Today in labor history for the week of May 20, 2013

May 20
The Railway Labor Act takes effect today. It is the first federal legislation protecting workers’ rights to form unions - 1926
(Understanding the Railway Labor Act: The title of this book says it all. Wilner is the ultimate authority on labor-management relations in the railroad industry. His latest book is incredibly helpful to those seeking to learn more about rail labor history, the mechanics of rail labor law, and how railroads and their multiple unions bargain collectively under the RLA's provisions. It is hugely helpful as well to those familiar with the RLA but seeking a reference work providing greater detail on the law's provisions and how they impact negotiations at the national and local levels.)

Some 9,000 rubber workers strike in Akron, Ohio - 1933

May 21  
Italian activists and anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, widely believed to have been framed for murder, go on trial today. They eventually are executed as part of a government campaign against dissidents - 1921

The “Little Wagner Act” is signed in Hawaii, guaranteeing pineapple and sugar workers the right to bargain collectively.  After negotiations failed, a successful 79-day strike shut down 33 of the territory’s 34 plantations and brought higher wages and a 40-hour week - 1945

Nearly 100,000 unionized SBC Communications Inc. workers begin a 4-day strike to protest the local phone giant’s latest contract offer - 2004

May 22
Eugene V. Debs imprisoned in Woodstock, Ill., for role in Pullman strike - 1895
(The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene V. Debs: Eugene V. Debs was a labor activist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who captured the heart and soul of the nation’s working people. He was brilliant, sincere, compassionate and scrupulously honest. A founder of one of the nation’s first industrial unions, the American Railway Union, he went on to help launch the Industrial Workers of the World -- the Wobblies. A man of firm beliefs and dedication, he ran for President of the United States five times under the banner of the Socialist Party, in 1912 earning 6 percent of the popular vote.)

While white locomotive firemen on the Georgia Railroad strike, blacks who are hired as replacements are whipped and stoned—not by the union men, but by white citizens outraged that blacks are being hired over whites.  The Engineers union threatens to stop work because their members are being affected by the violence - 1909

Civil Service Retirement Act of 1920 gives federal workers a pension - 1920

President Lyndon B. Johnson announces the goals of his Great Society social reforms: to bring “an end to poverty and racial injustice” in America - 1964

May 23
An estimated 100,000 textile workers, including more than 10,000 children, strike in the Philadelphia area.  Among the issues: 60-hour workweeks, including night hours, for the children - 1903

The Battle of Toledo begins today: a five-day running battle between roughly 6,000 strikers at the Electric Auto-Lite company of Toledo, Ohio, and 1,300 members of the Ohio National Guard.  Two strikers died and more than 200 were injured.  The battle began in the sixth week of what ultimately became a successful two-month fight for union recognition and higher pay.  One guardsman told a Toledo Blade reporter: "Our high school graduation is ... tonight and we were supposed to be getting our diplomas” – 1934

U.S. railroad strike starts, later crushed when President Truman threatens to draft strikers - 1946

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

May 24
After 14 years of construction and the deaths of 27 workers, the Brooklyn Bridge over New York’s East River opens. Newspapers call it “the eighth wonder of the world” - 1883

Some 2,300 members of the United Rubber Workers, on strike for 10 months against five Bridgestone-Firestone plants, agree to return to work without a contract. They had been fighting demands for 12-hour shifts and wage increases tied to productivity gains - 1995

May 25
Pressured by employers, striking shoemakers in Philadelphia are arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy for violating an English common law that bars schemes aimed at forcing wage increases. The strike was broken - 1805

Philip Murray is born in Scotland. He went on to emigrate to the U.S., become founder and first president of the United Steelworkers of America, and head of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) from 1940 until his death in 1952 - 1886

Two company houses occupied by non-union coal miners are blown up and destroyed during a strike against the Glendale Gas & Coal Co. in Wheeling, W. Va. - 1925

Thousands of unemployed WWI veterans arrive in Washington, D.C., to demand early payment of a bonus they had been told would get, but not until 1945. They built a shantytown near the U.S. Capitol but were burned out by U.S. troops after two months - 1932

The notorious 11-month Remington Rand strike begins. The strike spawned the "Mohawk Valley (N.Y.) formula," described by investigators as a corporate plan to discredit union leaders, frighten the public with the threat of violence, employ thugs to beat up strikers, and other tactics. The National Labor Relations Board termed the formula "a battle plan for industrial war" - 1936
(Strike! tells you something your school history books almost certainly did not: how working Americans for the past 125 years have used the strike again and again to win a degree of justice and fair play. Beginning with the Great Upheaval of 1877, STRIKE! tells of the nation’s great strikes and the social and political climates from which they grew. Readers see the evolution of the strike: from a class-wide struggle across industries to a time of collective bargaining in which “Workers think of their struggle in terms of their own industry or workplace alone.”)

The AFL-CIO begins what is to become an unsuccessful campaign for a 35-hour workweek, with the goal of reducing unemployment. Earlier tries by organized labor for 32- or 35-hour weeks also failed - 1962

May 26
Men and women weavers in Pawtucket, R.I., stage nation's first "co-ed" strike - 1824

Western Federation of Miners members strike for 8-hour day, Cripple Creek, Colo. - 1894

Actors’ Equity is founded by 112 theater actors meeting in the Pabst Grand Circle Hotel in New York City. A strike six years later, during which membership increased from 3,000 to 14,000, loosened the control on performers’ lives by theater owners and producers - 1913

IWW Marine Transport Workers strike, Philadelphia - 1920

Some 100,000 steel workers and miners in mines owned by steel companies strike in seven states.  The Memorial Day Massacre, in which ten strikers were killed by police at Republic Steel in Chicago, took place four days later, on May 30 - 1937

Ford Motor Co. security guards attack union organizers and supporters attempting to distribute literature outside the plant in Dearborn, Mich., in an event that was to become known as the “Battle of the Overpass.” The guards tried to destroy any photos showing the attack, but some survived—and inspired the Pulitzer committee to establish a prize for photography – 1937