Strikers march in Hancock, Michigan, during the nine-month 1913-1914 strike in Copper Country.
The Western Federation of Miners began organizing in Michigan's "Copper Country" in 1912. In the summer of 1913, 9,000 workers went on strike to reduce the 10- to 12-hour workday, get rid of child labor and raise wages. The governor called out the National Guard, which was supposed to be neutral, but sided with the companies, including Calumet and Hecla, with whose owners the Guard's top officers frequently talked "business" over dinner and drinks. The strike soon emptied the union's coffers and thousands of workers left the copper mines. Others returned to work and 900 "scabs" were hired to break the strike. By the time it was called off in April 1914, only 2,500 miners were left in the union. Although the WFM was defeated in the short term, much of what it had sought soon came to pass anyway. The mines also instituted an eight-hour day, a practice that had been spreading in various trades since the 1890s, the hiring of children under 14 in the mines was ended, and wages were set by the day rather than by the plethora of family contracts that had been the rule in the past.
Here are a few excerpts from the Harper's Index, November edition:
Number of states that have enacted new restrictions on abortion since the last midterm elections: 31
Percentage of white Americans who say police do a poor job protecting people from crime: 10
Of black Americans who say so: 33
Estimated number of times SWAT teams were deployed in the United States in 1980: 3,000
In 2013: 60,000
Average number of SWAT raids carried out per day in Maryland since 2009: 4.5
Average percentage change in the rate of painkiller-overdose deaths two years after a state legalizes medical marijuana: –25
Number of arrests made by New York City police officers since 2004 in which the top charge was resisting arrest: 57,644
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—What do you call a jobs plan that wouldn't create jobs? The Republican plan!
Ouch. This is just the headline for The Washington Post's fact check on the Republican jobs bill: "The GOP’s ludicrous claim about their jobs bill." Ludicrous seems generous.
The crux of the problem is the claim that the plan, "mostly a mish-mash of previous offered bills, such as that hardy perennial—a balanced budget amendment to the constitution," would create five million jobs. So the fact checker, aka Glenn Kessler, digs down into the methodology used by Republican Sens. Rand Paul, John McCain and Rob Portman to claim that five million figure.
Moira Bagley, a spokesman for Paul, said the figure was derived from three proposals: individual and corporate tax cuts that reduced the top tax rate of 25 percent, which the Heritage Foundation said would boost employment by 1.6 million jobs over the next decade; a tax holiday allowing U.S. companies to return cash held overseas, which a Chamber of Commerce study said would create 2.9 million jobs in two years; and a study by energy consultant Wood MacKenzie, which said allowing access to domestic energy resources and imports of Canadian oil would generate more than 1 million jobs by 2018.
There are several problems with these figures.
Tweet of the Day
So what a woman who was born during Jim Crow can't vote? It's not tragic like someone being paid to bake a gay wedding cake.
— @LOLGOP
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: No news is good news, unless Ebola.
Greg Dworkin, however, keeps his head (as always) with his Ebola news round-up, including a bit of Ultra Derp from George Will. Also, word from Turkey (and aid from the US) in the fight against ISIS among the region's Kurds. Coverage of Keene, NH's Pumpkinfest riot provides interesting contrasts with Ferguson. GunFAIL can strike anyone. Another facet of inequality: the bottom 90% are stuck in 1986. Missouri's rush into gun-nuttery may let a confessed murderer go free. Is anonymous texting app Whisper actually tracking users? And offering their data up to media "partners" as juicy tips?
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