From Wikipedia:
Union activities
After being hired at Kerr-McGee, Silkwood joined the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union local and took part in a strike at the plant. After the strike ended, she was elected to the union's bargaining committee and assigned to investigate health and safety issues. She discovered what she believed to be numerous violations of health regulations, including exposure of workers to contamination, faulty respiratory equipment and improper storage of samples. She also believed the lack of sufficient shower facilities could increase the risk of employee contamination.
In the summer of 1974, Silkwood testified to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) about these issues, alleging that safety standards had slipped because of a production speedup which resulted in employees being given tasks for which they were poorly trained. She also alleged that Kerr-McGee employees handled the fuel rods improperly and that the company falsified inspection records.
On November 5, 1974, Silkwood performed a routine self-check and found almost 400 times the legal limit for plutonium contamination. She was decontaminated at the plant and sent home with a testing kit to collect urine and feces for further analysis. Oddly, though there was plutonium on the exterior surfaces (the ones she touched) of the gloves she had been using, the gloves did not have any holes. This suggests the contamination did not come from inside the glovebox, but from some other source.
The next morning, as she headed to a union negotiation meeting, she again tested positive for plutonium. This was surprising because she had only performed paperwork duties that morning. She was given a more aggressive decontamination.
The following day, November 7, 1974, as she entered the plant, she was found to be dangerously contaminated - even expelling contaminated air from her lungs. A health physics team accompanied her back to her home and found plutonium traces on several surfaces — especially in the bathroom and the refrigerator. The house was later stripped and decontaminated. Silkwood, her partner and housemate were sent to Los Alamos National Laboratory for in-depth testing to determine the extent of the contamination in their bodies.
Debate has centered over how Silkwood became contaminated over this 3-day period. Silkwood herself asserted that she was the victim of a malicious campaign, and that the testing jars she had been given were laced with plutonium. The contamination in the bathroom would have occurred when she spilled her urine sample on the morning of November 7. It would also concur with the fact that samples she took at home had extremely high levels of contamination, whilst samples taken in 'fresh' jars at the plant and Los Alamos showed much lower contamination.
Kerr-McGee's management asserted that she had contaminated herself in order to paint the company in a negative light. According to Richard Raske's book The Killing of Karen Silkwood, security at the plant was so extremely lax that workers could easily smuggle out finished plutonium pellets. Indeed, on one occasion a worker gave his son a pellet to take to a show and tell session at school. Silkwood had previously been noted for inquiring as to the health effects of eating a pellet (an understandably unusual request). Furthermore, upon decontaminating her home, Kerr-McGee employees found several pieces of lab equipment, such as beakers and test tubes. It is theorized that her house was broken into, and the plutonium was placed in her home to further contaminate her with intent of causing her death. And at the same time, attempting to frame her for intentionally contaminating herself, so she could not pursue civil compensation from Kerr-Mcgee for her contamination.
Nonetheless, Richard Raske's book also asserts that the precise type of plutonium found in her body (soluble) came from a production area to which Silkwood had not had access for 4 months. The pellets had since been stored in the vault of the facility.
Going public
Silkwood said she had assembled a stack of documentation for her claims. She now decided to go public with this evidence, and made contact with a New York Times journalist prepared to print the story. On November 13, 1974 she left a union meeting at the Hub Cafe in Crescent. Another attendee of that meeting later testified that she did have a binder and a packet of documents at the cafe. Silkwood got into her car and headed alone for Oklahoma City, about 30 miles away, to meet with New York Times reporter David Burnham and Steve Wodka, an official of her union's national office. She never arrived.
Silkwood's death
Later that evening, Silkwood's body was found in her car, which had run off the road and struck a culvert. The car contained no documents. She was pronounced dead at the scene from a "classic, one-car sleeping-driver accident". The trooper at the scene remembers that he found one or two tablets of the sedative methaqualone in the car, and he remembers finding marijuana. The police report indicated that she fell asleep at the wheel. The coroner found 0.35 milligrams of methaqualone (Quaalude) per 100 milliliters of blood at the time of her death - an amount almost twice the recommended dosage for inducing drowsiness. There was no firm evidence of foul play, and no glass or other debris was found, ruling out the hit-and-run theory.
Some theorize that the Silkwood's blood-samples were switched out at the morgue with the blood of a different person who had the drugs in their system. And the drugs were planted in her car after she had been run off the road. But some independent investigators at the time inferred that she had been in control when her vehicle was hit from behind and forced off the road: the steering wheel was bent in a manner that showed she was prepared for the shock of the accident. The only way she would know to prepare is if she were awake and alert.
It has been theorized and was even concluded by some investigators at the scene of the crash, that Silkwood's car was rammed from behind by another vehicle and she was pushed off the road with the intent to cause an accident that would result in her death. Strange skid marks were present on the road that were confirmed to be from Silkwood's car, it was determined that they were likely caused by Silkwood desperately trying to get back onto the road after very likely being pushed by another car. The skid marks were mysteriously paved over very shortly after the accident.
Investigators also noted damage on the rear of Silkwood's vehicle that were not present before the accident according to Silkwood's friends and family. The crash was entirely a front-end collision, and there was no explanation for the damage to the rear of her vehicle. A microscopic examination of the rear of Silkwood's car clearly showed paint chips that could only have come from a rear-impact from another vehicle. Silkwood's family strongly claimed that Silkwood did not have any accidents or fender-benders with the car that they knew of, and that the 1974 Honda Civic she was driving was not a used car when it was purchased. There were not any insurance claims on the vehicle either.
The car mysteriously did not contain any documents, which relatives swore she took with her and had placed them on the seat besides her. The best explanation for this was that they were stolen from her car immediately after the crash.
Some suspect Silkwood was murdered to silence her allegations about her workplace. According to Silkwood's family, she had received several threatening phone calls very shortly before her death. Such speculation about foul play has never been substantiated.
Silkwood's organs were analyzed as part of the Los Alamos Tissue Analysis Program by request of the Atomic Energy Commission and the State Medical Examiner. Much of the radiation was in her lungs. This suggests the plutonium was inhaled. When her tissues were further examined, the second highest deposits were found in her gastrointestinal organs.
Public suspicions led to a federal investigation into plant security and safety, and a National Public Radio report about 44 to 66 pounds of misplaced plutonium. Silkwood's story emphasized the hazards of nuclear energy and raised questions about corporate accountability and responsibility. Kerr-McGee closed its nuclear fuel plants in 1975. The grounds of the Cimarron plant were still being decontaminated 25 years later.
Thursday, November 13
November 10th, The Hormel Meatpackers' Strike of 1933
I apologize for the untimely post. There was conflicting information about this strike, as it lasted for three days, from November 10th, 1933 to November 13th, and some listings suggested it started on the 13th. I wasn't able to resolve the discrepancy until I found the following fantastic passage in this indispensable book. I highly recommend it to anyone who finds this entry interesting.
From Negro and White, Unite and Fight!
By Roger Horowitz:
The IUAW's demand that it receive a formal role in the determination of wages and working conditions through union recognition and a seniority system, however, precipitated a showdown with the company. Workers grew impatient as Jay Hormel responded to the union's demands with evasive promises to "consider" the request; on the evening of September 22 the IUAW voted to go on strike the next morning to force the company's hand. When Hormel learned of the union's plans, he quickly telephoned local politicians, businessmen, and IUAW officials and summoned them to a conference in the Hormel offices adjacent to the plant.
The extraordinary all-night, face-to-face debate illuminated both Hormel's strategy and the cohesiveness of the working-class challenge to his power. He tried to curry favor with the conservative wing of the IUAW by bitterly attacking Frank Ellis as "a professional agitator, an inciter to riot, untruthful and a red" and praising O.J. Fosso as a "college graduate" who was "an intelligent, fair and upright fellow." Despite the real differences between the two union leaders, the IUAW delegation leapt to Ellis' defense and forced Hormel to discuss the issues that had produced the meeting in the first place. As the plant owner and union representatives arguied past dawn on the twenty-third, workers slowly gathered around the meeting room to see if they should report for work. At 7 A.M., "The whistle that should have sounded at this time was silent. Out in the yards men and women by the hundreds were standing." At this point Jay Hormel conceded and signed an agreement recognizing the union and the seniority system. In return, the elated IUAW delegation accepted the principle of arbitration of disputes and directed union members to report for work.
As unions discovered so often in the 1930s, recognition did not necessarily result in actual collective bargaining. Five weeks later, when the IUAW again approached Hormel and asked that their wage requests be submitted to arbitration as provided for in the September agreement, the plant owner refused. "He suggested that we go out and organize the other packing plants first, and then come back and he might consider our request," Frank Ellis recalled. "We told Mr. Hormel that we would organize the other plants, but we needed more money now; higher wages was our problem and competition was his." Angry with the company's refusal to honor its promise, a November 10 IUAW meeting voted to strike at a future but undetermined date. Immediately after the vote, hundreds of impatient workers marched over to the plant. "We told the sheep kill gang to clean the sheep," participant John Winkels recalled, "and then get the hell out of there because the strike was on." From a makeshift speakers' stand at the main plant gate, Franke Ellis told the workers, "Permit supervisors to take care of the sheep. ...Give them until tomorrow morning and then let no one in." Workers followed Ellis' advice and took control of the plant in the morning.
The strike stunned Jay Hormel and Austin's elite. They pleaded for Governor Olson to use the National Guard to evict the workers; to their dismay, the FLP governor instead came to Austin himself to mediate. Unable to open his blockaded plant, Jay Hormel admitted defeat. He brought the strike to an end by accepting binding arbitration of the wage dispute by the Minnesota Industrial Commission. The commission granted a 10 percent wage increase to the Hormel workers a month later, less than hoped for but, as Ellis reflected, "Pennies looked big in those days, plus the fact that we got a million dollars of publicity which proved very valuable, not only to our Independent Union of All Workers, but to the entire labor movement."
From Negro and White, Unite and Fight!
By Roger Horowitz:
The IUAW's demand that it receive a formal role in the determination of wages and working conditions through union recognition and a seniority system, however, precipitated a showdown with the company. Workers grew impatient as Jay Hormel responded to the union's demands with evasive promises to "consider" the request; on the evening of September 22 the IUAW voted to go on strike the next morning to force the company's hand. When Hormel learned of the union's plans, he quickly telephoned local politicians, businessmen, and IUAW officials and summoned them to a conference in the Hormel offices adjacent to the plant.
The extraordinary all-night, face-to-face debate illuminated both Hormel's strategy and the cohesiveness of the working-class challenge to his power. He tried to curry favor with the conservative wing of the IUAW by bitterly attacking Frank Ellis as "a professional agitator, an inciter to riot, untruthful and a red" and praising O.J. Fosso as a "college graduate" who was "an intelligent, fair and upright fellow." Despite the real differences between the two union leaders, the IUAW delegation leapt to Ellis' defense and forced Hormel to discuss the issues that had produced the meeting in the first place. As the plant owner and union representatives arguied past dawn on the twenty-third, workers slowly gathered around the meeting room to see if they should report for work. At 7 A.M., "The whistle that should have sounded at this time was silent. Out in the yards men and women by the hundreds were standing." At this point Jay Hormel conceded and signed an agreement recognizing the union and the seniority system. In return, the elated IUAW delegation accepted the principle of arbitration of disputes and directed union members to report for work.
As unions discovered so often in the 1930s, recognition did not necessarily result in actual collective bargaining. Five weeks later, when the IUAW again approached Hormel and asked that their wage requests be submitted to arbitration as provided for in the September agreement, the plant owner refused. "He suggested that we go out and organize the other packing plants first, and then come back and he might consider our request," Frank Ellis recalled. "We told Mr. Hormel that we would organize the other plants, but we needed more money now; higher wages was our problem and competition was his." Angry with the company's refusal to honor its promise, a November 10 IUAW meeting voted to strike at a future but undetermined date. Immediately after the vote, hundreds of impatient workers marched over to the plant. "We told the sheep kill gang to clean the sheep," participant John Winkels recalled, "and then get the hell out of there because the strike was on." From a makeshift speakers' stand at the main plant gate, Franke Ellis told the workers, "Permit supervisors to take care of the sheep. ...Give them until tomorrow morning and then let no one in." Workers followed Ellis' advice and took control of the plant in the morning.
The strike stunned Jay Hormel and Austin's elite. They pleaded for Governor Olson to use the National Guard to evict the workers; to their dismay, the FLP governor instead came to Austin himself to mediate. Unable to open his blockaded plant, Jay Hormel admitted defeat. He brought the strike to an end by accepting binding arbitration of the wage dispute by the Minnesota Industrial Commission. The commission granted a 10 percent wage increase to the Hormel workers a month later, less than hoped for but, as Ellis reflected, "Pennies looked big in those days, plus the fact that we got a million dollars of publicity which proved very valuable, not only to our Independent Union of All Workers, but to the entire labor movement."
Sunday, November 9
November 9th, the Colorado Mine Workers Strike of 1903-1904
From History of the Labor Movement in the United States by Philip S. Foner:
In 1901, Colorado was organized into a district of the United Mine Workers of America. During the next two years, the union grew, as thousands of miners, unable to endure the deplorable conditions in the coal camps, looked to unionism as a solution. In September, 1903, local delegates voted to strike unless their demands were granted. These included an eight-hour day, semi-monthly pay, the abolition of payment in company scrip, a 2,000-pound ton [the basis on which it is sold] instead of one of 2,400; and better ventilation in the mines. Only the demand for an eight-hour day was not required by statues; in fact, in the main, the miners were merely calling for the enforcement of state laws.
When the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company and the Victor Fuel Company refused to negotiate, the miners struck on November 9. Immediately, strikers' families were evicted from company houses; union organizers were arrested; and strikebreakers were rushed in, protected by company guards and state troops. After the company guards had killed and wounded several strikers, many of the strikers acquired weapons in order to defend themselves. Finally, military rule was established, financed by the coal companies, railroads, merchants, and property owners. Military arrests followed, and between four and five hundred striking miners were rounded up by the state soldiers and armed guards and loaded into two trains. One was dispatched to Kansas and the other to New Mexico. The men were unloaded in the prairies and warned to keep away from Colorado. This massive state intervention on the side of the coal companies broke the strike, and in October, 1904, it was called off.
Nothing was gained by the strike, but it did serve to intesify the anger and resentment among the miners and set the stage for an even bitterer struggle between the union and the coal companies, for between 1904 and 1913, not a single change took place to improve the conditions of the miners.
In 1901, Colorado was organized into a district of the United Mine Workers of America. During the next two years, the union grew, as thousands of miners, unable to endure the deplorable conditions in the coal camps, looked to unionism as a solution. In September, 1903, local delegates voted to strike unless their demands were granted. These included an eight-hour day, semi-monthly pay, the abolition of payment in company scrip, a 2,000-pound ton [the basis on which it is sold] instead of one of 2,400; and better ventilation in the mines. Only the demand for an eight-hour day was not required by statues; in fact, in the main, the miners were merely calling for the enforcement of state laws.
When the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company and the Victor Fuel Company refused to negotiate, the miners struck on November 9. Immediately, strikers' families were evicted from company houses; union organizers were arrested; and strikebreakers were rushed in, protected by company guards and state troops. After the company guards had killed and wounded several strikers, many of the strikers acquired weapons in order to defend themselves. Finally, military rule was established, financed by the coal companies, railroads, merchants, and property owners. Military arrests followed, and between four and five hundred striking miners were rounded up by the state soldiers and armed guards and loaded into two trains. One was dispatched to Kansas and the other to New Mexico. The men were unloaded in the prairies and warned to keep away from Colorado. This massive state intervention on the side of the coal companies broke the strike, and in October, 1904, it was called off.
Nothing was gained by the strike, but it did serve to intesify the anger and resentment among the miners and set the stage for an even bitterer struggle between the union and the coal companies, for between 1904 and 1913, not a single change took place to improve the conditions of the miners.
Saturday, November 8
November 8th, The New Orleans General Strike of 1892
From Wikipedia:
Early in 1892, streetcar conductors in New Orleans won a shorter workday and the preferential closed shop. This victory drove many New Orleans workers to seek assistance from the American Federation of Labor (AFL). As many as 30 new labor unions had been organized in the city before the summer of 1892. By late summer, 49 unions belonged to the AFL. The unions established a central labor council known as the Workingmen's Amalgamated Council that represented more than 20,000 workers. Three racially integrated unions—the Teamsters, the Scalesmen, and the Packers—made up what came to be called the "Triple Alliance." Many of the workers belonging to the unions of the Triple Alliance were African American.
On October 24, 1892, between 2,000 and 3,000 members of the Triple Alliance struck to win a 10-hour work day, overtime pay, and the preferential union shop. The Amalgamated Council wholeheartedly supported them.
The New Orleans Board of Trade, representing financial and commercial interests, appointed a committee to make decisions for the employers. The four main railways that served the city and the large cotton, sugar and rice commodity exchanges pledged their support for the Board of Trade. They helped raise a defense fund and asked the state governor to send in the militia to help break the strike. No negotiations took place during the first week.
Employers utilized race-based appeals to try to divide the workers and turn the public against the strikers. The board of trade announced it would sign contracts agreeing to the terms—but only with the white-dominated Scalesmen and Packers unions. The Board of Trade refused to sign any contract with the black-dominated Teamsters. The Board of Trade and the city's newspapers also began a campaign designed to create public hysteria. The newspapers ran lurid accounts of "mobs of brutal Negro strikers" rampaging through the streets, of African American unionists "beating up all who attempted to interfere with them," and repeated accounts of crowds of blacks assaulting lone white men and women.
The striking workers refused to break ranks along racial lines. Large majorities of the Scalesmen and Packers unions passed resolutions affirming their commitment to stay out until the employers had signed a contract with the Teamsters on the same terms offered to other unions.
Members of other unions began to call for a general strike to support the Triple Alliance. A number of meetings were held, during which sentiment proved so strong that a majority of the unions belonging to the Amalgamated Council voted in favor of a resolution calling for a general strike. A Committee of Five was formed to lead the general strike. Its members included the Cotton Screwmen's Union, the Cotton Yardmen's Union, the Printers, the Boiler Makers, and the Car Driver's Union.
Union pressure increased and a call for a general strike arose. Under the threat, some employers not party to the original dispute broke and pressed the board for negotiations. A tentative agreement collapsed and the Workingman's Council again called for a general strike, which began on November 8 after two postponements. Each of the 46 unions which joined the strike demanded the union shop and recognition of their union. Some also asked for shorter work-days or higher pay. Nearly 25,000 union members—half the city's workforce and virtually all its unionized workers—struck. Streetcars stopped running. Recently organized utility workers, against the demands of the governor and the advice of the labor committee joined the strike. The city's supply of natural gas failed on November 8, as did the electrical grid, and the city was plunged into darkness. The delivery of food and beverages immediately ceased, generating alarm among city residents. Construction, printing, street cleaning, manufacturing and even fire-fighting services ground to a halt.
On November 9, the press intensified their appeals to racial hatred. The New Orleans Times-Democrat declared that African American strikers wanted to "take over the city" (a veiled reference to black sexual assaults on white women) and that white women and children were already being harassed by black strikers.
But the press' appeal to racial hatred failed. Violent incidents never occurred, and picket lines were so quiet that the Board of Trade sent men into the streets to try to find evidence of any physical intimidation whatsoever. The employers, with assistance from the railroads, brought strikebreakers in from Galveston and Memphis. But when a call by the mayor for special deputies turned up only 59 volunteers, the employers began training their own clerks and managers for riot duty, offering to pay any costs for a state militia call-up. The mayor issued a proclamation forbidding public gatherings, essentially declaring martial law. Although the city was quiet, the Board of Trade convinced the racist Democratic Governor, Murphy J. Foster, to send in the state militia on November 10. But instead of a city under siege, militia leaders found the city calm and orderly. Governor Foster was forced to withdraw the militia on November 11.
The strength of the strike was reflected in the decline of bank clearings in New Orleans to half their pre-strike levels.
The Board of Trade agreed to binding arbitration to settle the strike. Although they balked at first, the employers agreed to sit down with both white and black union leaders.
After 48 hours of negotiations, the employers agreed to the 10-hour day and overtime pay, but not the union shop, nor would they grant recognition to the unions of the Triple Alliance. Other unions also won reduced hours and higher pay.
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