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Erik Loomis Profile picture
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11 Sep, 4 tweets, 1 min read
I hate nostalgia with great passion. But there's also no question that even without the virus, present parents are unbelievably overprotective in an era where children (outside of guns in schools) are far safer than they were for the entire 20th century.
I mean, mass murders is not exactly an exception that can be handwaved away. But the fact of the matter is that kids are really really safe on a day to day basis today.
This is not a commentary on the response to COVID in schools--that's a different issue entirely.
I mean, Amber Alert exists for a good reason! And that's because things used to be pretty unsafe!

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More from @ErikLoomis

Erik Loomis Profile picture
14 Sep
This Day in Labor History: September 14, 1959. President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Landrum-Griffin Act after actively lobbying for its passage. Let's talk about how anti-union forces used union corruption to launch a broad-based attack on all union power!
The passage of this bill was another major blow to organized labor in the early years of the Cold War that moved power away from unions and back to corporations.
There is a widescale public perception of union corruption. Mostly, this is false and a corporate promoted narrative to turn people off of organizing themselves to improve their lives. But with some unions, corruption was (and occasionally still today, is) all too real.
Read 34 tweets
Erik Loomis Profile picture
10 Sep
This Day in Labor History: September 10, 1897. Luzerne County sheriff deputies slaughtered 19 unarmed coal miners striking outside of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Let's talk about the Lattimer Massacre!
The strikers, primarily German, Polish, Lithuanian, and Slovak immigrants, were fighting for decent wages and working conditions in the one of the most brutal industries in the nation.
The Lattimer Massacre was a touchstone event in the history of the United Mine Workers of America, who used it to organize workers across the region.
Read 33 tweets
Erik Loomis Profile picture
9 Sep
This Day in Labor History: September 9, 1985. The largely Latina workforce in the large frozen food processing facilities in Watsonville, California walked out on strike after employers cut their wages. Let's talk about this hard-fought and very tough victory for workers!
After a long, brutal nearly two year strike, the workers won, one of the few major labor victories of the 1980s and a sign that the future of the labor movement would center women of color.
The food processing industry has long been a race to the bottom. It’s a fairly low capital industry that allows capitalists to open new factories wherever they want.
Read 35 tweets
Erik Loomis Profile picture
8 Sep
This Day in Labor History: September 8, 1919. Workers return to work after victory in the Pressed Steel Car Company strike at McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, a huge and unexpected victory for the American working class during this dark time of workplace repression!!! Image
The Pressed Steel Car Company was a factory owned by the capitalist Frank Norton Hoffstot in McKees Rocks, a town on the Ohio River a bit downstream from Pittsburgh.
It made steel railroad cars, both for passenger and freight trains and it soon became the second largest producer of such cars in the country. The factory employed 6,000 workers, mostly immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. And it treated them like peons.
Read 37 tweets
Erik Loomis Profile picture
3 Sep
This Day in Labor History: September 3, 1991. A chicken factory in Hamlet, North Carolina caught of fire thanks to nonexistent safety procedures, killing 25 workers and injuring another 55. Let's talk about this horrible and extremely preventable disaster!
This entirely avoidable accident was reminiscent of workplace disasters of the past, with open employer contempt for safety regulations and the lives of their workers.
The building where the chicken factory was located was built in the early twentieth century and had been used in various food processing operations in the past, including as an ice cream factory. In 1980, it was purchased by Imperial Foods.
Read 28 tweets
Erik Loomis Profile picture
2 Sep
This Day in Labor History: August 2, 1885. White miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming decided to exterminate the town’s entire Chinese community. Whites killed at least 28 Chinese miners in the Rock Springs Massacre. Let's talk about Asian-Asian violence among white workers!
White Americans hated the Chinese.

There isn’t really much reason to complicate the above sentence when talking about the 19th century. Its truth is indisputable.
From the moment whites crossed the deserts in search of California gold and realized, what!, there are Chinese people here! (and Mexicans and Indians and Chileans and a lot of other non-whites), they wanted to eliminate them.
Read 41 tweets

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