1-12-1946 130,000 Oakland, USA workers go on general strike. [more]

1-12-1955 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus, sparking the Montgomery bus boycott. [more]

4-12-1970 Cesar Chavez sentenced to 20 days in jail for not calling off United Farm Workers boycott of lettuce grower Bud Antle Inc. [more]

5-12-1955 The two main union federations in the USA merge to form the AFL-CIO, electing George Meany as president, [more]

6-12-1907 The worst mining disaster in American history occurs when an explosion in a Monongah mine in West Virginia kills 361 miners. [more]

7-12-1896 In Chicago, 11 activists found the National Union of Steam Engineers of America; the forerunner of International Union of Operating Engineers. [more]

8-12-1916 Bernice Fisher born. US civil rights activist, union organizer, original founder of Congress of Racial Equality. [more]

8-12-2001 230 jailed teachers in Middletown Township, NJ, ordered freed after agreement to end 9day strike & enter mediation. [more]

8-12-1886 The American Federation of Labor (AFL) is founded by 26 craft unions. Samuel Gompers is elected president. [more]

13-12-1924 Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor, dies. [more]

14-12-1995 Boeing machinists in the US win a pay rise and an imporved health plan after a 69 day strike. [more]

14-12-1852 American Socialist Daniel De Leon born. Trade union organiser, journalist and Marxist theoretician who died in 1914. [more]

19-12-1907 A group of 239 coal miners die during a mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania. [more]

19-12-1983 Greyhound bus strike ends when members of Amalgamated Transit Union ratify a contract that slashes wages & benefits by 15% [more]

21-12-1919 Emma Goldman is deported to Russia as part of a post-war crackdown on union and left-wing activists. [more]

21-12-1916 Emma Tenayuca, Mexican-American labour leader, is born. [more]

23-12-1908 AFL officers are found in contempt of court for urging a labor boycott of Buck's Stove and Range Co. in St Louis. [more]

24-12-1913 Seventy three striking miners and their families die in a stampede at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan, after an unknown man enters shouting 'Fire!' [more]

24-12-1913 The Italian Hall Disaster in Calumet, Michigan, results in the death of 73 Christmas party goers held by striking miners. [more]

25-12-1904 Philip Vera Cruz, labour leader & activist in Asian American civil rights movement, is born. Co-founder of United Farm Workers' Union. [more]

25-12-1910 Bomb destroys part of the Llewellyn Ironworks in Los Angeles where a bitter strike is ongoing. [more]

26-12-1877 First national convention of the Socialist Labor Party, the first Marxist party founded in the USA. [more]

27-12-1943 President Roosevelt seizes railroads to avoid a national strike. [more]

29-12-2006 More than 15,000 United Steel Workers members at 16 Goodyear Tire & Rubber plants end an 86-day strike, ratify three-year contract. [more]

30-12-1936 The United Auto Workers union stages its first sit-down strike. [more]

30-12-1936 The most famous of the Depression-era "sit down" strikes in the US begins at GM's Fisher Body plant in Flint, Michigan. [more]

30-12-1899 In the back room of Behrens’ cigar shop in Sedalia, Missiouri, US, 33 railroad clerks form Local Lodge Number 1 of the Order of the Railroad Clerks of America. [more]

31-12-1969 Murder of Joseph Yablonski, United Mine Workers labor leader, by killers hired by a union political opponent. [more]

31-12-1969 Rank-and-file UMWA activist Jock Yablonski is murdered along with his family by hitmen acting on the orders of union president. [more]