June 14, 1974
NEW YORK - The skyrocketing cost of living is the main
reason 110,000 members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers
went on strike June 1 in the union's first industry-wide
walkout since 1921.
When the previous contract expired May 31, clothing manufacturers refused to meet the union's demands for a cost- of-living escalator clause, an average of $1.10 an hour wage increase over the next three years, and improved pensions and other benefits.
The strike has shut down 750 manufacturers of men's and boy's wear. The biggest concentration of strikers are in New York City and Philadelphia; there are also significant numbers in Illinois, Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, and New Jersey.
June 13, 1949
The heroic strike of the Canadian Seamen's Union, entering
its third month, is reaching into ports of every major country
despite blows from all sides. Government terror, organized
scabbery, the strikebreaking orders issued by British trade
union bureaucrats, and now a stab in the back by the Trades
and Labor Council of Canada, have failed to intimidate the
strikers.
The CSU struck to fight for its very existence, against violent assaults by the shipowners and their many stooges. Not only did the government provide troops to protect scabs and fight strikers, as it did in the similar struggle on the Great Lakes last summer, this time it hired scab crews itself, to oust the legally-recognized CSU.