Toledo Area Jobs with Justice

Toledo Area Jobs with Justice We are a grassroots volunteer organization committed to worker justice. Toledo JwJ is one of 40 chart

06/14/2026

"The essence of trade Unionism is social uplift. The labor movement traditionally has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor." -A. Philip Randolph, legendary American Labor leader.
Today's Labor History:
June 14:
Birth of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Printed in 1851, a landmark book depicting slavery. -1811
Philadelphia journeymen house carpenters demand a 10-hour working day (they finally get it in 1860). -1827
Steamship Pulaski blows up off the North Carolina coast, killing 140 workers and passengers. -1838
Robert M. "Fighting Bob" LaFollette born. The Wisconsin Republican Progressive Senator has been called "arguably the most important and recognized leader of the opposition to the growing dominance of corporations over the Government" and is one of the key figures in Wisconsin's long history of political liberalism. He pursued public policies to improve the lot of farmers, workers, children, and women. (Republicans, before they became the Party of the Corporations, were once leaders in progress). -1855
Unions legalized in Canada. -1872
Emma Goldman ignores rumors of a death threat, speaks at an anti-conscription meeting. Police raid and arrest all men of draft age who cannot show proof of registration. -1917
In West Virginia, which was under martial law due to ongoing violence between miners and thugs hired by the mining companies, state police and vigilantes raided the Lick Creek tent colony. 47 strikers were beaten and arrested. Within a few months, much of West Virginia would be engaged in the largest civil uprising in U.S. history, as 10,000-15,000 coal miners battled cops and scabs. -1921
The Ku Klux Klan attacked San Pedro, Calif. IWW members during a benefit for two workers killed in a railroad accident. The K*K ("good right-wing Conservative Christians") violently beat 300 Union members; kidnapped, tarred and feathered others; destroyed the Union hall and tortured two children by holding them down and scalding them with pot of hot coffee. (IWW, We never forget.). -1924
The first commercial computer, UNIVAC I, is installed at the U.S. Census Bureau. -1951
EPA bans DDT. -1972
Philadelphia Commuter Rail Workers Strike Sparked Over Failed Contract Deal. The move shuts down 13 train lines that carry commuters to the suburbs and to Philadelphia International Airport. -2014

06/13/2026

"You have got to unite in the same labor Union and in the same political party and strike and vote together, and the hour you do that, the world is yours." -Eugene V. Debs, ARU and IWW cofounder, Socialist Party of America Presidential candidate
Today's Labor History:
June 13:
Steamship SS Pennsylvania blows up on the Mississippi River, near Memphis, Tennessee, killing 160. Mark Twain (life-long union member) was working as a steersman on the SS Pennsylvania up until a few days before the explosion. He had differences with the boat’s master and resigned, but not before getting his brother a job on the vessel. Mark Twain’s brother was killed during the disaster. Understandably, Twain was haunted with this reminder the rest of his life. -1868
Butte Montana: Butte Workingmen's union forms during a strike over wage cuts from $3.50 to $3 a day at Alice and Lexington silver mines. -1878
Butte Montana: Origin of Miner's Union Day! The Bluebird Mine was the last to join the Union out of all the mines. Over the objections of the mine superintendent, the workers of the Bluebird marched down the street to the Union hall and were initiated as union members. After what was to become known as the Bluebird Incident, Butte became a closed shop allowing a middle class to develop for the first time. -1887
American Railway Union, headed by Eugene V. Debs, founded. -1893
Congress creates a Bureau of Labor, under the Interior Department. It later became independent as a Department of Labor without executive status in the Department of Commerce and Labor; in 1913 it became the Department of Labor we know today. -1884
Butte Montana: A riot erupted out at the Miner’s Union Day parade. During the riot, the Union hall is looted the safe is stolen and dynamited. Acting mayor Frank Curran was pushed out of second-story window. Frustration and mistrust had been growing for decades. In 1914, miners were being paid $3.50 a day, the same as in 1878, despite the fact that the price of copper, and company profits had more than doubled in that same time period. -1914
Tony Mazzocchi born in Brooklyn, N.Y. An activist and officer in the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, he was a mentor to Karen Silkwood, a founder of the Labor Party, and a prime mover behind the 1970 passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. -1926

06/12/2026

"Every shaking advance of mankind toward equality and justice has come from the 'Radical'." -Saul Alinsky, labor and community organizer
Today's Labor History:
June 12:
The Stevedores, Longshoremen and Riggers Union of Seattle is organized. -1886
50,000 members of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen employed in meatpacking plants walk off their jobs; demands include equalization of wages and conditions throughout U.S. plants. -1904
Butte MT: Incident at Speculator mine when Muckie McDonald encourages fellow workers to refuse to show their Union cards. Evening shift workers at Speculator and Black Rock stay out in support of protesting workers. Walkout stills 1,200 workers and starts a week of big trouble. -1914
Farmer Labor Party organized, Chicago. -1920
The U.S. Supreme Court invalidates two sections of a Florida law: one required state licensing of paid Union business agents, the other required registration with the state of all Unions and their officers. -1945
NAACP leader Medgar Evers fatally shot, Jackson, Mississippi. His murderer is not convicted until 1994. -1963
Age Discrimination in Employment Act takes effect. -1968
"Radical" Labor and community organizer Saul Alinsky dies, Carmel, California. Alinsky was hated and defamed by powerful enemies. "Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in." -1972
Major League Baseball strike begins, forces cancellation of 713 games. Most observers blamed team owners for the strike: they were trying to recover from a court decision favoring the players on free agency. -1981

06/11/2026

“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people." - President Abraham Lincoln, Progressive Republican
Today's Labor History:
June 11:
Canada: Labor Unions legalized. -1872
Great Railroad Strike begins. -1877
Pacifist, Progressive Republican, Jeannette Rankin, first women US Representative born, Missoula, Montana. -1880
Representatives from the AFL, Knights of Labor, populists, railroad brotherhoods and other trade Unions hold a unity conference in St. Louis. -1894
At the first regular convention of the American Railway Union, delegates vote unanimously to urge a boycott of Pullman cars. -1894
The US Congress passes the Employer's Liability Act (later found unconstitutional). -1906
Protecting corporate profits police shoot IWW members and AFL maritime workers who were striking against the United Fruit company in New Orleans, murdering one and wounding two. -1913
Butte Montana: Metal Mine Workers Union strike begins. The new union, formed just 6 days ago to protest the draft for World War I and the rustling card system, find special impetus following the Granite Mountain disaster of the 8th (worst disaster in US metal mining history). The Smelter workers held out until September 16th and the MMWU until December 28th. -1917
The first 40-hour work week in the U.S. was won by New York fur workers. -1926
NYC Board of Transportation takes control of the IRT and BMT subway lines. -1940
John L. Lewis dies. A legendary figure, he was president of the United Mine Workers from 1920 to 1960 and a driving force behind the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. -1969
The International Union announces that UAW Local 598 will represent workers at the Truck Plant and the seniority lists of the two plants (which had been represented by Local 659 and Local 598) will be merged as one. In about two weeks Fisher Body 2 goes out of existence. -1970
A labor dispute at the Chrysler Truck Facility erupted into a spontaneous wildcat strike lasting from June 11 through June 14. Two Dodge Truck strikers wrote, “[we wanted] to free ourselves from the tyranny of the workplace; stop being forced to sell our labor to others; stop others from having control over our lives.” For four days, the collective decision of thousands of Chrysler employees was to say no to the demands of the alarm clock, production line, bosses, union bureaucrats, judges, and cops. -1974
First baseball player's strike in major-league history begins midseason after Seattle defeats Baltimore 8-2. For two months, the nation's favorite pastime was watching negotiations between the players' union and team owners. -1981

06/10/2026

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." -Rep. Horace Mann, champion of universal public education
Today's Labor History:
June 10:
Unions legalized in Canada. -1872
A massive strike by miners occurred in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. To prevent scabs from working the mines while they were on strike, workers destroyed and seized mines. The strike was broken after the state declared martial law in order to protect low wages, deadly working conditions, long hours, and mine owner profits. -1892
79 striking Colorado Dunnville miners "deported" at gun point to Kansas.A battle two days ago between the Colorado Militia and striking miners at Dunnville ended with six labor Union members murdered and 15 taken prisoner. Dozens were arrested without warrants and held without formal charges. General Sherman Bell of the Colorado National Guard shouted - "Habeus Corpus, hell! We'll give 'em post mortems." -1904
Emma Goldman speaks, in Yiddish and English, Pittsburgh (June 10-12) on the following topics: "The Constitution," "The Idaho Outrage" (addressing the arrests of Bill Haywood, Charles Moyer, and George A. Pettibone of the Western Federation of Miners), "The General Strike," and "The False and True Conception of Anarchism." -1906
The Mayor of Monroe, Mich. organizes a vigilante mob of 1,400 armed with baseball bats and teargas to break the organizing picket line of 200 striking workers at Newton Steel. Several picketers are hospitalized. 16 workers’ cars were vandalized, 5 cars overturned, and 8 more were dumped into the River Raisin. -1937
U.S. Supreme Court rules in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. that preliminary work activities, controlled by the employer and performed entirely for the employer's benefit, are properly included as working time. The decision is known as the "portal to portal case". -1946
President Kennedy signs a law mandating equal pay to women who are performing the same jobs as men (Equal Pay Act). -1963

06/09/2026

"The Radical does not sit frozen by cold objectivity. He sees injustice and strikes at it with hot passion." -Saul Alinsky, founder of modern community organizing
Today's Labor History:
June 9:
Helen Marot is born in Philadelphia to a wealthy family. She went on to organize the Bookkeepers, Stenographers and Accountants Union in New York, and to organize and lead the city's 1909-10 Shirtwaist Strike. In 1912, she was a member of a commission investigating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. -1865
American Railway Union convenes in Chicago, representing 465 local Unions. On the 26th they call a sympathy strike for Pullman workers. "The dance of the skeletons bathed in human tears - goes on forever unless you, the American Railway Union, stop it; end it; crush it out!" Jennie Curtis, Pres. ARU Local 269. -1894
Anti-anarchist law passed. -1902
Canada: Winnipeg city council dismisses the police force amidst the General Strike. -1919
Joseph Welch asks US Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis) "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" during Senate hearings. Overnight, McCarthy's immense national popularity evaporated. McCarthy was censured by the Senate, ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press, he died alone (of alcoholism) the shame of the nation, . -1954
Poland: Following General Jaruzelski's declaration of martial law, aimed at suppressing independent labor Union activity, people in the city of Lodz demonstrate their disgust for the lies propagated by the official government television news by taking a daily promenade timed to coincide exactly with the broadcast. The Unions will soon bring down Communist rule in Poland. -1983

06/08/2026

"If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the Capitalist class whipped." -Big Bill Haywood, Legendary Labor leader, WFM, IWW
Today's Labor History:
June 8:
The "Founding Father of the American Revolution" Thomas Paine dies. Paine was an advocate for a social welfare state, strong social safety nets, and a liberal world view. His pamphlet "Common Sense" was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain." Washington had Paine's "The American Crisis" read to his troops for inspiration on their way to victory in Trenton. -1809
The earliest recorded strike by Chinese immigrants to the U.S. occurred when stonemasons brought to San Francisco to build the 3-story Parrott granite building, made from Chinese prefabricated blocks, struck for higher pay. -1852
Colorado Militia attack striking mine workers at Dunnville ends with 6 WFM Union members dead and 15 taken prisoner. 79 of the strikers are deported to Kansas, courtesy of Rockefeller - who owns the state government, judges and a well armed and funded militia all of which do his bidding without question. -1904
Butte, Montana: Granite Mountain Mine Disaster, also known as the Speculator Mine Fire, kills 168 in worst disaster in American metal mining history. "An appalling site that caused the strongest hearts to quail was the cremation of 2 men who were trapped like rats in a double-decked cage about 20 feet above the collar of the shaft, with flames flying from the shaft like a gigantic torch around them. -The Butte Miner." -1917
Rose Bonavita (Rosie the Riveter) and Jennie Fiorito set a record by driving 3,345 rivets in one shift at a Tarrytown, NY aircraft factory. -1943
35,000 members of the Machinists Union begin what is to become a 43-day strike, the largest in airline history, against 5 carriers. The mechanics and other ground service workers wanted to share in the airlines’ substantial profits they helped create. -1966
New York City drawbridge tenders, in a dispute with the state over pension issues, leave a dozen bridges open, snarling traffic in what the Daily News described as "the biggest traffic snafu in the city's history" -1971

06/07/2026

"Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the most - that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most menial tasks, have the least." -Eugene V. Debs, co-founder ARU and IWW
Today's Labor History:
June 7:
United Colonies change name to United States. -1775
In Chicago, Emma Goldman attends the first convention of the legendary labor leader Eugene Debs's Social Democracy movement. -1898
In Cripple Creek, the National Guard violently suppresses the Western Federation of Miners strike and Martial law is declared by Gov Peabody. The Anti-Union Citizen’s Alliance brought in the National Guard, who on June 7 shot into the WFM’s Union hall. Kangaroo courts were set up and convicted and deported nearly 240 miners who refused to renounce their Union memberships. By midsummer of 1904 the strike had ended. All the mines were open and operating with non-union employees. 33 men were dead, and the Western Federation of Miners would never recover in Colorado. -1904
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW): "Pageant of Paterson Silk Strike" performed at Madison Square Garden, New York City. Created and performed by 1,000 mill workers from the silk industry strike, New York City. -1913
As textile workers strike in Gastonia, N.C. Police Chief O.F. Aderholt is accidentally killed by one of his own officers. 6 strike leaders are convicted of “conspiracy to murder” and are sentenced to jail for from 5 to 20 years. -1929
A mechanics' strike shuts down 5 major US airlines. -1966
Founding convention of the United Food and Commercial Workers. The merger brought together the Retail Clerks Int’l Union and the Amalgamated Meatcutters and Butcher Workmen of North America. -1979
Albania: 3-week General Strike ends, having brought down the government. The UITU led strike forced the investigation of the killings of pro-democracy activists, a 50% wage increase for all workers, better benefits, and better working conditions. and the end of Communist rule in Albania. -1991
George W. Bush signs a $1.35-trillion tax cut, for the rich; supposed to stimulate the economy, which quickly goes further into the tank; "Balanced Budget" and other "Free Market" right-wing-nuts have federal and state deficits blasting to new heights. In 2003 they will double down and cut taxes for the 1% again. -2001
The United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club announce the formation of a strategic alliance to pursue a joint public policy agenda under the banner of Good Jobs, A Clean Environment, and A Safer World. -2006

06/06/2026

"We can either have Democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." -Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, (Republican's voted against his nomination claiming he was a "militant crusader for social justice").
Today's Labor History: June 6:
Debtors prisons abolished. -1778
Founding of National Women's Party. In 1923 the NWP pushes an Equal Rights Amendment in Congress. -1916
The U.S. Employment Service was created. -1933
A General Strike by 12,000 autoworkers and others in Lansing, Mich., shuts down the city for a month in what was to become known as the city’s “Labor Holiday.” The strike was precipitated by the arrest of 9 workers, including the wife of the auto workers local Union president: The arrest left 3 children in the couple’s home unattended. -1937
U.S. President Harry S. Truman and American Federation of Musicians President James Petrillo perform a piano duet at the Union’s convention in Asbury Park, N.J. -1948
George Orwell's 1984 is published. "For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.” -1949
Proposition 13 passed in California, allowing commercial property owners to maintain phenomenally low property tax rates and bleed the state of revenues for education and public services. -1978
South Africa: 2 million participate in a General Strike. -1988
Labor Party founding convention opens in Cleveland, Ohio. -1996
Brazil: Rancher Jeronimo Alves Amorim is sentenced to 19 years for ordering the murder of Union leader Expedito Ribeiro de Souza. -2000

FFI, check out Labor in 2 on Facebook, or The Rick Smith Show. thg

06/05/2026

For any of you that are on Bluesky, there is a video from JWJ National from the Atlanta Confrence!

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