‘Standing up for our workers’: US unions raise thousands for victims of ICE crackdown

This month in labour history

1-02-1864 The Collar Laundry Union was formed in New York, the first women's union in US history, led by Kate Mullany. Over the next few years the women increase their wages from $2 to $14 a week. [more]

2-02-1917 300 newspaper boys organize to challenge a cut in their wages by a newspaper, the Minneapolis Tribune. [more]

4-02-1924 IWW members took on the Ku Klux Klan, patrolling the streets of Greenville, Maine, after the KKK tried to threaten IWW union organisers: “We are going to stick, and if the Klan wants to start something, the IWW are going to finish it” [more]

4-02-1869 IWW and SPUSA leader Big Bill Haywood is born in Salt Lake City, Utah. [more]

4-02-1919 The General Strike Committee meets in Seattle, and makes preparations for an all-out labour stoppage [more]

5-02-1913 17-year-old Ida Braiman is shot dead by a contractor during the garment workers' strike in Rochester, NY. [more]

6-02-1919 A total of 60,000 of Seattle's population of 315,000 join the general strike on its first day [more]

8-02-1919 Workers in Butte, Montana responded to a dollar per day wage cut by launching a general strike. To prevent disunity, workers formed a Workers and Soldiers Council to conduct the strike. [more]

11-02-1937 The 6 week-long sit-down strike at General Motors in Flint Michigan ends as GM agrees to recognize the UAW. [more]

12-02-1968 The Memphis sanitation strike by African-American workers began in protest against mistreatment, discrimination, dangerous working conditions, and the recent deaths of two workers. They held out until April and won. [more]

13-02-1913 82-year-old labour activist Mother Jones was arrested in West Virginia for supporting a coal miners strike. Convicted in a military court she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Pardoned after serving 85 days. [more]

14-02-1818 Frederick Douglass is born into slavery in Maryland. He will go on to become a titanic figure in the struggle against slavery, and in favour of universal suffrage and women's rights. [more]

14-02-1936 Goodyear workers in Ohio strike. They defy union orders to leave the plant & resist 150 sheriff's deputies. Threatening a general strike if a vigilante army was used, they won after a month. [more]

15-02-1913 A strike of rubber workers in #Akron organised by @_IWW union grew to 3,500 strikers. Earlier that month 300 workers at Firestone walked out and were eventually joined by 20K others but police violence & repression forced them to end it. [more]

18-02-1935 Tens of thousands of New Yorkers were stranded by a wildcat strike of elevator operators in the city. [more]

19-02-1866 The first union in Mississippi was created by African-American washerwomen. [more]

19-02-1986 The Farm Labourers Organizing Committee wins recognition at Campbell's Soup farms after years of struggle [more]

20-02-1919 The Elaine massacre took place in Arkansas. After black farm workers tried to organise for better pay, hundreds of African-Americans were murdered and tortured by white racists and security forces [more]

23-02-1910 Workers at the soon to be infamous Triangle Shirtwaist factory decided to end their five month long strike. They had won higher wages and reduced hours but failed to get union recognition. [more]

24-02-1939 US Supreme Court ruled sitdown strikes illegal. [more]

24-02-1944 320 men, mostly African-Americans were killed in explosion at the Port Chicago naval base. 50 African-American servicemen who then protested against unsafe conditions were court-martialed and sentenced to 8-15 years hard labour. [more]

27-02-1881 African-American laundresses in Atlanta, Georgia, went on strike and were successful in raising wages and establishing a union. [more]

27-02-1939 Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes violate property owners' rights and are therefore illegal. [more]