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1-05-1886 Between 300,000 to half a million workers went on strike and rallies were held throughout the United States, with the cry, "Eight-hour day with no cut in pay". [more]

2-05-1843 "Mill girls" – overwhelmingly female textile workers – walked out on strike in Massachusetts for better conditions. [more]

2-05-1968 4,000 workers in the Hamtramck auto plant in Detroit walked out against speed up. Several black strikers met in a bar opposite and founded the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement to organise black workers. [more]

3-05-1895 Eugene V. Debs and 6 other union railroad leaders are sentenced to 6 months in prison for contempt of court during a hearing over a strike at the Pullman luxury car manufacturing plants. [more]

4-05-1886 A bomb is thrown during a demonstration against police violence in Haymarket Square, Chicago. The ensuing police riot and trials of anarchists, known as the Haymarket affair, eventually give birth to May Day as international workers' day. [more]

5-05-1886 Nine striking workers are shot dead by the National Guard at the Rolling Mills Steel Factory in Bay View, Milwaukee [more]

6-05-1935 The Works Progress Administration is established by executive order - it will provide work for millions of Americans. [more]

7-05-1912 New York City waiters and waitresses walked out on strike [more]

8-05-1926 A. Philip Randolph founds the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. [more]

9-05-1913 The garment workers strike at Cohoes could become an international incident after it emerges that Italian migrant workers are being forced to break the strike. [more]

11-05-1894 Three thousands Pullman railroad workers in Chicago begin a wildcat strike. [more]

12-05-1902 John Mitchell of the UMWA cals for a national strike, beginning the Anthracite Coal Strike which will last five months. [more]

13-05-1893 Western Federation of Miners formed in Butte, Montana. [more]

13-05-1980 Douglas Fraser of the UAW becomes the first union representative on the board a major US corporation after Chystler's stockholders vote him on. [more]

15-05-1946 489 city workers in Rochester, NY were sacked for organising a union. They protested the next day, and sympathy strikes began, growing to a general strike, when bosses caved and reinstated the sacked workers. [more]

15-05-1935 Folk singer, labor organiser and IWW member Utah Phillips is born. [more]

16-05-1934 Minneapolis Teamsters went on strike, shutting down almost all commercial transport in the city. The dispute lasted over three months, ending with most of the workers’ demands being met in a landmark win. [more]

17-05-1946 The US govt seized the nation's railroads to stop a nationwide strike. Workers walked out anyway and only the President's threat to draft the strikers and call up the army to run the railroads forced them back to work. [more]

18-05-1928 "Big Bill" Haywood, former mineworker and founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World revolutionary union, dies in Moscow. [more]

19-05-1920 A gun battle between the people of Matewan and Baldwin Felts detectives leaves ten people dead. [more]

20-05-1926 The first federal legislation asserting workers' right to form unions takes effect today in the rail industry. [more]

21-05-1945 The US government took over the bituminous coal mines to try to break a six-week miners' strike. The miners held out, forcing the govt to grant workers' demands which had been unacceptable to the operators. [more]

22-05-1942 In Cleveland the Steelworkers Organizing Committee voted to become a union: the United Steelworkers of America [more]

23-05-1903 Some 100,000 textile workers, including more than 10,000 children, are on strike in the Philadelphia area protesting against 60-hour weeks including night hours imposed on children. [more]

24-05-1995 After 10 months on strike against 12-hour shifts and wage increases linked to productivity, 2300 workers from 5 Bridgestone-Firestone factories resign themselves to going back to work without a collective agreement. [more]

25-05-1946 President Truman comes within three minutes of drafting the nation's railroad workers into the army to suppress a proposed strike, but the union leaders and employers settle just before the presiden't ultimatum comes into effect. [more]

25-05-1805 A Philadelphia shoemakers' strike was broken when workers were arrested and accused of violating an English law proclaiming criminal any conspiracy to force a collective increase in wages. [more]

26-05-1937 UAW organisers are attacked and beaten by Ford security men in Dearborn, Michigan, in an incident which greatly increases support for the union. [more]

28-05-1946 Workers in Rochester, New York, stage a successful one day general strike for the right to form unions. [more]

29-05-1990 The Justice for Janitors strike of ISS cleaners in Los Angeles begins. [more]

29-05-1941 Disney Studios animators in LA strike for union recognition. 16 were fired. [more]

29-05-1946 The Rochester general strike ended after just one day with victory for the workers. They won reinstatement for hundreds of city workers who had been sacked for forming a union, dropping of all charges, and recognition of the union. [more]

31-05-1921 The Sacco and Vanzetti trial begins in Dedham, Massachusetts. [more]

31-05-1943 At the Detroit Packard Motor Co factory, in full war production, 25,000 white workers go on strike when 3 black workers are promoted to a line previously occupied only by whites. The 3 are transferred. [more]