New York New York hotel workers win a long-term industry-wide agreement to increase financial and job security

This month in labour history

3-07-1835 In Paterson, New Jersey, children from the textile factories that manufacture silk go on strike for the 11-hour day and the 6-day week. They win a 69 hour week. [more]

4-07-1840 Tenants in upstate New York issue a 'Declaration of Independence', beginning a five-year Anti-Rent War [more]

5-07-1934 Two strikers are killed fighting police, scabs, and the National Guard during the San Francisco longshoremen's strike [more]

6-07-1892 Striking workers defeat and force the surrender of Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike in Pennsylvania [more]

7-07-1905 The Industrial Workers of the World is founded in Chicago. Amongst its leadership at the founding convention were William (“Big Bill”) Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, and Daniel De Leon and Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party [more]

7-07-1919 Actors Equity is recognized by producers after a strike that closed almost all of the country's theatrical productions. Before unionization, actors often had to pay for their own costumes, rehearse without pay, etc. [more]

8-07-1966 The largest strike in aviation history begins, shutting down 60 per cent of the US airline industry for six weeks [more]

9-07-2001 5000 protesters gather outside the Capitol in Columbia, South Carolina to support the ‘Charleston 5’, union activists falsely accused of causing riots when the police charged 2,000 dockers on a picket line. [more]

10-07-1902 112 miners die in an explosion in the Rolling Mill Mine in Pennsylvania [more]

12-07-1933 The Screen Actors Guild holds its first meeting. Among those attending: future horror movie star and union activist, Boris Karloff. [more]

14-07-1912 Folksinger Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma. Guthrie wrote hundreds of country, folk, and children's songs, along with ballads and improvised works, many of which focussed on workers and their unions. [more]

14-07-1959 In Gary, Indiana, more than 500,000 workers went on strike, shutting down the country's steel mills for 5 months. [more]

15-07-1959 Half a million steelworkers across the country strike for a pay increase in their new contract [more]

16-07-1934 The San Francisco Labor Council calls a city-wide general strike in support of longshoremen, which succeeds in winning most of the workers' main demands after four days. [more]

16-07-1934 20,000 Alabama textile workers go on strike at the employers' announcement of a reduction in working hours equivalent to a 25% cut in wages. In September, the strikers will number 300,000. [more]

18-07-1969 African American hopsital workers in South Carolina win union recognition after a 113-day strike [more]

20-07-1899 Newsboys in New York go on strike against press giants Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst [more]

21-07-1877 The government attempts to violently suppress the great railroad strike in Pennsylvania [more]

22-07-1916 A bomb was is set off during a parade in San Francisco, killing 10 and injuring 40. Labour organizer Tom Mooney,and Warren Billings, a shoe worker, were convicted of the crime, but both were pardoned 23 years later [more]

25-07-1907 Trotskyist labor organizer and leader of the 1934 Minneapolis teamsters' strike Farrell Dobbs is born [more]

25-07-1877 Massive general strike in St. Louis, Missouri, in support of railroad workers. 3,000 federal troops and 5,000 special deputies were sent there: 18 dead and many wounded. [more]

26-07-1877 Thirty workers are killed in the Battle of Halsted Street Viaduct during the railroad strike in Chicago. [more]

28-07-1869 Women shoemakers in Lynn, MA demand equal pay with men and form an organization, the "Daughters of St. Crispin". [more]

29-07-1970 The United Farm Workers sign their first collective bargaining agreement with California grape growers [more]

30-07-1975 Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa disappears from a parking lot in Oakland County and is never seen again [more]