Monday, July 16th, 2012

THE HISTORY OF July 16th, I'm ___________________.

AND I'm ___________________ . Today in 1934: The Federal Labor Union strikes the Kohler Company at Kohler, Wisconsin. The union’s mass picketing will prevent the company from operating. The company will hire two hundred and fifty deputies and arm them with tear gas and guns. They will mount machine guns on the company’s roof and on trucks.

On the evening of July 27, five thousand demonstrators will begin stoning the company’s buildings, breaking hundreds of windows. The deputies open fire, killing two workers and injuring forty two. Governor Albert Schmedman will send six hundred National Guard cavalry the next morning.

The union will petition the National Labor Relations Board for an election. The election, with the company union and the Federal Labor Union on the ballot, will be held in September. Amid an atmosphere of fear and intimidation the company union will win. However, the Federal Labor Union will refuse to call off the strike and will maintain token picketing for seven years.

The strike will end in April, 1941, when the company, wanting to use union construction workers will ask to have the strike called off. In exchange the company will offer jobs to all workers still on strike except for three principal officers of the FLU, Charles Heymanns, Rudolph Renn and Otto Janisch.

Monday, July 16th, 2012

It's today’s Action Calendar!

Come to Wingra School 4 U each Tuesday this month!  Wingra School's free summer activities for children ages 4 to 6 will be each Tuesday from 9:30-10:30 a.m.  Enjoy a fun-filled hour of stories and activities featuring a different theme each week. For more info or to RSVP, visit wingraschool.org or call 608-238-2525. 

Tuesdays through July 31 at 7 pm, enjoy Concerts in the Gardens series at Olbrich Botanical Gardens, 3330 Atwood Avenue. Pack a picnic, bring a lawn chair or blanket, and listen as the songs float through the summer air. Or, pick up a hotdog or brat at the Gardens sold by the Madison East Kiwanis Club before the concert from 5 to 7 p.m. Tomorrow night, Anna Laube will be performing. For more information call 246-4550 or visit olbrich.org.

Edgerton Community Outreach will be hosting Bike Night at Kutter Harley Davidson in Janesville on Tuesday, July 24 from 5 to 10pm, with all proceeds benefiting the Edgerton Food Pantry. Enjoy live music, a one-of-a-kind Harley Mug Raffle, Food & Fun and more! Come out, have some fun and help feed a neighbor!  More info at edgertonoutreach.org.