César Chávez was a folk hero and symbol of hope to millions of Americans. In 1962, he and a few others set out to organize a union of farm workers. An ardent advocate of nonviolence, Chávez was one of the most inspirational labor leaders of the 20th century, with an influence that stretched far beyond the California fields.
Continue Reading »From the earliest days of the American colonies, when apprentice laborers in Charleston, S.C., went on strike for better pay in the 1700s, to the first formal union of workers in 1829 who sought to reduce their time on the job to 60 hours a week, our nation’s working people have recognized that joining together is the most effective means of improving their lives on and off the job.
Continue Reading »Chapter 13 from the book: “Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy” by Louise W. Knight. “The strike was a public crisis. Its eruption raised difficult questions for Addams about the ethics of the industrial relationship. What were George Pullman’s obligations to his employees? And what were his employees’ to him? …Who had betrayed whom? Where did the moral responsibility lie?”
Continue Reading »by Robert S. Allen, The Nation July 17, 1937. Wage-hour legislation was a campaign issue in the 1936 Presidential race.
Continue Reading »Article written by John S. Gambs, Survey Graphic, 1934. “In this fashion, carrying on their banners the device used by men in the Continental Navy—-the coiled rattlesnake and the militant words, Don’t Tread on Me—thousands of men and women are protesting the inadequacies of unemployment relief.”
Continue Reading »Article by Louis Adamic, The Nation, 1934. “In brief, the A. F. of L. union skates are utilizing, exploiting the workers’ hate for company unions, stirring and intensifying it, focusing their thoughts and feelings on the company-union evil, exaggerating the power of company unionism, in order to keep them blind to the faults and shortcomings of the A. F. of L. organizations.”
Continue Reading »By Catherine A. Paul, 2017. The Flint Sit-Down Strike is known as the most important strike in American history because it changed the United Automobile Workers (UAW) from a collection of isolated individuals into a major union, ultimately leading to the unionization of the United States automobile industry.
Continue Reading »Article by Charles R. Walker, The Nation, 1937. “‘We’ll stay in till they carry us out on stretchers,’ is the message sent out by the sitdowners in Fisher 2. ‘We’d rather die than give up.'”
Continue Reading »Article by Samuel Romer, The Nation, 1933. “…There were only about 450 men working in the plant then–but every one of them put away his tools and walked out. So began the first major labor struggle in Detroit since the period immediately following the war.”
Continue Reading »Article written by Samuel Romer, The Nation, 1937. “When sitdown strikes in five General Motors automobile and parts plants resulted in a practical paralysis of production operations and forced direct negotiations between national officers of both the corporation and the union, few of the workers involved realized that they were participating in the first important battle of a civil war which will largely determine the industrial progress of America during the next decade.”
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