Saturday, January 5, 2013

This Day in History January 5, 1970

This was a new one for me.  Joseph "Jock" Yablonski was an American labor leader in the United Mine Workers in the U.S. back in the 1950's and 1960's.  He made an unsuccessful bid for UMWA (United Mine Workers of America) in 1969.  W.A. Tony Boyle had been president of that association, and he won in against Yablonski in a very corrupt race.  Although he did concede the election, he asked the United States Department of Labor to investigate it for fraud.  He also instigated five lawsuits against the UMWA in federal court.

On December 31, 1969, Joseph, his wife, and 25-year-old daughter were murdered in Pennsylvania as they slept in their beds.  It was on this date in 1970, that the bodies were discovered by his son, and it was known that Boyle had hired hit men to do this deed.  The day after the funeral, 20,000 miners walked off the job in a day-long strike.

In the aftermath of everything, a new president of the miner's group was chosen, and Boyle was indicted on murder charges.  He was sentenced to three life terms and died in prison in 1985.

For more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Yablonski
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10716858
http://www.heraldextra.com/lifestyles/today-in-history-for-january/article_f2ad8c1c-a8b2-5f7c-b0ed-3817bea5243a.html

1 comment:

  1. That's very interesting. I never heard about that before. Thanks for that bit of info. Have a great Saturday =D

    ReplyDelete

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