Junior Achievement during the Strike
January 1956, the employee strike at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation was in its fourteenth week with almost 50,000 workers idle. Families in the region were certainly tightening their household budgets, but Anthony Markitell (1910-1960), then president of the Trafford Motor Coach bus line did his part to keep a sense of normalcy for the local families. Trafford students would continue to travel down to Pittsburgh to participate in Junior Achievement, a program that offered students an opportunity to acquire financial literacy, entrepreneurial and workforce development skills. Markitell dropped the rates on fares for the approximately 68 students allowing them to continue to travel at least four nights a week on his bus line down to the Junior Achievement Headquarters in Pittsburgh. Here's a then-and-now illustration of the location in Pittsburgh with the Trafford Motor Coach bus parked on the Blvd of the Allies, just across from the Junior Achievement offices.
