On this day in labor history, the year was 1978.

That was the day OSHA published its lead standard.

The standard reduced permissible exposure by 75% to protect nearly a million workers from damage to nervous, urinary and reproductive systems.

As early as 1908, Alice Hamilton, the mother of occupational medicine, noted that lead had endangered workers as far back as “the first half-century after Christ.”

In their book, Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, historians Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner add that “throughout her distinguished career, Hamilton was deeply involved in uncovering the relationship between lead and disease in the American workforce.”

Hamilton’s groundbreaking research on the effects of lead paved the way for a growing uproar against its continued use.

After the Occupational Safety and Health Act passed in 1970, occupational and public health activists pushed hard for a lead standard.

A new generation of industrial hygienists emphasized how unsound, industry-driven conclusions regarding “safe lead levels” impacted women workers and workers of color.

Industry had long asserted that women and African-Americans were simply more susceptible to lead poison, which served to justify discrimination in hiring.

Some unions accepted these terms, if only to demand a stringent lead standard that included immediate implementation of engineering controls.

But leading hygienists like Jeanne Stellman blasted these arguments.

Stellman insisted such conclusions reflected racial and gender bias rather than any credible scientific evidence.

She added that men, women and children, regardless of race or ethnicity, were all adversely affected by lead exposure.

The final standard adopted was considered a compromise.

Discrimination in hiring has continued and enforcement proves difficult.

But even a watered-down standard was too much for the lead industry.

They have been fighting it ever since.

On this day in labor history, the year was 1974.

That was the day Karen Silkwood was killed in a mysterious car crash.

Though her death was ruled a one car accident, some maintain she was forced off the road.

Silkwood was a union activist and representative for Local 5-283 of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers.

She worked at Kerr McGee’s Cimarron plutonium plant in Crescent, Oklahoma, making plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods.

Meryl Streep popularized her life in the 1983 film, Silkwood.

Karen’s union loyalty only grew after the company crushed a strike in 1972.

She was elected to the union bargaining committee just as the company moved to force a decertification election.

She also served as a union health and safety rep.

Silkwood found a number of apparent violations: routine contamination exposure, faulty respiratory equipment, falsified inspection records, and improper storage of radioactive material.

She met with OCAW leader, Tony Mazzocchi to highlight safety issues in a campaign to beat back decertification.

It worked.

Then Karen testified before the Atomic Energy Commission, worried about her own contamination.

It was clear her home was contaminated too.

She worked tirelessly to gather the documentation and the evidence, detailing the company’s life-threatening negligence.

And on this day, Karen Silkwood was headed to Oklahoma City to meet Mazzocchi’s assistant, Steve Wodka and a New York Times reporter to present evidence she collected.

She never made it.

Her car was found with rear end damage, near skid marks, in a ditch along Route 74.

While the company attempted to smear her as a drug addicted lesbian who deliberately contaminated herself, they would eventually settle with her family for nearly $1.4 million.

Karen Silkwood became a model and a hero for women workers and all those who fight for safe workplaces.

On this day in labor history, the year was 1954.

That was the day Ellis Island closed its doors.

More than 12 million immigrants had passed through its gates since its opening in 1892.

Those steerage and third-class passengers coming to America were processed at the island between 1892 and 1924.

They were routinely subject to medical inspections to determine they were free of disease.

Legal inspections included questions regarding birth, occupation, destination, finances and criminal record.

Its busiest year was 1907 with more than a million arriving to enter the United States.

During World War I, the Island was used as a detention center for presumed enemies and those considered foreign-born subversives.

After Congress passed the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924, arrivals entering the country slowed to a trickle.

Then Ellis Island became primarily a detention and deportation center.

During World War II, thousands of Germans, Italians and Japanese made up the majority of those detained, awaiting deportation.

It also served as a military hospital for returning servicemen and training center for the Coast Guard.

By 1950, Ellis Island served as a holding center for arriving Communists and Fascists, who were prevented entrance under the recently passed Internal Security Act.

A Norwegian seaman who had overstayed his leave was released the day the Island closed and told to catch the next ship back to Norway.

In 1965, President Johnson made Ellis Island part of the National Park Service.

A massive restoration of the Island began in 1984, organized by Lee Iacocca’s Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation.

It reopened as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in 1990, featuring numerous exhibits, publicly accessible immigration records and the award-winning film documentary, “Island of Hope, Island of Tears.”

On this day in Labor History the year was 1887. That was a tragic day for the labor movement. Four men were hung in Chicago for their alleged role in the bombing at a labor rally at the city’s Haymarket Square a year earlier. In a sensational trial a total of eight men were convicted for Haymarket.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1933. That was the day that Hormel plant workers in Austin, Minnesota began a sit-down strike. Company head, Jay Hormel, boasted that his company was a benevolent dictatorship. Workers agreed that the company was a dictatorship but not very benevolent.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1935.The Committee for Industrial Organizations was created by eight unions, as part of the American Federation of Labor. United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis was the driving force behind this new committee

On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. That was the day that black and white workers in New Orleans began what is considered the first integrated general strike in United States history. The strike began when the New Orleans Board of Trade refused to enter into an agreement with the Teamsters Union because it included black members.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1990. That was the day that Lemuel Ricketts Boulware died. Boulware had a notorious reputation with labor leaders. He was the Vice President for employee relations for General Electric during the 1950s.