Today in Labor History March 10, 1906: Coal dust exploded at the Courrieres mine in France. 1,099 miners died. It was the second worst mining disaster of the 20th century. (1,549 miners died in the Benxihu accident in China, in 1946). As a result of the Courrieres disaster, 45,000 miners went on strike, protesting the ongoing unsafe working conditions. The authorities sent in the military, which quashed the strike.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #strike #workplacedeaths #UnsafeWorkplace #france

Today in Labor History December 29, 1970: President Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act into law. Ever since, successive administrations have whittled away at the efficacy of this agency, which was designed to protect workers. Nevertheless, a study in 2012, published in the journal “Science,” found a 9.4% reduction in workplace injuries and a 26% reduction in the cost of workplace injuries since 1970. They also found that these reductions came at no additional cost to business or consumers. A 2020 study by the “American Economic Review” found that President Obama’s press releases that named and shamed companies that were violating OSHA had the same effect on improving compliance by other companies as having 210 inspections. It makes one wonder how many fewer workplace deaths and injuries would occur with an increase in inspections and penalties, on top of naming and shaming.

In 2022, there were 5,486 fatal workplace injuries in the U.S., a 5.7 % increase from 2021, a rate of 3.7 deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers. There was a slight drop in 2023 and a significant drop in 2024. However, the data for 2024 would have been released in 2025, by the Trump administration, which has gutted OSHA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the actual number of deaths could be significantly higher.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #osha #WorkplaceSafety #WorkplaceDeaths #nixon #obama #trump

Today in Labor History September 12, 1940: An explosion at the Hercules Powder Plant armaments factory, in New Jersey, killed 51 workers and injured over 200. To this day, the cause remains unclear. However, at the time, it was blamed variously on sabotage by the Irish Republican Army or by Nazis, or just an industrial accident.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZNAOjQzc2U

#workingclass #LaborHistory #explosion #ww2 #nazis #sabotage #NewJersey #workplacedeaths

Today in Labor History September 6, 1869: The Avondale fire killed 110 miners, including several juveniles under the age of 10. It led to the first mine safety law in Pennsylvania. Avondale is near Plymouth, Pennsylvania. The Susquehanna River flows nearby. The mine had only one entrance, in violation of safety recommendations at the time. In the wake of the fire, thousands of miners joined the new Workingmen’s Benevolent Association, one of the nation’s first large industrial unions (and precursor to the United Mineworkers and the Knights of Labor). The union was ultimately destroyed through infiltration and sabotage by the Pinkertons. My book, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” opens with this fire. My main character, Mike Doyle, joins the bucket brigade trying to put out the flames shooting out of the mineshaft.

You can get a copy of Anywhere But Schuylkill from any of these indie retailers:
keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/
https://christophersbooks.com/
https://boundtogether.org//
https://www.historiumpress.com/michael-dunn

Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy!

#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #coal #avondale #disaster #workplacedeaths #workersafety #union #historicalfiction #novel #books #author #writer #anywherebutschuylkill #mining #childlabor @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 7, 1931: Construction began on the Hoover dam. 16 workers and camp residents died from heat exhaustion during a single month of construction. Temperatures routinely soared over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Several strikes led to nominal improvements in working conditions. Thousands of men were employed in the highly segregated project. Only 30 African Americans were allowed to work at any given time and Chinese workers were officially excluded. The Wobblies (IWW) tried to organize the men and sent in 11 organizers who were promptly arrested. Eugene Nelson, a Wobbly hobo, writes about it in his wonderful biographical novel, “Break Their Haughty Power.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #organizing #hooverdam #workplacesafety #workplacedeaths #racism #immigration #segregation #author #writer #books #fiction #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History May 19, 1928: A coal-mine exploded in Mather, Pennsylvania, killing 195. It was the seventh worst mining disaster in U.S. history and the second worst in Pennsylvania history. The disaster was likely caused by a methane and dust explosion triggered by an arc from a battery-powered locomotive.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #disaster #WorkplaceDeaths #disaster #pennsylvania

Today in Labor History April 24, 2013: An eight-story garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed. The disaster killed 1,129 workers and injured 2,515. A day earlier, someone noticed cracks in the structure. However, factory officials, who had contracts with Benneton and other major U.S. labels, insisted the workers return to the job.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #workplacedeaths #bangladesh #GarmentWorkers #workplacesafety

Today in Labor History April 16, 1947: 581 workers died in Texas City, Texas, on Galveston Bay, in the deadliest industrial disaster in U.S. history. 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, on board a ship docked in the port of Texas City, detonated and set off a chain reaction of explosions and fires on other ships and nearby oil storage facilities. Thousands were seriously injured. As a result, changes in chemical manufacturing and new regulations for the bagging, handling, and shipping of chemicals were enacted.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #texas #galveston #explosion #disaster #workplacesafety #workplacedeaths

Today in Labor History April 5, 2010: Twenty-nine coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. In 2015, Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was convicted of a misdemeanor for conspiring to willfully violate safety standards and was sentenced to one year in prison. He was found not guilty of charges of securities fraud and making false statements. Investigators also found that the U.S. Department of Labor and its Mine Safety and Health Administration were guilty of failing to act decisively, even after Massey was issued 515 citations for safety violations at the Upper Big Branch mine in 2009, prior to the deadly explosion.

So, the U.S. Dept of Labor, back when the U.S. staffed and funded its regulatory agencies, allowed a murderous boss to get away with 515 safety violations, resulting in the deaths of 29 miners, without any consequences for its bosses. And the courts gave the murderous CEO of Massey Energy a year in a Country Club prison for those same 29 worker deaths. But they’re gonna try Luigi Mangione for first-degree murder and seek the death penalty because he supposedly killed a murderous white-collar crook?

As they say, there is no Justice for the working-class; but there’s plenty of “Just Us” for the wealthy, as in court rulings just for them; subsidies and tax right-offs just for them; elite clubs and resorts just for them; and the right, just for them, to kill their workers and consumers in the pursuit of profits.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #explosion #workplacedeaths #coal #westvirginia #workplacesafety #profits #workersafety

Today in Labor History: March 28, 1968: Martin Luther King led a march of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Police attacked the workers with mace and sticks. A 16-year old boy was shot. 280 workers were arrested. He was assassinated a few days later after speaking to the striking workers. The sanitation workers were mostly black. They worked for starvation wages under plantation like conditions, generally under racist white bosses. Workers could be fired for being one minute late or for talking back, and they got no breaks. Organizing escalated in the early 1960s and reached its peak in February, 1968, when two workers were crushed to death in the back of a garbage truck.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #memphis #union #strike #racism #MartinLutherKing #assassination #PoliceBrutality #WorkplaceDeaths #police #tennessee #wages