Action Labor & Staffing Connection history

1835 General strike for 10-hour day in Philadelphia

1843 Lowell Female Labor Reform Association begins public petitioning for 10-hour day

1860 Great shoemaker’s strike in New England

1866 National Labor Union founded

1869 Colored National Labor Union formed

1871 After her dress shop is destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones begins working as a labor organizer

1881 Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions formed

1885 Successful strike by Knights of Labor on the Southwest (or Gould) System; the Missouri Pacific; the Missouri, Kansas and Texas; and the Wabash

1886 General strike in Chicago turns bloody in Haymarket Square; seven “anarchists” charged and sentenced to death

1892 Integrated general strike in New Orleans succeeds

1900 The AFL and National Civic Federation promote trade agreements with employers; United States Industrial Commission declares trade unions good for democracy

1902 Anthracite strike arbitrated after President Theodore Roosevelt intervenes

1903 To improve enforcement of child labor laws, Mother Jones organizes a children's march from Philadelphia to New York

1908 The AFL endorses Democrat William Jennings Bryan for United States president

1909 “Uprising of the 20,000” female shirtwaist makers in New York strike against sweatshop conditions

1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory in fire in New York kills nearly 150 workers

1913 Woodrow Wilson takes office as president and appoints the first secretary of labor, William B. Wilson of the Mine Workers

The wave of strikes is the worst since 1919 and includes general strikes in Hartford, Houston, Oakland, and other cities.

1924 Samuel Gompers dies; William Green becomes AFL president

1925 A. Philip Randolph helps create the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

1931 Davis-Bacon Act provides for prevailing wages on publicly funded construction projects

1933 Frances Perkins becomes the United States secretary of labor, the first woman to be appointed to the United States Cabinet

1936 The AFL and the CIO create Non-Partisan League and help President Roosevelt win re-election to a second term

1937 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters win contract with Pullman Co.

1938 Fair Labor Standards Act establishes first minimum wage and 40-hour week

1940 John L. Lewis resigns; Phillip Murray becomes CIO president

1944 Nelson Cruikshank begins working for the AFL and works hard to expand or establish Social Security, Medicare and national health care

1949 The first two of 11 unions with Communist leaders are purged from the CIO

1955 The AFL and the CIO merge; George Meany president

1959: The Bureau of Labor-Management Reports (BLMR) was formed after passage of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, as amended (LMRDA).

1964 Civil Rights Act bans institutional forms of racial discrimination

1970: Executive Order 11491 created the Office of Federal Labor-Management Relations (FLMR) within LMSA to implement the responsibilities for labor-management relations in the federal sector.

1972 Coalition of Black Trade Unionists formed

1974 Coalition of Labor Union Women founded

With the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) in 1978, the federal labor relations program was transferred to the newly created Federal Labor Relations Authority.

1980: The Foreign Service Act (FSA) was passed and unions representing employees of the Department of State and United States Information Agency (USIA) became subject to the Standards of Conduct requirements in section 4117 of the FSA.

1981 President Ronald Reagan breaks air traffic controllers’ strike

In 1986, the first Action Labor branch opened in Gainesville, Florida.

1989 Organizing Institute created

1992 Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance created within the AFL-CIO

1993: OLMS and the programs formerly in BLMRCP were merged into a newly created agency known as the Office of the American Workplace (OAW), which was created, in part, to promote high performance workplaces.

1996: OAW ceased to exist and OLMS again became part of ESA. The employee protection functions were incorporated in OLMS and became the OLMS Division of Statutory Programs.

1998 The longest successful strike in the history of the United States, the Frontier Strike, ends after 6 years, 4 months and 10 days.

2000 AFL-CIO Executive Council calls for reform in the nation’s immigration laws for undocumented workers

2001 AFL-CIO launches Alliance for Retired Americans to recruit activists and mobilize older Americans

2003 The AFL-CIO establishes Working America to reach out to nonunion members and mobilize workers through door-to-door canvassing in neighborhoods

2008 The AFL-CIO establishes the Union Veterans Council

2009: ESA was eliminated and OLMS became an independent agency reporting directly to the Secretary of Labor.