On this day in labor history, the year was 1922.
That was the day 1300 workers from the four railroad brotherhoods walked off the job in Joliet, near Chicago.
The walkout threatened to paralyze freight service for steel mills in nearby Gary and other regional industries.
Four hundred thousand railroad shopmen had been on strike across the country for nearly seven weeks.
Newspaper headlines that day warned a general strike of two million trainmen loomed on the horizon.
Brotherhood leaders promised sympathy strikes in response to threats made against their members by troops on duty at railroad centers and yards.
There were also real concerns about the health and safety of trainmen, given rolling stock was no longer being maintained.
In Joliet, workers stayed away under threats from troops.
Additionally, Illinois Central trainmen faced threats from striking miners throughout Kentucky and Illinois, who warned:
“Stop transporting non-union coal or suffer the consequences.”
Resentment had been building against state guard troops stationed in Illinois yards.
Earlier in the week, striking shopmen had engaged in a fatal confrontation with Joliet sheriffs that left a striker and railroad detective dead and scores injured.
Riot orders were called when authorities sought to arrest striking shopmen who had stormed the home of a scab.
Brotherhood workers refused to return to work unless troops were removed.
Warren Stone, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers stated: “We are not going to have our men shot up or beaten up or threatened by armed guards at railroad shops and yards.
When the men cannot go to work without having irresponsible armed guards endangering their lives, they may go home and stay there.
There will be 100 more cases soon if conditions are not changed.”
May 4 - UE Beats Back HUAC in Dayton
May 3 - First Workers Compensation Law is Passed
May 2 - Our Thing is DRUM!
May 1 - Mayday Marchers Attacked in Cleveland
April 30 - Refinery Workers Walk Off the Job
April 29 - Allis-Chalmers and the Road to Taft-Hartley
April 28 - OSHA Goes Into Effect
April 27 - Disaster in West Virginia
April 26 - National Guard Ousts Montgomery Ward CEO
April 25 - UAW Mobilizes Against Taft-Hartley
April 24 - The California Spinach Riot
April 23 - Sitting Down for Dignity at Ford
April 22 - The Red Jacket Mine Explosion
April 21 - The Hated Taylor Law Takes Effect
April 20 - Deepwater Horizon Explosion Kills 11
April 19 -The Daughters of Mother Jones
April 18 - We Have Fed You All A thousand Years
April 17 - Fatal Explosion in West, Texas
April 16 - Jacob Coxey is Born
April 15 - Telephone Girls Cripple New England Bell
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