A Memorial Day steel workers strike in Chicago turned violent when tensions between demonstrators and police peaked. The police threw tear-gas bombs into the crowd and opened fire on the demonstrators. Ten people were killed and dozens more injured.
The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was an independent federation of unions established in 1938. The CIO was formed after the dissolution of the Committee for Industrial Organization, which had unsuccessfully attempted to organize unskilled workers within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1935, by former members of the AFL who believed that unions should organize by industry rather than by trade. Though the Congress of Industrial Organizations and AFL were rival organizations for many years, they ultimately merged into...