2/20/2018 History

Today in Labor History – February 20, 1834 – Responding to a 15 percent wage cut, women textile workers in Lowell, Mass., organize a “turn-out”—a strike—in protest. The action failed. Two years later they formed the Factory Girl’s Association in response to a rent hike in company boarding houses and the increase was rescinded. One worker’s diary recounts a “stirring speech” of resistance by a co-worker, 11-year-old Harriet Hanson Robinson.

1908 – Rally for unemployed becomes major confrontation in Philadelphia, 18 arrested for demanding jobs.

1917 – Thousands of women march to New York’s City Hall demanding relief from exorbitant wartime food prices. Inflation had wiped out any wage gains made by workers, leading to a high level of working class protest during World War I.

1990 – United Mine Workers settle 10-month Pittston strike in Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia.