards, work with
contractors to promote unionized construction, and forge a sense of
industrial unity among its fifteen (and at times nineteen) autonomous and
highly diverse affiliates.

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