United Furniture Workers of America merges with Int’l Union of Electronic, Electrical, Technical, Salaried & Machine Workers to become International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine & Furniture Workers, now a division of CWA - 1987

Ed Meese, attorney general in the Ronald Reagan administration, urges employers to begin spying on workers "in locker rooms, parking lots, shipping and mail room areas and even the nearby taverns" to try to catch them using drugs - 1986

1,700 female flight attendants win 18-year, $37 million suit against United Airlines. They had been fired for getting married - 1986

Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of the US & Canada merges with Brotherhood of Railway, Airline & Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express & Station Employees - 1986

Florence Reece dies in Knoxville, Tenn. at 86. She was a Mine Workers union activist and author of "Which Side Are You On?", written after her home was ransacked by Harlan County county sheriff J.H. Blair and his thugs during a 1931 strike - 1986

Police in Austin, Minn. tear-gas striking Hormel meatpacking workers. Seventeen strikers are arrested on felony riot charges - 1986

In response to the layoff of 450 union members at a 3M factory in New Jersey, every worker at a 3M factory in Elandsfontein, South Africa, walks off the job in sympathy - 1986.

Farm Labor Organizing Committee signs agreement with Campbell Soup Co., ending seven-year boycott - 1986

Bruce Springsteen's "My Hometown," a eulogy for dying industrial cities, is the country’s most listened-to song. The lyrics, in part: "Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores / Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more / They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks / Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your hometown / Your hometown / Your hometown / Your hometown . . ." - 1986

Bruce Springsteen makes an unannounced appearance at a benefit for laid-off 3M workers, Asbury Park, NJ - 1986

More than 1,100 office workers strike Columbia University in New York City. The mostly female and minority workers win union recognition and pay increases - 1985

Upholsterers' International Union of North America merges with United Steelworkers of America - 1985