Fifty years ago, in the early 1970s, Joe Uehlein was a construction worker in Pennsylvania, building a bridge over the Susquehanna River.leaks in some of the structures placed in the river put the workers' lives in danger of drowning. But Uehlein's boss was ignoring these concerns.
On the heels of a so-called"hot labor summer," workers in a wide range of sectors are still on strike, from autoworkers at the Detroit Three to hotel workers and Hollywood actors in Los Angeles. "We don't want to be out here on strike," Fain said recently."We're going to do whatever the hell we got to do to get it."
Other unions have also used strikes as a ploy to push their employers to give more generous compensation and other benefits.
That sent a chill through unions. Uehlein was a labor organizer at the time. He said Reagon's actions"lent legitimacy to the corporate onslaught that followed."