Labor History in 2:00

February 26 - Amsterdam Workers Strike Against Nazism

On this day in Labor History the year was 1941. That was the day a general strike by workers against the Nazis took place in Amsterdam. The Nazis had begun the occupation of the Netherlands in the spring of 1940. The German occupiers implemented a series of increasingly repressive anti-Semitic laws.  

February 24 - Fighting for the Health of an Industry

On this day in Labor History the year was 1965. That was the day that the Drug and Hospital Employees Union Local 1199 sent a telegram to President Lyndon Johnson. The message declared the union’s stand against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.  

February 23 - Danger Down Below

On this day in Labor History the year was 1875. That was the day that the National Marine Engineers’ Association was founded at a meeting in Cleveland, Ohio. The association represented steamboat engineers, most from boats navigating the Great Lakes. Being a steamboat engineer was risky business.  

February 22 - Fighting for a Floor

On this day in Labor History the year was 1860. That was the day that the shoemakers of Linn, Massachusetts walked out on strike. 

The shoemakers were very concerned over how technology was changing their work. Shoemaking had long been considered a skilled craft.  

February 21 - The Origins of Labor Day

Across the United States, workers enjoy the first Monday of September as their holiday. 

Labor Day has become known as a day for family picnics and community parades—but do you know how Labor Day really started?

February 20 - The National Lawyers Guild is Founded

On this day in Labor History the year was 1937. That was the day the National Lawyers Guild held their first convention at the Hotel Washington in the nation’s capital. The guild was established as way to bring together progressive lawyers dedicated to fighting “for basic and progressive change in our political and economic system and to assure that human rights be regarded as more sacred than property interests.

February 19 - Fighting for Dignity in a Fairy Tale

On this day in Labor History the year was 1997. If you had theater tickets that evening to see Beauty and the Beast in Seattle, the show did not go on as planned.  Musicians at the Fifth Avenue theater, members of Local 76-493, had been on strike for a week.  

February 18 - THE MAN Hits the Stands

On this day in Labor History the year was 1834. That was the day that one of the earliest labor newspapers in the country published its first edition in New York City. The Man was a paper aimed at trade unionists.

February 17 - Remembering Florence Kelley

On this day in Labor History the year was 1932. That was the day that working people in the United States said goodbye to one of their great heroes. Florence Kelley was born in Philadelphia in 1859. Her father, William D. Kelley, was a U.S. Senator.  

February 16 - Leonora O’Reilly is Born

On this day in Labor History the year was 1870. That was the day that the powerful labor orator Leonora O’Reilly was born to an Irish immigrant garment worker in New York City. During her lifetime Leonora left her special mark on the labor movement as a member of some of the leading organizations of working people of her day.