On this day in Labor History the year was 1878. That was the day that socialist author Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland. A prolific writer, Sinclair wrote nearly 100 books and other publications. Upton Sinclair’s father and father’s relatives had been wealthy Southerners.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. More than 400,000 union members marched in labor’s first Solidarity Day demonstration in Washington, D.C. The demonstration was called by the AFL-CIO to protest the Reagan administration’s policies and the firing of striking air traffic controllers.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1830. That was the day that “Tom Thumb,” the first locomotive built in the U.S. raced a horse on a nine-mile course in Maryland.

On this day in labor history, the year was 1947.

That was the day workers at the International Harvester plant in Louisville, Kentucky had had enough.

They had just rejected a pay scale lower than that of Harvester workers elsewhere.

In her recent article for Leo Weekly, historian Toni Gilpin refers to the lower pay as the “Southern Differential.”

Harvester workers walked off the job in a 40-day strike.

Black and white Louisville workers were united in a rare form of solidarity.

International Harvester had had a long labor-hating history.

Its forerunner had been the McCormick Reaper Works, the site that sparked the 1886 Haymarket incident in Chicago.

Harvester had been able to keep the unions out until the Farm Equipment Workers/CIO finally organized there in 1941.

And the FE followed Harvester as they attempted to escape to the union-free South.

The FE successfully organized the new Louisville plant, just two months before the strike.

Workers learned quickly that they were paid much less making the same equipment as their brothers in Chicago, Indianapolis and elsewhere.

Gilpin adds that FE literature forthrightly stated, “Once the Negro and white workers were united, the low-wage system of the South would collapse.”

Workers pressed for their demands, and appealed to area farmers for support.

They stressed that farmers would not pay less for equipment, simply because local workers were paid less.

Black and white workers picketed together, ate together and planned their strike together at their new union hall.

Harvester initially tried to redbait FE leaders.

When that failed, the company was forced to grant steep wage increases.

Gilpin cites FE News, which reported “two smashing victories in hand, one over International Harvester, the other over the Mason-Dixon, low-wage line.”

On this day in labor history, the year was 1945.

That was the day oil workers walked off the job.

The strike soon spread to 20 states and involved more than 43,000 workers at 22 oil companies.

After years of wartime wage freezes, the union’s demand was 52 for 40—fifty-two hours pay for 40 hours work.

Workers demanded a 30% pay increase, shift differentials and an eventual return to the 36-hour workweek.

The strike began in Michigan at the Socony-Vacuum refinery in Trenton.

From there it spread to Gulf, Sinclair and Shell.

By October 4, President Truman signed executive order 9639, allowing the Secretary of the Navy to seize petroleum operations.

The Oil Workers International Union/CIO immediately called off the strike and ordered its members back to work.

A month later, the Navy had still not relinquished control of operations.

The union considered Truman’s seizure a betrayal.

There was no mechanism put in place to settle the dispute or consider workers demands.

By January 1946, the Oil Panel, created by the Secretary of Labor, finally awarded oil workers an 18% wage increase.

Though disappointed, the union considered it a victory.

They asserted the strike action was significant on a number of levels.

The first nationwide industry strike had just forced the oil companies to meet with the union for the first time.

The OWI believed the groundwork for industry-wide bargaining had finally been established.

It had been the first post-war strike and had forced the government to begin moving away from wartime wage controls.

Of the post-war strikes, it won the largest pay increase.

And importantly, it broke the power of Standard Oil to dictate wages to the industry through its dealings with its “independent union.”

That was the day 350,000 GM workers kicked off a 67-day strike.

It was the largest auto strike since the end of World War II.

According to historian Jefferson Cowie, it was likely the costliest.

In his book, Stayin’ Alive, Cowie notes that the strike cost GM a billion dollars in profits and nearly bankrupted the union.

But he adds it “lacked the proletarian drama that fired journalists’ hearts.”

For Cowie, it was an example of labor-management cooperation, “a civilized affair.”

But historian Jeremy Brecher points out that The Wall Street Journal drew different conclusions about the strike at the time.

In a series of articles, the paper noted that labor-management cooperation during the strike served ironically, to get workers back to work.

A long and costly strike served a number of functions.

It wore down strikers’ expectations.

After eight or ten weeks, workers would be amenable to terms they initially rejected.

It also provided an escape valve for built up frustration over working conditions.

And a long strike served to coalesce internal union factions around a common enemy, strengthening the union’s leadership in the process.

For management, a long and costly strike leant hope that workers would be reluctant to strike in the future.

But Brecher notes, these ideas about workers motives nearly backfired.

Strikers simply wouldn’t budge on their demands.

They made gains in wages, pensions and cost of living allowances.

And they were finally able to retire after 30 years.

But critics argued the agreement fell short of initial demands.

And workers lacked more say in the workplace.

This would be a key issue in the many strikes and wildcats in the years to come.

That was the day Illinois Governor Frank Lowden hoped to meet with striking streetcar men in an effort to end their strike.

Transit workers in Springfield, the state’s capitol, had been off the job since July 25th.

But the strike had gained so much support that Springfield had now erupted into a full blown general strike.

According to the Sangamon County Historical Society, thousands of “union members shut down mines, railroads, bakeries, restaurants, laundries and construction sites… following the violent crackdown of a pro-labor march by state police and militia.”

That march had been scheduled for September 9.

The unions hoped to show support for the striking streetcar men after a number of clashes between strikers and state militia.

After they were denied a permit, many of the 50 or so unions decided to march anyway, and were attacked.

Some were shot, more than 40 suffered bayonet-inflicted injuries.

By the 11th, most everyone in Springfield had walked off the job.

Striking women shoe factory workers stopped a streetcar, pulling the scab drivers off by force.

By the end of the week, as many as 12,000 members of 34 unions in the city were on strike.

When telephone operators walked off the job, they paralyzed communications of the scab streetcar drivers and the State National Guardsmen.

The streetcar strikers refused to meet with the governor until troops were withdrawn from the city.

The governor insisted disloyal, pro-German forces were at fault for the “labor troubles.”

By the 16th, the streetcar men agreed to negotiate and the general strike was called off.

But the company refused to meet striker demands for recognition and higher wages or even to take them back.

That was the day Rhode Island Governor Theodore Green demanded that federal troops be sent to crush a textile strike in his state.

The General Textile Strike, then in its second week, stretched across the Piedmont from New England to Georgia.

Green declared, “We are face to face, not with a textile strike but with a communist uprising.”

His demands came after days of pitched battles between thousands of strikers and the Rhode Island National Guard in Saylesville and Woonsocket.

Secretary of War George Dern assured the governor and the press that 3,000 combat troops were ready and available for immediate duty in Rhode Island.

President Roosevelt declined to send federal troops.

But the state assembly authorized the governor to close the mills and appropriated $100,000 in funds to beef up state police forces.

The governor then directed Rhode Island’s police chiefs to round up all communists on charges of inciting riots in textile centers across the state.

It gave local authorities the pretext to round up and arrest over 200 alleged agitators, strike leaders, militants and radicals.

Over the course of four days, three strikers had been killed, including Charles Gorcynski at Saylesville and Jude Courtemanche, at Woonsocket.

Hundreds had been seriously injured in the two cities.

Seven of the sixteen strikers who had been shot by state troops were near death.

State National Guardsmen had been given “shoot to kill” orders to protect textile mills and scabs.

Once the Governor shut down the mills, police forces easily arrested dozens of flying squadron picketers and established martial law like conditions, though it was never officially established.

Within days, the strike would be quelled in Rhode Island.