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PODCAST

Labor History in 2:00

The Rick Smith Show

A daily, pocket-sized history of America"s working people, brought to you by The Rick Smith Show team.

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All Episodes

1:59

October 26 - The Erie Canal is Completed

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/26

On this day in Labor History the year was 1825. That was the day the construction of the Erie Canal was completed. The 363 mile canal connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, by way of the Hudson River. The project was started in 1817.

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1:59

October 25 - NY Daily News on Strike

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/25

On this day in Labor History the year was 1990. That was the day that eight of the ten unions at the New York Daily News went out on strike. The paper had had one of the highest daily circulations in the United States. The New York Daily News was owned by the Chicago-based Tribune Company. The strike began when management demanded major concessions from the delivery drivers, essentially forcing them to strike. Seven more unions joined them on the picket line. In retaliation management brought in

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1:59

October 24 - The Minimum Wage Law Goes into Effect

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/24

On this day in Labor History the year was 1934. That was the day that the first minimum wage law went into effect in the United States. The minimum was twenty-five cents an hour. The wage law was part of the Fair Labor Standards Act passed earlier that year.

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1:59

October 23 - The Cause and Effect of Unskilled Temps

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/23

On this day in Labor History the year was 1989. At 1:05 in the afternoon a massive explosion rocked the town of Pasadena, Texas, near Houston. The explosion was so large it registered as a 3.5 on the Richter scale, used to measure earthquakes.

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1:59

October 22 - The Bosses’ Labor Board Decertifies PATCO

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/22

On this day in Labor History the year was 1981. The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority voted to decertify Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. The PATCO union had gone on strike earlier that year over wages, hours, and working conditions.

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1:59

October 21 - Organizing in Paradise

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/21

On this day in Labor History the year was 1999. That was the day that 270 workers from the Embassy Vacation Resorts in Maui voted to join Local 5 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees. Local 5 got its start in Hawaii in 1938.

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1:59

October 20 - Remembering Merle Travis

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/20

On this day in Labor History the year was 1983. That was the day that musician Merle Travis died. Known for his unique finger-picking guitar style, Travis wrote songs that captured the hard life of the coal miner.

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1:59

October 19 - In the Streets and at the Shareholder...

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/19

On this day in Labor History the year was 1980. In what the Chicago Sun Times called it the “biggest labor management war of the last two decades.” The battle for union recognition at ten J.P. Stevens’s textile plants ended in victory.

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1:59

October 18 - Walking in Their Shoes

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/18

On this day in Labor History, and we are going all the way back to 1648. More than a hundred years before the American Revolution, an early trade organization was founded in the Colony of Massachusetts. They called themselves the “Company of Shoemakers.”

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1:59

October 17 - The Making of a Monopoly

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/17

On this day in Labor History, the year was 1877. That was the day that John D. Rockefeller, and his company Standard Oil struck a deal with the Pennsylvania Railroad that would cement his monopoly on the nation’s oil refineries. In the early 1870s Rockefeller was building his oil empire out from its center in Cleveland, Ohio.

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1:59

October 16 - Striking a Blow at Slave Labor

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/16

On this day in Labor History, the year was 1859. That was the day that abolitionist John Brown led a raid at the armory in Harpers Ferry, in what is now West Virginia. His goal was to strike a blow toward ending slavery.

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1:59

October 15 - Labor’s Magna Carta

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/15

On this day in Labor History, the year was 1914. That was the day that President Woodrow Wilson signed the Clayton Antitrust Act. The act also became known as Labor’s “Magna Carta.”

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1:59

October 14 - Labor Standing in Solidarity Against Nazis

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/14

On this day in Labor History, the year was 1933. That was the day the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor decided to call for a boycott of Nazi Germany’s goods and services. Jewish labor leaders in the United States led the push for the boycott.

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1:59

October 13 - Delivering a Better Future

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/13

On this day in Labor History, the year was 2000. That was the day the newspaper carriers for the San Jose Mercury News ended their walkout. Eighty percent of the newspaper carriers were Vietnamese immigrants to the United States. Many were elderly, or recent immigrants with families.

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1:59

October 12 - Bury Me With My Boys in Mt. Olive

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/12

Bury me with my boys in Mt. Olive, and let no traitor draw breath over my grave.” Such was the last wish of labor leader Mother Jones. She wanted her final resting to place to be alongside the coal miners who gave their lives in the struggle to bring fair wages and a safe working environment to Virden, Illinois.

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1:59

October 11 - The Mother Jones Monument is Dedicated

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/11

On this day in Labor History the year was 1936. 50,000 people gathered in the small town of Mount Olive, in southern Illinois. They had come to commemorate a new memorial to renowned labor leader Mother Jones and the honor mine workers who had lost their lives. Five special trains and twenty-five Greyhound buses helped bring the crowd to the Union Miners Cemetery.

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1:59

October 10 - Murder in the Fields

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/10

On this day in Labor History the year was 1933. That was the day that forty armed cotton growers shot at a group of striking workers in the small town of Pixley, California. That year a wave of labor unrest had swept through the fields of California’s agriculture industry. Nearly 50,000 workers participated in strikes throughout the year.

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1:59

October 9 - The United Hebrew Trades is Founded

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/09

On this day in Labor History the year was 1888. That was the day that the United Hebrew Trades was founded in New York City. The new effort was patterned after the United German Trades. The goal was to organize Yiddish speaking workers.

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1:59

October 8 - The Not So Friendly Skies for Women

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/08

On this day in Labor History the year was 1986. Female flight attendants won an important legal victory. Can you imagine losing your job because you decided to get married? It might have happened if you were a flight attendant working in the mid-Twentieth century.

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2:00

October 7 - Happy Birthday, Joe Hill!

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/10/07

On this day in Labor History the year was 1879. The man who came to be known as Joe Hill was born Joel Emmanuel Hagglund in Gavle, Sweden. Hill traveled the United States organizing for the grassroots labor organization the Industrial Workers of the World.

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