Today in labor history for the week of January 30, 2012
January 31
12,000 pecan shellers in San Antonio, Tex. -- mostly Latino women -- walk off their jobs at 400 factories in what was to become a three-month strike against wage cuts. Strike leader Emma Tenayuca was eventually hounded out of the state - 1938
Ida M. Fuller is the first retiree to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law. She paid in $24.75 between 1937 and 1939 on an income of $2,484; her first check was for $22.54 - 1940
After scoring successes with representation elections conducted under the protective oversight of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the United Farm Workers of America officially ends its historic table grape, lettuce and wine boycotts - 1978
[No man in this century has had more of an impact on the lives of Hispanic Americans, and especially farmworkers, than the legendary Cesar Chavez. The Fight in the Fields tells of Chavez and his union’s struggles: to raise farmworker pay from .40 an hour; to win union recognition from savagely resistant grape and lettuce growers; to stop the use of deadly pesticides that were killing children in the fields. The pacifist Chavez endured several month-long fasts to counteract what he saw as a growing tendency toward violence in the farmworker movement, and many think those heroic acts contributed to his early death, at the age of 64. In the UCS bookstore now.]
Union and student pressure forces Harvard university to adopt new labor policies raising wages for lowest-paid workers - 2002
Five months after Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans school board fires every teacher in the district in what the United Teachers of New Orleans sees as an effort to break the union and privatize the school system - 2005
February 01
Led by 23-year-old Kate Mullaney, the Collar Laundry Union forms in Troy, N.Y, raises earnings for female laundry workers from two dollars to 14 dollars a week - 1864
Bricklayers begin working eight-hour days - 1867
25,000 Paterson, NJ silk workers strike for eight-hour work day and improved working conditions. 1,800 were arrested over the course of the six-month walkout, led by the Wobblies. They returned to work on their employers’ terms - 1913
The federal minimum wage increases to $1.60 per hour - 1968
International Brotherhood of Firemen & Oilers merge with Service Employees International Union - 1995
February 02
Sixteen thousand silk workers in Paterson, NJ and 32,000 in Lawrence, Mass. strike for shorter work week with no cut in pay - 1919
[Women have had to fight for their rightful place in American life -- the right to own property, to vote, to work in "men’s" jobs. They’ve had to fight for their place in the labor movement as well, and Rocking the Boat: Union Women’s Voices 1915-1975 does a great job of recounting that struggle. Brigid O Farrell and Joyce L. Kornbluh tell the stories of eleven dedicated union women from a wide range of backgrounds and how they dealt with issues of work, sex, fear, leadership and tradition to become activists and leaders in their unions. In the UCS bookstore now.]
Legal secretary Iris Rivera fired for refusing to make coffee; secretaries across Chicago protest - 1977
The 170-day lockout (although management called it a strike) of 22,000 steelworkers by USX Corp. ends with a pay cut but greater job security. It was the longest work stoppage in the history of the U.S. steel industry - 1987
February 03
The US Supreme Court rules the United Hatters Union violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by organizing a nationwide boycott of Danbury Hatters of Connecticut - 1908
U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Wages and Hours (later Fair Labor Standards) Act banning child labor and establishing the 40-hour work week - 1941
February 04
"Big Bill" Haywood born in Salt Lake City, Utah: Leader of Western Federation of Miners, Wobblies (IWW) founder - 1869
Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man launched the 1955 Montgomery, Ala. bus boycott and the birth of the civil rights movement, is born in Tuskeege, Ala. - 1913
Unemployment demonstrations take place in major U.S. cities - 1932
Thirty-seven thousand maritime workers on the West Coast strike for wage increases - 1937
[In Offensive Bargaining: Negotiating Aggressively in Contract Campaigns, labor lawyer David Rosenfeld shares his arsenal of tactics, contained in this controlled-availability book, to deal with and overcome employers who refuse to bargain in good faith. Rosenfeld, partner in a well-known California labor law firm, has represented unions in negotiations since 1973; here he shows you how to fight fire with fire, and then some. In the UCS bookstore now.]
President Barack Obama imposes $500,000 caps on senior executive pay for the most distressed financial institutions receiving federal bailout money, saying Americans are upset with "executives being rewarded for failure." - 2009
February 05
First daily labor newspaper, N.Y. Daily Sentinel, begins publication - 1830
The movie Modern Times premieres. The tale of the tramp (Charlie Chaplin) and his paramour (Paulette Goddard) mixed slapstick comedy and social satire, as the couple struggled to overcome the difficulties of the machine age, including, unemployment and nerve-wracking factory work, and get along in modern times - 1937
President Bill Clinton signs the Family and Medical Leave Act. The law requires most employers of 50 or more workers to grant up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for a family or medical emergency - 1993
In what turns out to be a bad business decision, Circuit City fires 3,900 experienced sales people because they're making too much in commissions. Sales plummet. Six years later it declares bankruptcy. Duh. - 2003
