From: David H. Weiner, President, CWA Local 1081
Date: May 19, 2008
Re: 163rd CWA Local 1081 E-mail Trivia Contest Winner
Congratulations, you are last week's CWA Local 1081 Trivia Contest winner. Please contact CWA Local 1081 Secretary Treasurer Vera Winns at (973) 623-1081, or preferably by E-mail at vwinns@oel.state.nj.us, to collect your $50.00 prize. You were the first to correctly answer all of the following questions:
When, where and why was the first US strike by medical doctors?
Answer: In 1975, physicians at New York City hospitals engaged in a work slowdown to request shorter hours.
How many air traffic controllers did President Reagan fire during the strike of 1981?
Answer: He fired all of the 11,600 strikers after they refused to obey a court order to return to work. By decade's end, there were 2,500 fewer air traffic controllers employed in the industry. Meanwhile, U.S. air traffic had increased by a third and safety records had worsened.
What was the first African-American union?
Answer: The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, founded in 1925 by A. Philip Randolph and other labor leaders. The Pullman Company, at first opposed the Brotherhood, awarded the union its first contract in 1937. Later the Brotherhood became best known for its civil rights activism.
Where was the first major sit-down strike?
Answer: The practice of ceasing to work but occupying the workplace first occured on a mass scale in the rubber factories of Akron, Ohio, in 1936. Sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan, and Cleveland, Ohio, followed. In 1939, the Supreme Court ruled sit-down strikes illegal.
What was IWW leader Joe Hill's last request before his execution?
Answer: The night before the execution, he cabled friend and IWW cofounder "Big Bill" Haywood, "Don't waste any time in mourning, Organize."