Introduction
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.
Building a New Nation
| 1607 | English planters found Jamestown colony and complain about lack of laborers |
| 1619 | Slaves from Africa first imported to colonies |
| 1664 | First slavery codes begin trend of making African servants slaves for life |
| 1676 | Bacon’s Rebellion of servants and slaves in Virginia |
| 1677 | First recorded prosecution against strikers in New York City |
| 1765 | Artisans and laborers in Sons of Liberty protest oppressive British taxes |
| 1770 | British troops kill five dock workers in Boston Massacre |
| 1773 | Laborers protest royal taxation in the Boston tea Party |
| 1775 | American Revolution begins |
| 1786 | Philadelphia printers conduct first successful strike for increased wages |
| 1787 | Constitution adopted |
| 1791 | First strike in building trades by Philadelphia carpenters for a 10-hour day bill of Rights adopted |
Struggles for Freedom
| 1800 | Gabriel Prosser’s slave insurrection in Virginia |
| 1805 | Philadelphia shoemakers found guilty of conspiracy |
| 1808 | Slave importation prohibited |
| 1834 | First turnout of “mill girls” in Lowell, Mass., to protect wage cuts |
| 1835 | General strike for 10-hour day in Philadelphia |
| 1842 | Commonwealth v. Hunt decision frees unions from some prosecutions |
| 1843 | Lowell Female Labor Reform Association begins public petitioning for 10-hour day |
| 1847 | New Hamsphire enacts first state 10-hour-day law |
| 1848 | Seneca Falls women’s rights convention |
| 1860 | Great shoemaker’s strike in New England |
| 1861 | Abraham Lincoln takes office as president and Civil War begins |
| 1863 | President Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation |
| 1865 | 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishes slavery |
Origins of Today’s Union Movement
| 1866 | National Labor Union founded |
| 1867 | Congress begins reconstruction policy in former slave states |
| 1869 | Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor and Colored National Labor Union formed |
| 1870 | 15th Amendment to the Constitution adopted; states the right to vote may not be abrogated by color |
| 1877 | National uprising of railroad workers Ten Irish coal miners (“Molly Maguires”) hanged in Pennsylvania; nine more subsequently were hanged |
| 1881 | Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions formed |
| First Labor Day parade in New York City | |
| 1885 | Knights of Labor on the Southwest (or Gould) System: the Missouri Pacific; the Missouri, Kansas and Texas; and the Wabash |
| 1886 | American Federation of Labor founded |
| 1887 | Seven “anarchists” charged with the bombing in Chicago’s Haymarket Square and sentenced to death |
| 1890 | Carpenters President P.J. McGuire and the union strike and win the eight-hour day for some 28,000 members |
| 1892 | Iron and steel workers union defeated in lockout at Homestead, Pa. Integrated general strike in New Orleans succeeds |
| 1894 | Boycott of Pullman sleeping cars leads to general strike on railroads |
| 1898 | Erdman Act prohibits discrimination against railroad workers because of union membership and provides for mediation of railway labor disputes |
The Progressive Era
| 1900 | AFL and National Civic Federation promote trade agreements with employers U.S. Industrial Commission declares trade unions good for democracy. |
| 1902 | Anthracite strike arbitrated after President Theodore Roosevelt intervenes |
| 1903 | Women’s Trade Union League formed at AFL convention |
| 1905 | Industrial Workers of the World founded |
| 1908 | AFL endorses Democrat William Jennings Bryan for President |
| 1909 | “Uprising of the 20,000” female shirtwaist makers in New York strike against sweatshop conditions Unorganized immigrant steel workers strike in McKees Rocks, Pa. and win all demands |
| 1911 | Triangle Shirtwaist factory in fire in New York kills nearly 150 workers |
| 1912 | Bread and Roses strike begun by immigrant women in Lawrence, Mass., ended with 23,000 men and women and children on strike and with as many as 20,000 on the picket line Bill creating Department of Labor passes at the end of congressional session |
| 1913 | Woodrow Wilson takes office as president and appoints the first secretary of labor, William B. Wilson of the Mine Workers |
| 1914 | Ludlow Massacre of 13 women and children and seven men in Colorado coal miners’ strike |
| 1917 | United States enters World War I |
| 1918 | Leadership of Industrial Workers of the World sentenced to federal prison on charges of disloyalty to the United States |
| 1919 | One of every five workers walked out in great strike wave, including national clothing coal and steel strikes; a general strike in Seattle; and a police strike in Boston International Labor Organization founded in France |
Repression and Depression
| 1920 | 19th Amendment to the Constitution gives women the right to vote |
| 1924 | Samuel Gompers dies; William Green becomes new AFL president |
| 1925 | A. Philip Randolph helps create the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters |
| 1926 | Railway Labor Act sets up procedures to settle railway labor disputes and forbids discrimination against union members |
| 1929 | Stock market crashes as stocks fall 40 percent; Great Depression begins |
| 1931 | Davis-Bacon Act provides for prevailing wages on publicly funded construction projects |
| 1932 | Norris-LaGuardia Act prohibits federal injunctions in most labor disputes |
| 1933 | President Franklin Roosevelt proposes New Deal programs to Congress |
Democratizing America
| 1934 | Upsurge in strikes, including national textile strike, which fails |
| 1935 | National Labor Relations Act and Social Security Act passed Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) formed within AFL |
| 1936 | AFL and CIO create labor’s Non-Partisan League and help President Roosevelt win re-election to a second term |
| 1937 | Auto Workers win sit-down strike against General Motors in Flint, Mich. Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters wins contract with Pullman Co. |
| 1938 | Fair Labor Standards Act establishes first minimum wage and 40-hour week Congress of industrial Organizations forms as an independent federation |
| 1940 | John L. Lewis resigns and Philip Murray becomes CIO president |
| 1941 | A. Philip Randolph threatens march on Washington to protest racial discrimination in defense jobs |
| 1941 | U.S. troops enter combat in World War II National War Labor Board created with union members |
| 1943 | CIO forms first political action committee to get out the union vote for President Roosevelt |
The Fight for Economic and Social Justice
| 1946 | Largest strike wave in U.S. history |
| 1947 | Taft-Hartley Act restricts union members’ activities |
| 1949 | First two of 11 unions with Communist leaders are purged from CIO |
| 1952 | William Green and Philip Murray die; George Meany and Walter Reuther become presidents of AFL and CIO, respectively |
| 1955 | AFL and CIO merge; George Meany becomes president |
| 1957 | AFL-CIO expels two affiliates for corruption |
| 1959 | Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (Landrum-Griffin) passed |
| 1962 | President John Kennedy’s order gives federal workers the right to bargain |
| 1963 | March on Washington for jobs and Justice Equal Pay Act bans wage discrimination based on gender |
| 1964 | Civil Rights Act bans institutional forms of racial discrimination |
| 1965 | AFL-CIO forms A. Philip Randolph Institute César Chávez forms AFL-CIO United Farm Workers Organizing Committee |
| 1968 | Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., during sanitation workers’ strike |
Progress and New Challenges
| 1970 | Occupational Safety and Health Act passed |
| 1972 | Coalition of Black Trade Unionists formed |
| 1973 | Labor Council for Latin American Advancement founded |
| 1974 | Coalition of Labor Union Women founded |
| 1979 | Lane Kirkland elected president of AFL-CIO |
| 1981 | President Reagan breaks air traffic controllers’s strike AFL-CIO rallies 400,000 in Washington on Solidarity Day |
| 1989 | Organizing Institute created |
| 1990 | United Mine Workers of America win strike against Pittston Coal United Steelworkers of America labor Alliance created within the AFL-CIO |
| 1992 | Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance created within AFL-CIO |
| 1995 | Thomas Donahue replaces Lane Kirkland as interim head of AFL-CIO John Sweeney president of AFL-CIO |
| 1997 | AFL-CIO defeats legislation giving the president the ability to “Fast Track’ trade legislation without assured protection of workers’ rights and the environment |
| 1997 | Pride at Work, a national coalition of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender workers and their supporters, becomes an AFL-CIO constituency group AFL-CIO membership renewed growth |
| 1999 | More than 75,000 human service workers are unionized in Los Angeles County 30,000 to 50,000 working family activists take to Seattle streets to tell the World Trade Organization and its allies, “If the Global Economy Doesn’t Work for Working Families, It Doesn’t Work” 5,000 North Carolina textile workers gain a union after a 25-year struggle 65,000 Puerto Rico public-sector workers join unions Broad Campaign for Global Fairness pushes for economic and social justice worldwide Union movement organizes biggest program of grassroots electoral politics ever
Source: AFL-CIO America’s Unions: http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Labor-History-Timeline (Accessed with Permission: October 20, 2015). |
3 Replies to “Labor History Timeline: 1607 – 1999”
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Unions have come a long way since the industrial revolution. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.