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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

115 YEARS AGO « Teachers Fight Back

115 YEARS AGO « Teachers Fight Back:


115 YEARS AGO

A hundred and fifteen years ago, in 1897, a strike by coal miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia ended with the miners winning an eight-hour workday. (The previous day, 20 Pennsylvania miners were killed when sheriff’s deputies fired on them.)
I posted the above, lest we forget that every major benefit and working condition ever gained by working men and women in this country came at a very high cost. If you have a working knowledge of the history of the labor movement in this country, you can’t help but be a little suspicious of the motives of those who aggressively oppose collective bargaining and the right to strike.
On an unrelated note, I’m getting increasingly irritated with Chicagoans who have been calling radio shows and news programs and voicing their disgust with the teachers. Of course they all seem to be experts on teachers,