Vol. 80/No. 17      May 2, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

May 3, 1991

The U.S. Congress acted swiftly April 17 to force railroad workers back to work ending a strike against major freight carriers across the country.

The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly, 400-5, and was followed by approval without dissent in the Senate to halt the 19-hour-long strike. The emergency legislation was then signed by President George Bush.

Under the Railway Labor Act, Congress can directly intervene to stop rail and airline strikes. Since 1963, Congress has intervened in at least 11 rail strikes.

In the weeks leading up to the deadline, solidarity rallies involving hundreds of unionists and supporters were held for rail workers in Wyoming, Nebraska, New York, Virginia, Illinois, Washington and elsewhere.

On April 17, 235,000 members of eight rail unions struck freight carriers, including Burlington Northern, CSX, Chicago and North Western, and Norfolk Southern.

May 2, 1966

HAYNEVILLE, Ala. — For the first time since Reconstruction, large numbers of Alabama Negroes will be voting this year. Some Negro leaders in the state are doing all they can to corral the Negro vote for the Democratic Party. But in at least one county, Lowndes, the Negro people have decided they are going to organize their own party, and run their own candidates.

In February 1965, four SNCC workers entered Lowndes Country, and started working with local people who had begun registering Negroes. In the course of struggling to register, and protesting inadequate schools, unpaved roads, and police brutality, the people of Lowndes County decided that they needed their own political party. They wanted to elect their own sheriff, and to control the courthouse and the local government. So they decided to build their own political organization, independent of the Republican and Democratic parties to put their candidates in office.

May 3, 1941

TRENTON, N.J. — A fighting picket line of thousands of workers has defeated the attempts of the bosses and local police to smash by violence the strike of 6,000 members of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (CIO) employed at the plants of the Roebling Steel and Wire Company here and in Roebling, New Jersey.

With the aid of hundreds of union brothers from Trenton, the Roebling workers rallied their ranks, after company police had smashed a thin picket line by turning four high pressure fire hoses on the pickets, and forced the sheriff of Burlington County to disarm his deputies and take them out of town.

Both plants are shut down completely, a back-to-work movement organized by the Company in Roebling has been broken, and the strike is more solid than at any time since its beginning on April 25.  
 
 
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