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July 15, 2025

Today in 1959

 Half-million steelworkers began what is to become a 116-day strike that shutters nearly every steel mill in the country. The strike occurred over management's demand that the union give up a contract clause which limited management's ability to change the number of workers assigned to a task or to introduce new work rules or machinery which would result in reduced hours or numbers of employees. The strike's affects persuaded President Eisenhower to invoke the back-to-work provision of the Taft-Hartley Act. The union sued to have the Act declared unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court upheld the law. The union eventually retained the contract clause and won minimal wage increases. The strike led to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in U.S. history, which replaced the domestic steel industry in the long run. 

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Unemployment for Strikers Would Balance the Scales
Updated On: Apr 10, 2024
Apr. 10, 2024 | COMMENTARY | A bill that would allow workers on strike to access unemployment insurance is currently under consideration in the Minnesota Legislature.  Working people make our biggest gains on the job when we take collective action. When employers fail to pay family-sustaining wages and benefits or refuse to make the workplace safer, it nearly always takes some form of worker action to move management. The most effective action is withholding our labor and going on strike.…Our nation’s labor laws are heavily tilted towards management. Once a collective bargaining agreement has expired, employers have the legal right to lock workers out and replace them, stall negotiations, and cut off benefits — all without any personal sacrifice from managers or their families. When workers decide whether to legally strike, however, we must consider the impact going without pay or health insurance will have on our families. Minnesota Reformer
 
 
Teamsters Local 355
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