Polish Solidarity union founder Lech Walesa wins the Nobel Peace Prize - 1983

Insurance Workers International Union merges with United Food & Commercial Workers International Union - 1983

Phelps-Dodge copper miners in Morenci and Clifton Ariz. are confronted by tanks, helicopters, 426 state troopers and 325 National Guardsmen brought in to walk strikebreakers through picketlines in what was to become a failed three-year fight by the Steelworkers and other unions - 1983

Some 675,000 employees struck ATT Corp. over wages, job security, pension plan changes and better health insurance. It was the last time CWA negotiated at one table for all its Bell System members: divestiture came a few months later. The strike was won after 22 days - 1983

A nine-year strike, the longest in the history of the United Auto Workers, began at the Ohio Crankshaft Division of Park-Ohio Industries Inc. in Cuyahoga Heights, Ohio. Despite scabs, arrests and firings, UAW Local 91 members hung tough and in 1992 won a fair contract - 1983

Graphic Arts International Union merges with International Printing & Graphic Communications Union to become Graphic Communications International Union, now a conference of the Teamsters - 1983

Copper miners begin a years-long long, bitter strike against Phelps-Dodge in Clifton, Ariz. Democratic Gov. Bruce Babbitt repeatedly deployed state police and National Guardsmen to assist the company over the course of the strike, which broke the union - 1983

The Granite Cutters International Association of America merges with Tile, Marble, Terrazzo, Finishers & Shopmen, which five years later merged into the Carpenters – 1983

United Hatters, Cap & Millinery Workers International Union merges into Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union - 1982

The National Football League Players Assn. ends a 57-day strike that shortened the season to nine games. The players wanted, but failed to win until many years later, a higher share of gross team revenues - 1982

Honda assembles the first-ever Japanese car manufactured in a U.S. plant, in Marysville, Ohio. By 2009 the plant was making 440,000 cars a year and Honda – just one of the foreign manufacturers with multiple plants operating in the U.S. – said it had sold 20 million cars since its American operation launched - 1982

In Poland, the union Solidarity and all other labor organizations are banned by the government - 1982