News

May 15

15 May, 2015

Pope Leo XIII issues revolutionary encyclical 'Rerum novarum' in defense of workers and the right to organize. Forty years later to the day, Pope Pius XI issues 'Quadragesimo anno,’ believed by many to be even more radical than Leo XIII’s - 1891

U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Samuel Gompers and other union leaders for supporting a boycott at the Buck Stove and Range Co. in St. Louis, where workers were striking for a 9-hour day. A lower court had forbidden the boycott and sentenced the unionists to prison for refusing to obey the judge’s anti-boycott injunction - 1906

The Library Employees’ Union is founded in New York City, the first union of public library workers in the United States. A major focus of the union was the inferior status of women library workers and their low salaries - 1917
(Union for Beginners: Written and profusely illustrated in a user-friendly, accessible style, Unions for Beginners lays down a simple presentation of the colorful epic story of the struggle of working people to rise from lives dominated by toil and underpaid work to becoming full-fledged participants in the American dream they helped to build. Unions for Beginners presents the history of unions and the labor movement, the principles underlying union organizing, the decline of unions in the shadow of the rising corporate state, and the resurgence in the 21st century of union activism.)

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 songwriter T-Bone Slim, New York City - 1942

Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathon Kwitney reports that AFL-CIO President George Meany, Secretary-Treasurer Lane Kirkland and other union officials are among the 60 leading stockholders in the 15,000-acre Punta Cana, Dominican Republic resort. When the partners needed help clearing the land, the Dominican president sent troops to forcibly evict stubborn, impoverished tobacco farmers and fishermen who had lived there for generations, according to Kwitney’s expose - 1973