Labor History in 2:00

January 5 - The Best Customers

Today in labor history, January 5, 1914 the Ford Motor Company raised its basic wage from $2.40 for a nine-hour day to $5 for an eight-hour work day.  Many of Ford’s contemporary critics scorned his “Five Dollar Day.” Journalists and other auto makers predicted disaster for the industry. Henry Ford implemented the wage increase to head off labor unrest in the company and curtail his problems with worker turnover. The wage increase helped to derail efforts to start a union in his factory. The five-dollar day was not an act of altruism by the automaker.  It was a calculated business decision. Most importantly for Ford, the wage increase enabled his workers to become customers and buy cars of their own. Ford declared, “One’s own employees ought to be one’s own best customers.”  Despite the prognosticators of doom, Ford’s plan worked.  Ford’s profits doubled in the two years after he raised the wages. In 1914 Ford sold more than 300,000 Model Ts, more than all other U.S. automakers combined.  By 1920 that number had climbed to a million cars a year.  Reflecting back on his decision Ford explained, “The payment of five dollars a day for an eight-hour day was one of the finest cost-cutting moves we ever made.”  Perhaps those who today are lining up to predict doom and disaster if the minimum wage is raised might benefit from reading this page from labor history.

January 4 - The Longest Strike

Last year Chicago saw the end of what may have been the longest hotel strike in history. On Father’s Day 2013, 130 workers from the Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue walked off the job. They were protesting a reduction in wages and the hotel’s hiring of minimum-wage subcontractors.  For ten years the strikers, let by Unite Here, picketed the hotel.  The hotel management remained unmoved.  Unite Here quietly ended the strike.  But that was not the longest strike in history-not by a long shot.  Today in labor history, January 4,1961, barbers assistants in Copenhagen, Denmark ended their strike.  They had first walked off the job in 1928—and the Guinness World Book of Records has declared the strike the longest in recorded history!  Every strike, or a work-stoppage, has its own character.  A strike might be as short as just a portion of a day. Or a strike might last for weeks, months, or years.  Sometimes union members call strikes to last a specific amount of time—usually a few days.  Other times union members vote for an open-ended strike, with the duration uncertain.  The tactic of a strike is one of the most extreme measures a union can take.  Usually, a strike means that all other efforts to gain a fair contract have been exhausted.  Long strikes have become less common in recent years.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there were only 15 major work stoppages in 2013.  Of these two-thirds lasted three days or less.

January 3 - The England Food Riot

Today in labor history, January 3, 1931 was a day that helped to bring the hunger and poverty caused by the Great Depression to the attention of the nation.

January 2 - The January 1905 Conference

Today in labor history, January 2, 1905 a secret meeting was held in Chicago, attended by 23 industrial unionists.  

January 1 - The Emancipation Proclamation

Today in labor history, January 1, 1963, is one of the most often misunderstood days in United States history.  This was the day that Abraham Lincoln issued the “Emancipation Proclamation.”  But did you know that Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free enslaved people in the U.S.? 

December 31 - The First to Enter Ellis Island

On this day in labor history the year was 1891. That was the day that an Irish teenager by the name of Annie Moore arrived on the shores of New York. She was travelling with her two younger brothers. They had taken a twelve-day sea voyage to be reunited with their parents, who were already in New York City.  

December 30 - Railway Clerks Organize

On this day in labor history the year was 1899.  That was the day that a group of thirty-three railway clerks gathered in the back room of Behrens’ cigar shop in Sedalia, Missouri.  They called themselves the Order of Railway Clerks in America. They affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.  

December 29 - Pushing Back Against Plant Closures

On this day in labor history the year was 2006. That was the day that United Steelworker members ended a nearly three-month strike against the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. The strike involved nearly 15,000 workers from sixteen different plants across the United States and Canada. 

December 28 - Sit-Down Solidarity

On this day in labor history the year was 1936. That was the day that at 2pm  in the afternoon, 200 workers at the Fisher Body Ohio Company on the East side of Cleveland sat down on the job. Fisher was located in Cleveland’s Collinwoodneighborhood. 

December 27 - FDR Takes Over the Rails

On this day in labor history the year was 1943. That was the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt seized control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike. The nation was in the midst of World War II.