This week in labor history: May 1-7

MAY 1
1830 – Mary Harris “Mother” Jones born in County Cork, Ireland.
1883 – Cigar makers in Cincinnati warn there could be a strike in the fall if factory owners continue to insist that they pay 30 cents per month for gas heat provided at work during mornings and evenings.
1886 – Eight-hour day demonstration in Chicago and other cities begins tradition of May Day as international Labor holiday.
1901 – The Cooks’ and Waiters’ Union strikes in San Francisco, demanding one day of rest per week, a 10-hour work day and a union shop for all restaurants in the city.
1931 – New York City’s Empire State Building officially opens. Construction involved 3,400 workers, mostly immigrants from Europe, and hundreds of Mohawk iron workers. Five workers died during construction.
1974 – Congress enacts amendments to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, extending protections to the employees of state and local governments—protections which didn’t take effect until 1985 because of court challenges and regulation-writing problems.
2006 – Rallies in cities across the U.S. for what organizers call “A Day Without Immigrants.” An estimated 100,000 immigrants and sympathizers gathered in San Jose, Calif., 200,000 in New York, 400,000 each in Chicago and Los Angeles.  In all, there were demonstrations in at least 50 cities.

MAY 2
1867 – Chicago’s first Trades Assembly, formed three years earlier, sponsors a general strike by thousands of workers to enforce the state’s new eight-hour-day law. The one-week strike was unsuccessful.
1911 – First Workers’ Compensation law in U.S. enacted, in Wisconsin.
1933 – German police units occupied all trade unions headquarters in the country, arresting union officials and leaders. Their treasuries were confiscated and the unions abolished. Hitler announced that the German Labour Front, headed by his appointee, would replace all unions and look after the working class.
1972 – A fire at the Sunshine silver mine in Kellogg, Idaho, caused the death of 91 workers who died from carbon monoxide poisoning, likely caused by toxic fumes emitted by burning polyurethane foam used as a fire retardant.

MAY 3
1886 – Four striking workers are killed, at least 200 wounded, when police attack a demonstration on Chicago’s south side at the McCormick Harvesting Machine plant. The Haymarket Massacre would take place the following day.
1895 – Eugene V. Debs and other leaders of the American Railway Union are jailed for six months for contempt of court in connection with Pullman railroad car strike.

MAY 4
1886 – Haymarket massacre. A bomb is thrown as Chicago police start to break up a rally for strikers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. A riot erupts, 11 police and strikers die, mostly from gunfire, and scores more are injured.

MAY 5
1852 – National Typographical Union founded, Cincinnati, Ohio. It was renamed the Int’l Typographical Union in 1869, in acknowledgment of Canadian members. When the ITU merged into CWA in 1986 it was the oldest existing union in the U.S.
1886 – On Chicago’s West Side, police attack Jewish workers as they try to march into the Loop to protest slum conditions.
1886 – Some 14,000 building trades workers and laborers, demanding an eight-hour work day, gather at the Milwaukee Iron Co. rolling mill in Bay View, Wisc. When they approach the mill they are fired on by 250 National Guardsmen under orders from the governor to shoot to kill. Seven died, including a 13-year-old boy.
1888 – Nineteen machinists working for the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad gather in a locomotive pit to decide what to do about a wage cut. They vote to form a union, which later became the Int’l Association of Machinists.
1920 – Italian-American anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested in Boston for murder and payroll robbery. Eventually they are executed for a crime most believe they did not commit.
1931 – Heavily armed deputies and other mine owner hirelings attack striking miners in Harlan County, Ky., starting the Battle of Harlan County.
1937 – Lumber strike begins in Pacific Northwest, will involve 40,000 workers by the time victory is achieved after 13 weeks: union recognition, a 50-cent-per-hour minimum wage and an eight-hour day.

MAY 6
1935 – Works Progress Administration (WPA) established at a cost of $4.8 billion –– more than $100.7 billion in 2022 dollars — to provide work opportunities for millions during the Great Depression.
1937 – Four hundred Black women working as tobacco stemmers walk off the job in a spontaneous revolt against poor working conditions and a $3 weekly wage at the Vaughan Co. in Richmond, Va.

MAY 7
1867 – The Knights of St. Crispin union is formed at a secret meeting in Milwaukee. It grew to 50,000 members before being crushed by employers later that year.
1907 – Two die, and 20 are injured in “Bloody Tuesday” as strikebreakers attempt to run San Francisco streetcars during a strike by operators. The strike was declared lost in 1908 after many more deaths, including several in scab-operated streetcar accidents.
1977 – Philadelphia’s longest transit strike ends after 44 days. A key issue in the fight was the hiring and use of part-timers.

(Compiled by David Prosten, founder of Union Communication Services)