On this day in labor history, the year was 1948.

That was the day United Electrical workers voted to strike at Univis Lens Company in Dayton, Ohio.

Univis made safety lenses and instrumental optics.

The UE was well established in area manufacturing plants.

Once organized, Univis fought the UE’s presence every chance they could.

When the contract expired at the end of April, Univis refused to negotiate.

First came the injunction limiting picketing.

This was followed by a vigorous decertification campaign

Foremen made intimidating, personal visits to workers’ homes, offering raises and personal loans to coerce ‘no’ votes.

When the UE lost the election in late July, the company announced wage increases for returning workers and firings for remaining strikers.

Workers stuck together and the strike continued.

By the 26th, police swarmed the picket lines, beating top UE organizers and arresting hundreds.

Two days later, the company offered a settlement for all but 11 strikers.

The members refused.

Then House Un-American Activities Committee came to town to begin a red baiting inquisition of the UE district.

The city’s unions were outraged at the beatings and arrests.

They walked off their jobs to bolster the picket lines and were met with tear gas.

Governor Herbert called in the National Guard on August 2.

1500 troops rolled into town in Sherman tanks with machine guns trained on the strikers.

Scabs were escorted through plant gates between rows of fixed bayonets.

Area residents, furious at the virtual martial law established, flooded the governor with angry protests until troops were finally withdrawn.

The strike ended in victory, with workers winning most of their demands.

All but five were reinstated and by the following April, the NLRB voided the decertification election.

On this day in labor history, the year was 1911.

That was the day the State of Wisconsin passed the Wisconsin Workmen’s Compensation Act.

The state became the first to “have a constitutional system for providing medical expenses, wage loss payments or death benefits to employees or their families.

The law is regarded as a pioneering act of social legislation and a major accomplishment of Wisconsin’s Progressive movement.”

Activist journalism exposed deadly and disfiguring working conditions in the country’s industries.

State industrial commissions were established to conduct factory inspections and demand reform legislation and regulations.

Upton Sinclair’s initial intent in writing The Jungle was to cultivate a public outcry for better and safer working conditions.

By 1907, the Russell Sage Foundation funded dozens of investigators to study industrial and social conditions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Two volumes of essays were produced, entitled The Pittsburgh District: Civic Frontage and Wage-Earning Pittsburgh.

The essay, Work-Accidents and the Law, written by Crystal Eastman, exposed the enormity of work-related accidents and deaths, and the failure of employers to compensate victims and their families.

Her investigation examined several industries, including railroads, steel and coal mining.

She noted, “There is no bright side to this situation. By Industrial accidents, Allegheny County loses more than 500 workmen every year of whom nearly half are American born, 70 percent are workmen of skill and training and 60 percent have not yet reached the prime of their working life. Youth, skill, strength, in a word, human power, is what we are losing.”

Eastman’s survey worked to shift the burden from workers to employers.

It is largely credited with the passage of workers compensation laws, though it would take decades for similar laws to be enacted in states throughout the country.

On this day in labor history, the year was 1968.

That was the day 4000 autoworkers at Chrysler’s Dodge Main plant in Hamtramck, Michigan walked out in a wildcat strike.

They protested assembly line speed-up but also racist foremen and the firings of seven coworkers.

The strike was significant for many reasons.

It injected Black Power politics within the union movement.

The CIO had made unprecedented gains in the 30s and 40s through interracial organizing and combating Jim Crow on the job.

However, racial discrimination persisted in industries across America.

The wildcat shocked the UAW leadership, having prided itself on its early and central involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

By 1968, many African-Americans grew frustrated with the slow pace of reform and found the militancy of the Black Power movement attractive.

According to historian Robert Weir, black autoworker activists considered many UAW officials “paternalistic, condescending and out of touch with changing urban realities.”

Many of their white coworkers joined them on the picket lines.

Black activists at Dodge Main condemned the UAW for failing to address the disproportionate racial discrimination they faced on the job.

They demanded a separate contract that spoke to the needs of black workers and the right to bargain directly with the company.

The wildcat immediately grew into the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and inspired similar groupings at area auto plants.

Those white workers who were initially sympathetic, worried that DRUM demands would serve to weaken and ultimately split the union movement along racial lines.

DRUM would continue to demand safer working conditions, shorter hours and higher wages, an end to the Vietnam War and more black union officials and supervisors.

The movement was short-lived but continues to be revered among Detroit activists today.