The Labor Day Index

Year in which union workers in New York City took unpaid leave to march in the first U.S. Labor Day parade (pictured at right): 1882

Number of days following the end of 1894's bloody Pullman Strike that Congress, in an effort to improve strained relations with labor, passed a law making Labor Day a federal holiday: 6

Number of U.S. Army troops President Cleveland deployed to end that strike, sparked when the Pullman rail car corporation cut wages but not rents at its company town outside Chicago: 12,000

Number of workers wounded during that strike: 57

Number of workers killed: 13

Year in which the Illinois Supreme Court forced the Pullman Co. to divest ownership in its town, which a federal commission had deemed "un-American": 1898

When company head George Pullman died in 1897, amount of cement poured at his grave to prevent his body from being dug up and desecrated by labor activists: several tons

Number of years the United Mine Workers of America have been holding an annual Labor Day rally and picnic celebration in Boone County, W.V.: 71

Distance from that event where Massey Energy, the largest producer of Central Appalachian coal, is holding this year's first annual Labor Day "Friends of America" anti-climate action rally in Logan County, W.V.: 43 miles

Number of people expected to attend Massey's sold-out event, emceed by rock star Ted Nugent and sponsored by Verizon: at least 70,000

Number of Massey mines that are unionized: 0

Number of union members Massey was recently ordered by a federal court to rehire after firing them when it bought the mine where they worked in Kanawha County, W.V.: 85

Year in which the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the personal maid of Massey Chairman and CEO Don Blankenship was wrongly denied unemployment benefits, with some justices opining that her working conditions were "reminiscent of slavery" and an "affront to common decency": 2008

Minimum number of Massey subsidiaries that in the last five years have pleaded guilty to criminal violations of federal environmental or safety laws: 4

Date a Massey subsidiary pleaded guilty to criminal safety violations that caused the deaths of two coal miners in a fire in Logan County, W.V.: 4/2009

Year in which the largest organized armed labor uprising in American history took place there in Logan County: 1921

Number of days before Labor Day it ended, when federal troops arrived: 3

Number of miners involved in that uprising, known as the Battle of Blair Mountain, which involved bombs dropped on protesters from privately hired and U.S. military planes (one of the bombs pictured left): 10,000 to 15,000

Number of deaths among miners in the battle: 50 to 100

Number of deaths among law enforcement: up to 30

Number of miners eventually indicted for "murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, and treason against the State of West Virginia": 985

Year in which those not acquitted by sympathetic juries were paroled: 1925

Percent by which the Battle of Blair Mountain reduced United Mine Worker membership in the near-term, though now credited with raising awareness of conditions and ultimately boosting unions: 80

Year by which the UMW had fully organized southern West Virginia's coalfields: 1935

Rank of West Virginia's union membership rate today among the 13 Southern states: 1*

West Virginia's union membership rate as of 2008: 13.8%

U.S. union membership rate in 2008: 12.4%

U.S. union membership rate in 1983: 20.1%

In the mid-1950s: 36%

Union membership rate today in New York, the state with the highest rate: 24.9%

In North Carolina, the state with the lowest rate: 3.5%

Increase in North Carolina's union membership rate from 2007 to 2008: 17%

Percent more earned by full-time U.S. workers who are union members compared to their non-union counterparts: 30

Percent of union workers whose jobs provide health insurance benefits: 97

Percent of nonunion workers whose jobs provide health insurance benefits: 85

Percent of union workers with guaranteed pensions: 68

Percent of non-union workers with guaranteed pensions: 14

Poverty rates in the 10 states where unions are strongest: 10.4%**

Poverty in the 10 states where unions are weakest: 13.4%***

Date on which a coalition of labor, civil rights, faith and other groups is holding a national lobby day asking Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize: 9/10/09

(Click on figure to go to the original source.)

* Facing South counts among the Southern states AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA and WV
** HI, NY, AK, NJ, WA, MI, IL, MN, CA, CT
*** NC, SC, VA, GA, TX, AR, FL, UT, MS, SD

(Image of the first Labor Day parade in New York's Union Square in 1882 from the Union Square Community Coalition's website; photo of UMW officials and miners with one of the bombs dropped during the Battle of Blair Mountain from the West Virginia State Archives; photo of Employee Free Choice Act rally from the United Food and Commercial Workers website)