"The Labor Movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth." -Wendell Phillips, Abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, Women's rights, and the Labor movement
Wednesday, Feb 11:
IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) leads rubber strike. 15,000 rubber workers strike in Akron, Ohio, protesting a forced speed-up and low pay. -1913
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announces he will call out the National Guard, if necessary, to deal with any "unrest" among state employees in the wake of his decision to unilaterally end nearly all collective bargaining rights for the unions. Under Walker’s anti-worker Republican “free market” strategy, Wisconsin slid to last in the nation for growth, 44th economic performance, 39th for business climate. Walker raised the state deficit from $137 million to $2.2 Billion within 3 years. In 2015 Walker gleefully cut funds to the bone for all public services and education in order to balance the budget and pay for his huge corporate tax cuts. -2011
Thursday, Feb 12:
John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers and founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), born on this date. In 1935, he pulled the UAW from the American Federation of Labor (and punched out Carpenters Union President William Hutcheson in the process) when the AFL refused to endorse industrial unionism. Lewis then formed the CIO, which organized millions of unskilled, mass production workers into unions in the 1930s and 1940s. -1880
76 year old Mary Harris "Mother" Jones leads a protest of conditions in the West Virginia mines and is arrested. The miners lived and worked under a large force of company guards, armed with Winchesters and three Gatling guns always pointed at the workers. Mary Jones was called "The most dangerous woman in America" by the U.S. Government, she was dangerous to the established order because she was fearless in her defense of the oppressed working class. -1913
Friday, Feb 13:
First Public School in America founded, 152 years before the US Constitution was written. Public schools are 100% American and our birthright, public schools made America great. The people who fought and won the American Revolution were educated in public schools! -1635
A national 8-month strike by the Sons of Vulcan, a union of iron forgers, ends in victory when employers agreed to a wage scale based on the price of iron bars, the first time employers recognized the union, the first union contract in the iron and steel industry, and one of the first union contracts of any kind in the United States. -1865
Saturday, Feb 14:
Western Federation of Miners strike for 8-hour day. The WFM was a so-called “radical”, militant union formed by miners from Butte, Montana, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Colorado, South Dakota, and Utah. They fought for “radical” ideas of fair pay, the 8-hour work day, and less deadly working conditions. -1903
Striking workers at Detroit’s newspapers, out since the previous July, offer to return to work. The offer is accepted 5 days later but the newspapers vow to retain some 1,200 scabs. A court ruling the following year ordered as many as 1,100 former strikers reinstated. -1996
Sunday, Feb 15:
Susan B. Anthony, suffragist, abolitionist, union activist, 8-hour day advocate, born on this date. "Join the union, girls, and together say: Equal Pay for Equal Work." -1820
Signing of original 11-state master trucking agreement, involving 200,000 truckers, which forms the basis for the Teamsters Union. -1933
Monday, Feb 16:
Beginning of a 17-week general strike of 12,000 New York furriers, in which Jewish workers formed a coalition with Greek and African American workers and became the first union to win a 5-day, 40-hour week. -1926
Thousands of Socialists battle Communists at a rally in New York's Madison Square Garden. (This would be entirely baffling to any of today's right-wingers and FOX “news” viewers due to not understanding the stark differences between the Socialists and Communists.) -1934
All public schools in Milwaukee and Madison are closed as teachers call in sick to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s plans to gut their collective bargaining rights. Walker gets his way and guts the union and Wisconsin starts its economic decline and adds billions to its deficit all in the name of the magical “Free Market”. - 2011
Tuesday, Feb 17:
Thomas Paine's “Rights of Man”, Part II is published. The original American Patriot, Paine was known as the voice of the American Revolution, he was a champion of original Liberal American values and social safety nets in order to insure Liberty and Freedom of the People. John Adams said “Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.” -1792
Legendary Labor leader “Big Bill” Haywood (IWW) and 2 others were framed and arrested for the murder of former Idaho Governor Frank Stuenenberg. Clarence Darrow successfully defended them, telling jurors, “If at the behest of this mob you should kill Bill Haywood, he is mortal, he will die, but I want to say that a million men will grab up the banner of labor where at the open grave Haywood lays it down . . .” -1906
Germany: Hermann Goering endorses Nazi terrorism after 2 weeks of Fascist violence against the labor unions and union leaders. Anti-unionism is always the hallmark of every Fascists regime throughout history, and currently. -1933
This Week in Labor History is compiled by Kevin D. Curtis
