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.
November 30 - Angel of the Stockyards is Born
November 29 - The Fight for $15 & A Union
November 28 - Disaster in the Mines
November 27 - Death Trap in Newark
November 26 - The Birth of William Sylvis
November 25 - Chicago Printers Walk Off the Job
November 24 - The Hollywood Ten
November 23 - The Thibodaux Massacre
November 22 - Uprising of the 20,000
November 21 - Autoworkers Join the Postwar Strike Wave
November 20 - Birth of the Time Clock
November 19 - Joe Hill’s Final Words
November 18 - Accident or Murder?
November 17 - Resisting Impressment
November 16 - NFL Players End Strike
November 15 - The IWW is Raided
November 14 - The Origins of CWA
November 13 - The Holland Tunnel Opens
November 12 - Striking Against Privatization
November 11 - Haymarket Martyrs are Executed
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