Today in Labor History October 4, 1887: 10,000 Louisiana sugarcane workers went on strike with the Knights of Labor. On November 23, the Louisiana Militia, aided by vigilantes, murdered 35-50 unarmed black workers during the Thibodaux Massacre. The massacre ended the strike and any concerted effort to organize black cane workers until the 1940s. Democrats in the state passed a series of laws in the wake of the strike that disenfranchised black voters and enforced segregation and Jim Crow.
Today in Labor History October 4, 1946: The U.S. Navy took over oil refineries to break a 20-state post-war wildcat strike.
Today in Labor History October 4, 1989: The United Mine Workers of America re-affiliated with the AFL-CIO, after decades of conflict with the organization. The UMWA had left the AFL in the 1930s when they refused to organize the auto and steel industries and played a pivotal role in the formation of the CIO. However, they withdrew from the CIO in 1942 in a dispute over labor-management relations during World War II. They were readmitted to the AFL in 1946, but left after a year when their president, John L. Lewis refused to sign the non-Communist affidavit required by the Taft-Hartley Labor Act.