This Date in Arkansas Labor History

September 24, 1998 Congressman Asa Hutchinson (R-AR3) votes against a bill prohibiting employers from laying off U.S. workers from positions filled by a foreign worker and making it illegal to use H-1B visas to slash payroll costs.

September 24, 1921 Thirty-eight UMWA coal miners arrested at Spadra, charged with night-riding in dispute over "strip pit" mining with the open shop mine operators Werner-Dunlap Coal Company.

September 24, 1936 Paul D. Peacher, Crittenden County deputy sheriff, indicted in federal court for peonage. Peacher had arrested striking sharecroppers for vagrancy and forced them to work on plantations.

September 24, 2001 Armando Carrillo, a maintenance worker, was severely burned in the explosion and knocked from a balcony by the blast that killed fellow employee Clinton Newkirk at the Alpharma Animal Health plant at Lowell. The deadly fire also released arsine gas and possibly heavy metals and antibiotics in contaminated runoff, causing evacuation of an adjacent elementary school. The company was fined $77,000.