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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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