Today in Labor History May 19, 1928: A coal-mine exploded in Mather, Pennsylvania, killing 195. It was the seventh worst mining disaster in U.S. history and the second worst in Pennsylvania history. The disaster was likely caused by a methane and dust explosion triggered by an arc from a battery-powered locomotive.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #disaster #WorkplaceDeaths #disaster #pennsylvania
Today in Labor History April 24, 2013: An eight-story garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed. The disaster killed 1,129 workers and injured 2,515. A day earlier, someone noticed cracks in the structure. However, factory officials, who had contracts with Benneton and other major U.S. labels, insisted the workers return to the job.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #workplacedeaths #bangladesh #GarmentWorkers #workplacesafety
Today in Labor History April 16, 1947: 581 workers died in Texas City, Texas, on Galveston Bay, in the deadliest industrial disaster in U.S. history. 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, on board a ship docked in the port of Texas City, detonated and set off a chain reaction of explosions and fires on other ships and nearby oil storage facilities. Thousands were seriously injured. As a result, changes in chemical manufacturing and new regulations for the bagging, handling, and shipping of chemicals were enacted.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #texas #galveston #explosion #disaster #workplacesafety #workplacedeaths
Today in Labor History April 5, 2010: Twenty-nine coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. In 2015, Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was convicted of a misdemeanor for conspiring to willfully violate safety standards and was sentenced to one year in prison. He was found not guilty of charges of securities fraud and making false statements. Investigators also found that the U.S. Department of Labor and its Mine Safety and Health Administration were guilty of failing to act decisively, even after Massey was issued 515 citations for safety violations at the Upper Big Branch mine in 2009, prior to the deadly explosion.
So, the U.S. Dept of Labor, back when the U.S. staffed and funded its regulatory agencies, allowed a murderous boss to get away with 515 safety violations, resulting in the deaths of 29 miners, without any consequences for its bosses. And the courts gave the murderous CEO of Massey Energy a year in a Country Club prison for those same 29 worker deaths. But they’re gonna try Luigi Mangione for first-degree murder and seek the death penalty because he supposedly killed a murderous white-collar crook?
As they say, there is no Justice for the working-class; but there’s plenty of “Just Us” for the wealthy, as in court rulings just for them; subsidies and tax right-offs just for them; elite clubs and resorts just for them; and the right, just for them, to kill their workers and consumers in the pursuit of profits.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #explosion #workplacedeaths #coal #westvirginia #workplacesafety #profits #workersafety
Today in Labor History: March 28, 1968: Martin Luther King led a march of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Police attacked the workers with mace and sticks. A 16-year old boy was shot. 280 workers were arrested. He was assassinated a few days later after speaking to the striking workers. The sanitation workers were mostly black. They worked for starvation wages under plantation like conditions, generally under racist white bosses. Workers could be fired for being one minute late or for talking back, and they got no breaks. Organizing escalated in the early 1960s and reached its peak in February, 1968, when two workers were crushed to death in the back of a garbage truck.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #memphis #union #strike #racism #MartinLutherKing #assassination #PoliceBrutality #WorkplaceDeaths #police #tennessee #wages
Today in Labor History March 25, 1947: A coal mine exploded in Centralia, Illinois killing 111. American folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote and recorded a song about the Centralia disaster called “The Dying Miner.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4pShnMe6Rk
#workingclass #LaborHistory #centralia #coal #mine #disaster #woodyguthrie #mining #coal #WorkplaceDeaths #folkmusic #miners #illinois
Today in Labor History March 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City killed 146 people, mostly immigrant women and young girls who were working in sweatshop conditions. As tragic as this fire was for poor, working class women, over 100 workers died on the job each day in the U.S. in 1911. What was most significant was that this tragedy became a flash point for worker safety and public awareness of sweatshop conditions.
The Triangle workers had to work from 7:00 am until 8:00 pm, seven days a week. The work was almost non-stop. They got one break per day (30 minutes for lunch). For this they earned only $6.00 per week. In some cases, they had to provide their own needles and thread. Furthermore, the bosses locked the women inside the building to minimize time lost to bathroom breaks.
A year prior to the fire, 20,000 garment workers walked off the job at 500 clothing factories in New York to protest the deplorable working conditions. They demanded a 20% raise, 52-hour work week and overtime pay. Over 70 smaller companies conceded to the union’s demands within the first 48 hours of the strike. However, the bosses at Triangle formed an employers’ association with the owners of the other large factories. Soon after, strike leaders were arrested. Some were fined. Others were sent to labor camps. They also used armed thugs to beat up and intimidate strikers. By the end of the month, almost all of the smaller factories had conceded to the union. By February, 1910, the strike was finally settled.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #TriangleShirtwaistFire #workplacedeaths #strike #union #immigrant #sweatshop #childlabor #workplacesafety #fire #women #prison #newyork
Vancouver memorial honours lives lost in B.C. workplaces
Dozens of people and dignitaries, including Premier David Eby, were in attendance at the Bentall Memorial, reflecting on the catastrophic incident.
#accident #workplace #death #memorial #Vancouver #BC #Politics #bentallmemorial #WorkplaceDeaths #WorkSafeBC
https://globalnews.ca/news/10946859/bc-workplace-death-memorial/
Vancouver memorial honours lives lost in B.C. workplaces
Dozens of people and dignitaries, including Premier David Eby, were in attendance at the Bentall Memorial, reflecting on the catastrophic incident.
#accident #workplace #death #memorial #Vancouver #BC #Politics #bentallmemorial #WorkplaceDeaths #WorkSafeBC
https://globalnews.ca/news/10946859/bc-workplace-death-memorial/
Vancouver memorial honours lives lost in B.C. workplaces
Dozens of people and dignitaries, including Premier David Eby, were in attendance at the Bentall Memorial, reflecting on the catastrophic incident.
#accident #workplace #death #memorial #Vancouver #BC #Politics #bentallmemorial #WorkplaceDeaths #WorkSafeBC
https://globalnews.ca/news/10946859/bc-workplace-death-memorial/
Today in Labor History September 6, 1869: The Avondale fire killed 110 miners, including several juveniles under the age of 10. It led to the first mine safety law in Pennsylvania. Avondale is near Plymouth, Pennsylvania. The Susquehanna River flows nearby. The mine had only one entrance, in violation of safety recommendations at the time. In the wake of the fire, thousands of miners joined the new Workingmen’s Benevolent Association, one of the nation’s first large industrial unions (and precursor to the United Mineworkers and the Knights of Labor). My book, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” opens with this fire. My main character, Mike Doyle, joins the bucket brigade trying to put out the flames shooting out of the mineshaft.
You can get a copy of Anywhere But Schuylkill from any of these indie retailers:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/
https://christophersbooks.com/
https://boundtogether.org//
Or from https://www.amazon.com/Anywhere-but-Schuylkill-Michael-Dunn-ebook/dp/B0CJVW1BP2
#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #coal #avondale #disaster #workplacedeaths #workersafety #union #historicalfiction #novel #books #author #writer #anywherebutschuylkill #mining #childlabor @bookstadon
Today in Labor History September 2, 1991: 25 workers were killed by a fire at the nonunion Imperial Foods poultry processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. Bosses had locked the doors in violation of the law, leaving the workers no escape.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #hamlet #foodprocessing #foodworkers #workingconditions #workplacedeaths #workplacesafety #northcarolina
Today in Labor History July 7, 1931: Construction began on the Hoover dam. 16 workers and camp residents died from heat exhaustion during a single month of construction. Temperatures routinely soared over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Several strikes led to nominal improvements in working conditions. Thousands of men were employed in the highly segregated project. Only 30 African Americans were allowed to work at any given time and Chinese workers were officially excluded. The Wobblies (IWW) tried to organize the men and sent in 11 organizers who were promptly arrested. Eugene Nelson, a Wobbly hobo, writes about it in his wonderful biographical novel, “Break Their Haughty Power.”
#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #organizing #hooverdam #workplacesafety #workplacedeaths #racism #immigration #segregation #author #writer #books #fiction #novel @bookstadon
Today in Labor History April 24, 2013: An eight-story garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed. The disaster killed 1,129 workers and injured 2,515. A day earlier, someone noticed cracks in the structure. However, factory officials, who had contracts with Benneton and other major U.S. labels, insisted the workers return to the job.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #WorkplaceDeaths #bangladesh #GarmentWorkers
Today In Labor History April 8, 1911: 128 convict miners, mostly African-Americans jailed for minor offenses, were killed by a massive explosion at the Banner coalmine near Birmingham, Alabama. While the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which occurred just two weeks earlier, elicited massive public attention and support for the plight of immigrant women working in sweatshop conditions, the Banner explosion garnered almost no public sympathy, probably due to racism and the fact that they were prisoners.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #prison #prisonlabor #racism #coal #mine #immigrants #prisoner #WorkplaceDeaths #slavelabor #slavery #workplacesafety #alabama #BlackMastadon #triangleshirtwaist #fire #explosion
Today in Labor History April 5, 2010: Twenty-nine coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. In 2015, Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was convicted of a misdemeanor for conspiring to willfully violate safety standards and was sentenced to one year in prison. He was found not guilty of charges of securities fraud and making false statements. Investigators also found that the U.S. Department of Labor and its Mine Safety and Health Administration were guilty of failing to act decisively, even after Massey was issued 515 citations for safety violations at the Upper Big Branch mine in 2009, prior to the deadly explosion.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #explosion #massey #WorkplaceSafety #WorkplaceDeaths #coal #WestVirginia
Today in Labor History March 30, 1930: Three thousand workers, mostly African-American, began construction on the Hawks Nest Tunnel in West Virginia. The employer cut costs by failing to provide safety equipment. Additionally, bosses forced the men to work 10-15-hour days, often at gunpoint, without breaks and without masks to protect themselves from the silicon dust. Consequently, hundreds of workers died of silicosis. Possibly over 1,000 people, one-third of the entire workforce, died from silicosis, in one of America’s worst cases of mass workplace mortality.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #workplaceinjury #WorkplaceDeaths #HawksNest #racism #silicosis #forcedlabor #slavery #BlackMastadon #PPE #africanamerican
Today in Labor History: March 28, 1968: Martin Luther King led a march of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Police attacked the workers with mace and sticks. A 16-year old boy was shot. 280 workers were arrested. He was assassinated a few days later after speaking to the striking workers. The sanitation workers were mostly black. They worked for starvation wages under plantation like conditions, generally under racist white bosses. Workers could be fired for being one minute late or for talking back, and they got no breaks. Organizing escalated in the early 1960s and reached its peak in February, 1968, when two workers were crushed to death in the back of a garbage truck.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #memphis #strike #racism #MartinLutherKing #assassination #PoliceBrutality #WorkplaceDeaths #police #tennessee #wages
Today in Labor History March 25, 1947: A coal mine exploded in Centralia, Illinois killing 111. American folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote and recorded a song about the Centralia disaster called “The Dying Miner.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4pShnMe6Rk
#workingclass #LaborHistory #centralia #coal #mine #disaster #woodyguthrie #mining #coal #WorkplaceDeaths #folkmusic #miners #illinois
Today in Labor History March 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City killed 146 people, mostly immigrant women and young girls who were working in sweatshop conditions. As tragic as this fire was for poor, working class women, over 100 workers died on the job each day in the U.S. in 1911. What was most significant was that this tragedy became a flash point for worker safety and public awareness of sweatshop conditions.
The Triangle workers had to work from 7:00 am until 8:00 pm, seven days a week. The work was almost non-stop. They got one break per day (30 minutes for lunch). For this they earned only $6.00 per week. In some cases, they had to provide their own needles and thread. Furthermore, the bosses locked the women inside the building to minimize time lost to bathroom breaks.
A year prior to the fire, 20,000 garment workers walked off the job at 500 clothing factories in New York to protest the deplorable working conditions. They demanded a 20% raise, 52-hour work week and overtime pay. Over 70 smaller companies conceded to the union’s demands within the first 48 hours of the strike. However, the bosses at Triangle formed an employers’ association with the owners of the other large factories. Soon after, strike leaders were arrested. Some were fined. Others were sent to labor camps. They also used armed thugs to beat up and intimidate strikers. By the end of the month, almost all of the smaller factories had conceded to the union. By February, 1910, the strike was finally settled.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #TriangleShirtwaistFire #workplacedeaths #strike #union #immigrant #sweatshop #childlabor #workplacesafety #fire
