Today in Labor History: Weekend Edition
May 18
In what may have been baseball’s first labor strike, the Detroit Tigers refuse to play after team leader Ty Cobb is suspended: he went into the stands and beat a fan who had been heckling him.  Cobb was reinstated and the Tigers went back to work after the team manager’s failed attempt to replace the players with a local college team: their pitcher gave up 24 runs - 1912
Also on this date: Amalgamated Meat Cutters union organizers launch a campaign in the nation’s packinghouses…Big Bill Haywood dies in exile in the Soviet Union…Atlanta transit workers strike against requirement that they be fingerprinted…Insurance Agents International Union and Insurance Workers of America merge…Oklahoma jury orders Kerr-McGee Nuclear Co. to pay $10 million in punitive damages for negligence leading to Karen Silkwood’s plutonium contamination… click here for complete postings.
[The Killing of Karen Silkwood is an updated edition of the groundbreaking book about the death of union activist Karen Silkwood, an employee of a plutonium processing plant, who was killed in a mysterious car crash on her way to deliver important documents to a newspaper reporter in 1974. Silkwood’s death at age 28 was highly suspicious: she had been working on health and safety issues at the plant, and a lot of people stood to benefit by her death. In the UCS bookstore now.]

May 19
Shootout in Matewan, W. Va. between striking union miners (led by Police Chief Sid Hatfield) and coal company agents. Ten died, including seven agents - 1920
Also on this date:  Explosion in Coal Creek, Tenn. kills 184 miners…Steel Workers Organizing Committee becomes the United Steelworkers of America…31 dockworkers killed, 350 workers and others injured when four barges carrying 467 tons of ammunition blow up at South Amboy, New Jersey… click here for complete postings.

May 20
The Railway Labor Act took effect today. It was the first federal legislation protecting workers’ rights to form unions - 1926
Also on this date:  9,000 rubber workers strike in Akron, Ohio

Cool Labor Site: National Committee on Pay Equity
The National Committee on Pay Equity, is a coalition of women's and civil rights organizations; labor unions; religious, professional, legal, and educational associations, and others, working to eliminate sex- and race-based wage discrimination and to achieve pay equity. http://www.pay-equity.org/

Labor Video: Raising the Harvard Bar
One of the best movie scenes ever: a brilliant working-class guy (Matt Damon) puts down a Harvard sophisticate trying to impress the girls in this clip from Good Will Hunting. Click here to watch the video.