On this day in labor history, the year was 1941.
That was the day 2500 steel workers at the Pressed Steel Car Company near McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania walked off the job.
It was the second walkout in two weeks.
Workers effectively shut down production of armor plate for the Navy, shell forgings for the Army and railroad cars used to transport military materiel.
The company had gone back on promises of holding a collective bargaining election.
Steelworkers Organizing Committee sub-regional director, Abe Martin told The Pittsburgh Press that while the union had not called the strike, workers had “walked out themselves because they are fed up with the company’s discrimination against them.”
SWOC had been trying to organize the plant for years.
But the company had engineered an election for a so-called, independent union 18 months earlier, when the complex was only operating at half capacity.
Workers walked out at the beginning of the month and ended their strike on the guarantee that negotiations for a new election would begin.
But when they returned, they found that some were stripped of seniority while others were forcibly transferred to new departments.
The day before, machine shop workers on the afternoon shift were fed up and dropped their tools.
Word spread throughout the evening and by early morning, picket lines were solid and production had come to a complete standstill.
When the company tried to force reopening of the plant after Labor Day, 1500 workers formed picket lines at the gates to stop scabbing.
They returned to work 10 days later in compliance with a request by the National Defense Mediation Board.
The NLRB rejected SWOC’s election petition two months later, but SWOC persisted and won exclusive bargaining rights the following June.
January 31 - The Big Easy Fires 7000 Teachers
January 30 - Fred Korematsu Day
January 29 - Bread & Roses Striker, Anna LoPizzo, Shot Dead
January 28 - The 1917 Bath Riots
January 27 - Bans on Yellow Dog Contracts Ruled Unconstitutional
January 26 - Sid Hatfield Stands Trial
January 25 - Solidarity Works!
January 24 - Arturo Alfonso Schomburg is Born
January 23 - If Poison Doesn’t Work, Try Briggs!
January 22 - Tragedy in the Mines & in the Union Hall
January 21 - On Strike for Health & Dignity
January 20 - The Flint Womens Emergency Brigades
January 19 - A Snapshot in Misery
January 18 - Is Colorado in America?
January 17 - Standing Against Wage Theft
January 15 - We Want to Live, Not Just Exist
January 14 - The Rise of the Bellamyites
January 13 - Johnny Cash Plays Folsom Prison
January 12 - The Cost of Wartime Industrial Peace
January 11 - Battle of the Running Bulls
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