United Labor Group history

1824 Women workers strike for the first time, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

1825 The first union for women only formed: The United Tailoresses of New York.

1827 In Philadelphia, several unions of skilled craftsmen combined to form the first trade association.

1828 First workingmen's parties formed to try to elect candidates favoring the 10-hour day, free public education, and ending the practice of imprisoning people in debt.

1837 Andrew Jackson declares a 10-hour workday in Philadelphia Navy Yard.

The 10-hour day-an improvement in its era-was introduced for federal government employees in 1840, but it took until the early years of the 20th century before the 8-hour work day became broadly accepted in the private sector, particularly in the printing and building trades.

1845 The Female Labor Reform Association is formed in Lowell, Massachusetts by Sarah Bagley and other women cotton mill workers to reduce the work day from 12 or 13 hours a day to 10, and to improve sanitation and safety in the mills where they worked.

1852 The Typographical Union, the first national union to last through to the present day, was formed. (now merged with Communications Workers of America).

The National Labor Union was founded on August 20, 1866, in Baltimore, Maryland.

The “Reconstruction” of the South only began when federal troops occupied former Confederate states in 1867 and demanded former confederates pledge loyalty to the union or lose their political rights.

1868 The first 8-hour day for federal workers takes effect.

The Knights of Labor union founded in 1869 took the movement to a new level drawing a national membership.

While this call went unheeded at the time, and the organization folded in 1873, this was only the beginning of the campaign for an 8-hour work day.

1874 The union label is used for the first time by the Cigar Makers International Union.

A Knights’ wildcat strike in 1877 eventually embraced 100,000 workers, but ended in riots, property damage and state militia and federal troops being called out in seven states.

When the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions gathered in convention in 1881, Edison had two years earlier invented the electric light, and the first telephone conversation had taken place just five years before.

1883 Pendleton Act established the United States Civil Service Commission, which placed most federal employees on the merit system and marked the end of the spoils or patronage system.

On May 1, 1886, some 200,000 workers had struck in support of the effort to achieve the 8-hour day.

1888 The first federal labor relations law was enacted, applying to Railroad workers.

The United Mine Workers of America was formed in 1890 when they teamed up with the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers and the Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No.

May 15, 1893, in Butte, Montana, mine workers form the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) as a direct result of their experiences in Coeur d'Alene.

1894 Eugene V. Debs leads the newly formed American Railway Union in the first industry-wide national strike and Boycott against the Pullman Company.

In 1902, the AFL hatters union instituted a national boycott of a non-union company in Danbury, Conn.

1903 The Department of Labor and Commerce is created by an act of Congress, and its Secretary is made a member of the President's Cabinet.

By 1904, the American Federation of Labor had 1.7 million members.

1905 In Chicago, Eugene Debs and Big Bill Haywood combine efforts to found the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies as they were called) to bring all American workers into "One Big Union."

By 1910, the South once again had become a powerful conservative voting bloc in Congress, one that consistently blocked labor rights and social reforms.

1912 In Lawrence, Massachusetts the IWW leads a strike of 23,000 men, women and children to organize the Lawrence Textile Mills: The "Bread & Roses" Strike, hailed as the first successful multi-ethnic strike (see History Matters).

1913 The United States Department of Labor (separate from Commerce) is established by law.

But on Easter night 1914, company-hired gunmen and some of the National Guard poured oil over the strikers' tents and set them on fire.

In 1915, the AFL proclaimed a Hatters' Day, in which workers voluntarily contributed an hours pay to help pay off the fines.

The slogan for the movement became "Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest and eight hours for what you will." In 1916 William C. Adamson introduced the Adamson Act.

A symbolic recognition of labor's new status was President Wilson's visit to Buffalo in 1917 to address the annual AFL convention-the first time a President had made such an appearance.

In November 1919, the driving force and powerhouse for the labor movement, John L. Lewis, became President of the UMWA and remained President for 40 years.

In 1920, AFL membership had soared beyond four million workers.

1921 January 21, national conference of state Manufacturers' associations in Chicago develop the "American Plan" to combat union oganizing.

Kirkland, born in South Carolina in 1922, had been a merchant marine officer during World War II, and became a member of the Master, Mates & Pilots Union.

Theodore Roosevelt Collection (Harvard) External The collection originated as a research library opened in New York City by the Roosevelt Memorial Association in 1923.

Miner’s Memorial Day, also known as Davis Day, was created in honor of William Davis, who was shot and killed during a long strike by the province’s coal miners against the British Empire Steel Corporation on June 11, 1925.

1926 May 20, Railway Labor Act; required employers to bargain collectively and not discriminate against their employees for joining a union and outlawing "yellow-dog" contracts.

Donahue, born in New York in 1928, served in many capacities for the Service Employees Union, both with its Local 32B in new York and as vice president of the international union.

In October 1929, the stock market crashed and $30 million in stock value disappeared.

In February 1931, a strike in Harlan County, Kentucky between the UMWA and coal operators resulted in a bloody coal-field war.

The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932, the second piece of legislation, made it illegal for companies to require workers to sign “yellow dog” contracts promising not to join a union.

A state factory investigation committee headed by Frances Perkins (she was to become Franklin Roosevelt's secretary of labor in 1933, the first woman cabinet member in history) paved the way for many long needed reforms in industrial safety and fire prevention measures.

Tensions over this issue became so prevalent that, in 1935, John L. Lewis, an AFL member, formed the Committee for Industrial Organization.

On the basis of a brilliant record of helping win enactment of state labor and social legislation, he was elected AFL secretary-treasurer, to fill a vacancy, in 1939.

In 1941, after he threatened to march 50,000 black men to Washington to protest their exclusion from production jobs, Roosevelt banned discrimination in defense factories and even established a Fair Employment Commission to enforce his executive order.

1942 National War Labor Board established with labor representation on the board

The CIO recognized the regressive influence the South had on national politics and launched “Operation Dixie,” a massive union drive in 12 Southern states in 1946 to try to break the conservative culture of the region.

The Labor-Management Act of 1947 (Taft-Hartley), outlawed wildcat strikes, mass picketing and secondary boycotts—tactics used to win union recognition.

1953 AFL expels the International Longshoremen's Association for corruption

The Committee for Industrial Organization eventually became the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The AFL and the CIO remained as two separate organizations until 1955, when the two groups reunited together as the AFL-CIO.

John Kennedy recognized that labor had been crucial to his winning the presidency in 1960, and created a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that would be true to its original mission.

Kennedy also established collective bargaining rights for federal employees in 1962.

1965 September 8, Delano Grape Strike began when the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, mostly Filipino farm workers in Delano, California, walked off the farms of area table grape growers demanding wages on level with the federal minimum wage.

The George Meany Center for Labor Studies, established in 1969, plays an increasingly important role in training labor union staff and officials through a range of courses from techniques of collective bargaining to labor law institutes.

He was one of the prime organizers of the Auto Workers and after World War 11 won a closely contested battle for the UAW presidency, a post he held until his death in an airplane crash in 1970.

By 1971, Nixon’s NLRB had undone all of progressive labor reforms that had been established under Kennedy’s NLRB.

1974 March 22, the founding convention of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) in Chicago elects Olga Madar its first president.

Carter won 48 percent of the white vote and 62 percent of the union vote in 1976, but instead of recasting the NLRB or reforming Taft-Hartley, he deregulated the highly unionized trucking, airlines and communications industries.

The first selective strike in the history of the UMWA occurred in 1978 after a 110-day long coal strike.

1979 Douglas Fraser becomes first labor leader elected to board of directors of a major corporation (Chrysler).

When Reagan ran a campaign openly promoting racial stereotypes in 1980, he won 56 percent of the white vote but only 45 percent of the union household vote.

One of the most monumental UMWA strikes took place in 1989, which involved 50,000 in 11 states, using civil disobedience and acts of non-violence to preserve the health care and retirees for workers across the Nation.

In 1990, fierce fighter of working-class rights and United States Army veteran, Cecil E. Roberts, becomes the 15th President of the UMWA.

The fuel that would ignite the company's potential was expansion on a national scale, but in 1991 Labor Ready comprised only eight offices--dispatch centers that served as matchmakers for the unemployed and the construction, light industrial, and small business clients that needed temporary help.

1992 The founding convention of the AFL-CIO's Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) is held from April 30 to May 2 in Washington D.C.

By the end of 1994, there were 51 dispatch offices, including four in Canada, but Welstad had not yet penetrated any markets in the Northeast and the Atlantic, and it maintained only a small presence in the Southeast with one branch office.

1995 The 123,000-member I.L.G.W.U. and the 129,000-member A.C.T.W.U. merge to form the new Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE).

The logical alternative was an offering of stock to investors, which Labor Ready did in June 1996.

1997 In a big win for their members and all of organized labor, the Teamsters reach a new five-year agreement with United Parcel Service (UPS) on Aug.

By the end of 1998, Labor Ready had collected $3.6 million in CDM fees.

George W. Bush won 55 percent of the white vote and just 37 percent of union households in 2000.

2001 March 29, the 500,000-member United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners announced that it was disaffiliating with the national AFL-CIO because of differences in the direction of the labor movement.

In his 2004 reelection, he won 58 percent of the white vote and 40 percent of the union vote.

2005 Seven major national unions, representing six million workers, disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO and, in September, form a new coalition called "Change to Win", devoted to organizing.

Labor in America by Melvyn Dubofsky; Foster Rhea DullesCall Number: HD8066 .D8 2010ISBN: 9780882952734Published/Created: 2010-01-19The book is a chronology presented and there an extensive "further reading" section grouped by theme and specifically discusses the 8-hour day campaign.