Labor History in 2:00

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.

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.

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

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.? 

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.  

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.  

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. 

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. 

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.  

On this day in labor history the year was 1996. That was the day that working people of South Korea awoke to some alarming news. That morning the country’s new ruling party had passed a new set of labor laws.  The new policies had been implemented at an unscheduled morning meeting.