June 29, 1898
– Michael Schwab, who was convicted for the Haymarket bombing, died
from tuberculosis, having been pardoned and released from prison just a
few months prior.
June 29, 1919
– Striking meat-workers in Townsville, Queensland, Australia clashed
with police. Nine people were wounded in an exchange of gunshots.
June 29, 1936
– Jesus Pallares, founder of the 8,000-member coal miners union, Liga
Obrera de Habla Esanola, was deported from the U.S. as an "undesirable
alien." One hundred miners were arrested during the 1934 La Liga strike
against the Gallup American Company in New Mexico.
June 29, 1941
– Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998), founder of the U.S. civil rights
group the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was born in
Port of Spain, Trinidad. Emigrated to the United States.
June 29, 1983
– President Reagan said that one cause of the decline in public
education was the effort to comply with court-ordered desegregation.
June 25, 1825 – U.S. troops captured Bob Forbes, leader of the Maroons (blacks resisting slavery) in Virginia. (From the Daily Bleed)
A dramatization (1905) of Sitting Bull stabbing Custer (library of Congress)
June 25, 1876 – Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes defeated Custer and the U.S. Army at Little Big Horn, Montana. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 25, 1878
– Despite mass protests, Ezra Heywood was sentenced to two years hard
labor for advocating free love and sexual emancipation as part of
women's rights. Heywood was an anarchist, feminist and abolitionist who
was hounded and harassed by the moralist vigilante Anthony Comstock. His
wife, Angela Tilton, was considered by many to be even more radical than he was. (From the Daily Bleed)
Haymarket Memorial
June 25, 1893 -
The Haymarket Martyrs Monument was dedicated at Forest Home Cemetery,
Chicago, to honor the 8 anarchists who were framed and executed for the
bombing at Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. More than 8,000 people
attended. At the base of the monument are Haymarket martyr August Spies’
last words: “The day will come when our silence will be more powerful
than the voices you are throttling today.” (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)
Striking Pullman workers confront National Guard troops in Chicago, 1894
June 25, 1894 – Eugene Debs and his American Railway Union called for a boycott of all Pullman railway cars during the now-famous Pullman Strike. Within days, 50,000 rail workers were participating, halting all railroad traffic out of Chicago. (From the Daily Bleed)
Robots in rebellion in 1922 performance of R.U.R.
June 25, 1921 -- Czech author Karel Capek's introduces the term robot in his play R.U.R.
(Rossum's Universal Robots) in which robots, fed up with lousy work and
pay, organize and rebel. The term comes from the Czech word “robota,”
which referred to days in which peasants were forced to leave their own
fields to work for free on the lands of the nobility. Even after
feudalism had ended, the term was used to describe labor that was
coerced, boring or uninteresting. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 25, 1938
- The Wages and Hours (later Fair Labor Standards) act was passed,
which banned child labor, set the 40-hour work week and set a national
minimum wage. (From Workday Minnesota and Shmoop Labor History)
June 25, 1941 -A.
Philip Randolph (president Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) called
off the Negro march on Washington that had been planned for July 1 when
President Roosevelt agreed to issue Executive Order 8802 banning racial
discrimination in defense industries and government employment (creating
the Fair Employment Practices Committee). (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)
June 25, 1943—Congress
passed the Smith-Connally Act allowing the government to take over
critical industries affected by strikes, overriding President
Roosevelt's veto. It also prevented unions from contributing to
political campaigns. (From Shmoop Labor History)
June 25, 1968 – The 50,000 strong Poor People's Campaign March from Georgia to Washington D.C., concluded.
June 25, 1975 – Mozambique achieved independence from Portugal.
Memorial to the Haymarket Martyrs (Image by Jeff Zoline)
May 4, 1886 -
A day after police killed four striking workers and injured hundreds,
protesters gathered at Haymarket Square in Chicago. As the peaceful
event drew to a close, a bomb was thrown into the police line, killing
one officer and injuring several. Police responded by shooting into the
crowd, killing one and wounding many. Eight anarchists were later framed
even though most were not even present at the Haymarket rally and there
was no evidence that linked any of them to the bombing. Four were
hanged, one committed suicide and three were eventually pardoned by
Illinois Gov. John Peter Altgeld. The Haymarket affair gave the pretext
for a national witch hunt against anarchists and labor radicals and
ended the quick rise of the Knights of Labor, a predecessor to the IWW.
The Knights of Labor had been growing rapidly, attracting radicals and
anarchist members. They professed solidarity with all workers,
regardless of race or ethnicity. (From Workday Minnesota and The Daily Bleed)
May 4, 1919 – Students demonstrated in Peking, marking the beginning of the May 4th Movement. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 4, 1919 – The
Battle of the Barricades on the Fremantle occurred on the Australian
waterfront between striking wharf laborers, strikebreakers and police.
One person was killed and 33 were injured. (From The Daily Bleed)
Jim Zwerg, Freedom Rider, After Being Beaten, 1961
May 4, 1961
–The "Freedom Ride" bus trips began throughout the American South. The
Freedom Rides were organized by James Farmer and the Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE) to desegregate bus terminals. On May 14, the first
freedom bus was attacked. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 4, 1970 – Four students were murdered at Kent State
University by Ohio National Guardsmen. They were protesting the U.S.
invasion of Cambodia . (From The Daily Bleed)
May 4, 1989 – 30,000 students marched for democracy to Tiananmen Square in Beijing.(From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1849 – A popular rebellion broke out in Dresden, with the militant Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin emerging as an "heroic" leader. He was imprisoned in the Konigstein fortress and condemned to death. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1886
- At the height of the movement for the eight-hour day, police shot
into a crowd of workers engaged in a general strike at McCormick
Harvester Co. in Chicago. Four workers were killed and hundreds were
injured. Anarchists called for a public rally the following day at
Haymarket Square to protest the police brutality. At the rally, a bomb
was thrown, killing several police. No one was ever caught, yet the
police arrested eight leading anarchists who were convicted and
sentenced to death. The event became the inspiration for International Workers Day. (From Workday Minnesota and The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1886 – One thousand
brewery workers, on strike for a wage increase, marched to the Falk
Brewery, in Milwaukee, to encourage workers there to join their strike.
They were members of the radical industrial union the Knights of Labor.
(From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1887 – Two explosions at Mine #1 in Nanaimo, British Columbia, killed 97 white mineers and 52 Chinese miners.(From The Daily Bleed)
May 3,1898 – Bread riots occurred in Milano, Italy. They were brutally repressed, with heavy loss of life.(From The Daily Bleed)
May 3,1916 –An uprising by Vietnamese was suppressed by the French. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1919 – Pete Seeger was born, Patterson, New York. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1920 -
A young anarchist printer, Andreas Salsedo, “fell” to his death from a
14th story window of an FBI detention room in New York City. He had been
arrested during the anti-commie raids launched by Attorney General
Mitchell Palmer. The FBI claimed it was suicide. (From Workday Minnesota and The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1926
– A general strike by the Trades Union Congress of Great Britain was
finally ended after nine days, though coal miners continued to strike
through the summer. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1928 –
Anarchist Severino Di Giovanni bombed the Italian consulate in Buenos
Aires to protest against the Italian dictatorship. The fascists were
assassinating Italian antifascists in exile). Nine were killed and 34
wounded in the blast. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1934 – The IWW strike at Draper Manufacturing Co. began in Cleveland, Ohio. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1937
– The Spanish Republican government launched attacks on workers leading
to open resistance against Republican and Communist authorities by
radical workers, anarchists, and others opposed to the regional takeover
of the worker-run telephone company in Barcelona.(From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1968
– The first battles of the May Upheaval began in the Latin Quarter of
Paris. The police arrested 500 students meeting at the University of
Sorbonne to protest repression at Nanterre. Revolt broke out along the
route taken by police vans, with thousands fighting against the police.
Throughout the month of May and part of June, workers and students
occupied schools, factories and offices. By mid-May, 10 million workers
were on strike. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1971 – 7,000 people were arrested trying to shut down the Pentagon in protest against the Vietnam war. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 3, 1974 –
Spanish banker Balthasar Suarez was kidnapped in Paris by the "Groups
of International Revolutionary Action" (GARI ) in an attempt to free 100
political prisoners in Spain being held by Franco. (From The Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1830 -
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was born. Mother Jones was renowned for her
militancy and fiery oration, as well as her many juicy quotes. She once
said, “I’m no lady. I’m a hell-raiser.” She also was an
internationalist, saying “My address is wherever there is a fight
against oppression.” Despite the difficulties of constant travel, poor
living and jail, she lived to be 100. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1866
– Beginning on this day, white Democrats and police attacked freedmen
and their white allies in Memphis. By the end of the three-day race
riot, 48 were killed. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1883 -
Cigar makers in Cincinnati threatened to strike factory owners
continued to make them pay 30 cents per month to heat their factories.
(From The Unionist)
May 1, 1884
– The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU),
forerunner of the AFL, resolved that "8 hours shall constitute a legal
day's work from and after May 1, 1886." Ironically, the FOTLU, which was
one of the first bureaucratized “business” unions and which was created
as a conservative foil against the radical Knights of Labor,
essentially contributed to the ensuing mass insurgency with its
resolution. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1886 – The first nationwide General Strike
for the 8-hour day occurred. 340,000 workers struck in Chicago,
Milwaukee cities throughout the U.S. Four demonstrators were killed and
over 200 wounded by police in Chicago. The US will set another day as
Labor Day to undercut world solidarity. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1888 -
Nineteen machinists at the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia
Railroad, angered over a wage cut, voted to form a union, which
ultimately became the International Association of Machinists. (From Workday Minnesota)
May 1, 1889 – The
first International Labor Day was celebrated. The U.S. decided to
create its own labor day in September to undercut worker solidarity and
to white wash away its violent history of repressing strikes and worker
protest. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1890 – The first May Day
celebration in Poland saw about 10,000 workers assemble in Warsaw. All
nine organizers were arrested and sent to Russian prisons, where two of
them died. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1891
–The French army tested their new Lebels machine guns against peaceful
May Day demonstrators that included women and children carrying flowers
and palms, killing 14 and wounding 40. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1894-
The cross-country march by Coxey’s Army of the Unemployed ended with in
a march down Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C. (From Workday Minnesota. Also see Today in Labor History, April 29)
May 1, 1899 – Tzarist police arrested 3000 of the 20,000 participants in Warsaw’s May Day demonstration. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1901-
The Cooks’ and Waiters’ Union struck in San Francisco. They were
demanding one day of rest per week, a ten-hour work day and a closed
union shop for all restaurants in the city. (From The Unionist) May 1, 1905 – 60 workers found were killed in fights with police during May Day protests in Poland. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1906
– 1,200 members of the Iron Molders Union in Milwaukee struck for
shorter hours and more pay. They lost the strike after two years of
bitter struggle. One
employer, Allis-Chalmers, spent $21,700 to hire the Burr-Herr Detective
Agency, resulting in more than 200 assaults on union members, including
union leader Peter Cramer, whose was killed. The agency offered one
unionist 10 dollars for each striker he beat up. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 1, 1933 - The first issue of the Catholic Worker was published. The Catholic Worker was founded in New York City by Dorothy Day
and Peter Maurin, anarchist-Catholics. The first run of the paper
published 2,500 copies. By 1936, circulation had risen to 150,000. (From the Daily Bleed and Workday Minnesota)
May 1, 1938
- Congress enacted amendments to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act,
extending protections to the employees of state and local governments.
However, these protections didn’t take effect until 1985 because of
court challenges.(From The Unionist)
May 1, 2006 -
Millions of immigrants, participating in a national day of
mobilization, stayed home from work. Their goal was to demonstrate their
economic power and demand comprehensive reform of U.S. immigration
laws. It is estimated that 100,000 gathered in San Jose, California,
200,000 in New York, 400,000 each in Chicago and Los Angeles. There
were demonstrations in at least 50 cities. Despite their numbers, the
country has seen a wave of increasingly repressive and racist
immigration laws enacted locally in places like Arizona, Georgia,
Florida. (From Workday Minnesota, The Unionist)
April 30, 1927 – 109 miners were killed by an explosion at the Everettville mine, in Everettville, West Virginia. (From Workday Minnesota)
April 30 1871 –A mob massacred more than 100 Apaches who had placed themselves under U.S. protection at Camp Grant, Arizona. (From the Daily Bleed)
Haymarket Affair, Harpers Weekly
Convicted Anarchists
April 30 1886 –
50,000 workers in Chicago were on strike, with 30,000 more joining in
the next day. The strike brought most of Chicago’s manufacturing to a
standstill. On May 3rd, the Chicago cops killed four unionists. A mass meeting and demonstration was called for the 4th,
in Haymarket Square, where a cop will be killed by an assailant who
will never be identified. Ultimately, eight anarchists (many not even in
attendance) will tried for murder & sentenced to death. This
event, known as the Haymarket Tragedy or the Haymarket Affair, will be
the inspiration for International Worrkers’ Day, celebrated onMay 1st in every country in the world except the U.S. (From the Daily Bleed)
April 30 1899 – The Coeur
d'Alene, Idaho, miner's strike continued, with 1,200 workers getting
arrested, and being placed into specially erected bullpens until the
strikes were broken. (From the Daily Bleed)
April 30 1945 – Eva Braun and Adolph Hitler committed suicide, in Berlin.(From the Daily Bleed)
April 30 1965
– The TWU (Transport Workers Union) won $9.5 million in pensions for
former Fifth Avenue Coach employees after long court battle.(From the Daily Bleed)
National Guard Patrolling Los Angeles (Public Domain
April 30 1992
–Following the Rodney King verdict in LA, there was rioting in cities
throughout the U.S., including Las Vegas, San Francisco (where a state
of emergency was declared), Oakland, Madison, Minneapolis, Atlanta, New
York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Toronto and Pasadena.(From the Daily Bleed) In San Francisco, your humble blogger was shot at by an frightened shop owner (along with hundreds of others).
Portrait of Spies, prior to his execution on trumped up murder charges
December 10, 1865 – August Spies, anarchist labor organizer and Haymarket martyr was born on this date. Spies once said, "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today."(From the Daily Bleed)
December 10, 1906 – The IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) launched the first sit-down strike in the U.S. at a General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York. Their method was later adopted by the labor movement in the 1930s, with the Flint Sit-Down Strike being the most well-known.
December 10, 2006--Augusto Pinochet, long-time dictator of Chile, who massacred thousands of labor activists, radicals and opposition members, died on this date.
December 6, 1810 – Miguel Hidalgo abolished slavery in Mexico. (From theDaily Bleed)
Colored National Labor Convention, Harpers 1869 (pub. dom.)
December 6, 1865 – The U.S., always the backwards, 3rd world nation, followed Mexico’s lead 55 years later by ratifying the 13th amendment and abolishing [chattel] slavery. Prisoners could (and can still) be forced to work without wages, while all workers were (and still are) subject to wage slavery. (From the Daily Bleed)
December 6, 1869 – The first national black labor group, the Colored National Labor Convention, met for the first time in Washington, DC. Roughly 214 delegates attended, sending a petition to Congress requesting direct intervention in the South by subdividing the public lands into forty-acre farms and providing low-interest loans to black farmers. (From Workday Minnesota)
December 6, 1888 - Heywood Broun, cofounder of The Newspaper Guild, was born in New York City. (From Workday Minnesota)
December 6, 1889 – The trial of the Chicago Haymarket anarchists began amidst national and international outrage and protest. (From the Daily Bleed)
December 6, 1907 – 361 coal workers were killed in West Virginia's Marion County when a mine explosed at the Fairmont Coal Company in Monongah. It was the worst mining disaster in American history.
December 6, 1928 – The "Ciénaga Slaughter" occurred in Columbia. After breaking a mass strike in the banana region in November, National Army troops fired on a peaceful rally of thousands of strikers, killing over one thousand workers.
December 6, 1933 – Dorothy Day cofounded the Catholic Worker newspaper, New York City
December 6, 1965 – Rose Pesotta, anarchist labor activist, died on this date. Pesotta was the only woman on the General Executive Board of the International Ladies' Garment Workers (ILGWU) from 1933-1944. She participated in a 10-year struggle to organize workers, including a turf war with a communist faction.
December 6, 1984 – Children picketed the Mendiola Bridge in Manila, Philippines, demanding the release of their parents, who were being held as political prisoners by the U.S.-supported Marcos regime.
November 10, 1887 -- Chicago Haymarket martyr Louis Lingg, 22, “cheated” the state the day before his scheduled execution by committing suicide in his prison cell by exploding a dynamite cap in his mouth. (From the Daily Bleed)
November 10, 1898 – 400 white Democratic Party activists in Wilmington, North Carolina launched a coup d’état by slaughtering black residents and political leaders. Between 30 and 100 were killed in the massacre. They then overthrew the mayor and forced all remaining black officials to resign, installing a new government by force. (From the Daily Bleed)
November 10, 1933 - Members of the Independent Union of All Workers occupied the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota, in what may have been the first sit-down. Workers occupied the plant for three days, demanding a raise. An agreement was brokered by Governor Floyd B. Olson. (From Workday Minnesota)
August 20, 1619 – The first group of 20 Africans
slaves landed at Jamestown, Virginia. (From the Daily Bleed)
(Ship Ahoy, the Ojays, 1973)
William Sylvis, 1828-1869
August 20, 1830 – The first Negro convention was held
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
August 20, 1866 – The short-lived National Labor
Union (U.S.) was formed on this date and called for the 8-hour workday. The
union, led by William H. Sylvis, was the first American labor union to unite
skilled and unskilled workers (preceding the Industrial Workers of the World by
nearly 40 years). At its height, the union had 640,000 members.
Haymarket Martyrs' Memorial
August 20, 1886 – Sentences were handed down on this
date against The Haymarket defendants. All were found guilty despite the
obvious innocence of most of them. None were even present at the scene of the
bombing at Haymarket Square, Chicago, where activists had been organizing for
the 8-hour day. Seven of the eight defendants (George Engel, Samuel Fielden,
Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, Albert Parsons, Michael Schwab and August Spies)
were condemned to death. Oscar Neebe was sent to prison for 15 years. The
hangings occurred on November 11, 1887.
August 20, 1898 – Fourteen weeks after beginning a
walkout, the Amalgamated Woodworkers Union of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, ended its
strike.
August 20, 1904
– Miners seized the town of Cripple Creek, Colorado, and deported officials.
August 20, 1909
– The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was engaged in a free-speech fight
in Fresno, California.
August 20, 1914 – An office for the Parrot Mine in Butte, Montana was
dynamited on this date. In March 1912, Amalgamated Copper fired 500 miners,
accusing them of being Socialists. In December they imposed a blacklist to exclude
workers with affiliations to leftist and labor organizations. Pinkerton and
Thiel detective agencies infiltrated the union to mark agitators and provoke
violence in order to weaken the union.
Image from the Daily Bleed
August 20, 1968 – The Soviet Army invaded Prague with
tanks and more than 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops ultimately crushing the
"Prague Spring."
(All above entries based on citations from the Daily Bleed)
July 12, 1810 – Members of the shoemakers' union went on trial in New York City for striking to win a raise. They were fined $1 each.
Oscar Neebe
July 12, 1850
– Oscar W. Neebe (1850-1916), founder of the Beer Wagon Drivers Union
(later the power Teamsters Union) was born. Neebe was also one of the
Haymarket martyrs, executed for his “role” in the Haymarket bombing,
despite the fact that he was not in Haymarket Square at the time.
July 12, 1878 – A yellow fever epidemic began in New Orleans, leading to the deaths of 4,500 people.
July 12, 1892
– The state militia moved in to break a 12-day strike against Carnegie
Steel in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The guardsmen were there primarily to
protect scabs and remained in Homestead until October. Pinkerton
detectives killed seven workers. Strikers were protesting wage cuts of
18-26%, suffer seven deaths in attacks on them by Pinkerton ("Pinks")
detectives. Alexander Berkman, anarchist friend of Emma Goldman, tried
to kill Henry Clay Frick, chairman of the board at Carnegie, on July 23,
in an attentat (propaganda by the deed), an action many anarchists of
the day believed would inspire the working class to rise up in revolt
against the ruling class.
Burning Barges, Homestead
July 12, 1917 – Today
was the final day of the vigilante deportation of striking mine workers
at Bisbee, Arizona. On July 11, authorities sealed off the county and
seized the local Western Union telegraph office to cut off outside
communication, while several thousand armed vigilantes rounded up 1,186
members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The workers were
herded into manure-laden boxcars and dumped in the New Mexico desert.
During the Bisbee mine strike, company-hired vigilantes attempted to
kidnap and deport Jim Brew, a miner and IWW member. However, Brew fought
back and was shot and killed.Brew was a veteran of the West Virginia Cripple Creek strike of 1903-04.
July 12, 1933 – Congress passed first minimum wage law (40 cents per hour).
June 29, 1898
– Michael Schwab, who was convicted for the Haymarket bombing, died
from tuberculosis, having been pardoned and released from prison just a
few months prior.
June 29, 1919
– Striking meat-workers in Townsville, Queensland, Australia clashed
with police. Nine people were wounded in an exchange of gunshots.
June 29, 1936
– Jesus Pallares, founder of the 8,000-member coal miners union, Liga
Obrera de Habla Esanola, was deported from the U.S. as an "undesirable
alien." One hundred miners were arrested during the 1934 La Liga strike
against the Gallup American Company in New Mexico.
June 29, 1941
– Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998), founder of the U.S. civil rights
group the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was born in
Port of Spain, Trinidad. Emigrated to the United States.
June 29, 1983
– President Reagan said that one cause of the decline in public
education was the effort to comply with court-ordered desegregation.
June 25, 1825 – U.S. troops captured Bob Forbes, leader of the Maroons (blacks resisting slavery) in Virginia. (From the Daily Bleed)
A dramatization (1905) of Sitting Bull stabbing Custer (library of Congress)
June 25, 1876 – Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes defeated Custer and the U.S. Army at Little Big Horn, Montana. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 25, 1878
– Despite mass protests, Ezra Heywood was sentenced to two years hard
labor for advocating free love and sexual emancipation as part of
women's rights. Heywood was an anarchist, feminist and abolitionist who
was hounded and harassed by the moralist vigilante Anthony Comstock. His
wife, Angela Tilton, was considered by many to be even more radical than he was. (From the Daily Bleed)
Haymarket Memorial
June 25, 1893 -
The Haymarket Martyrs Monument was dedicated at Forest Home Cemetery,
Chicago, to honor the 8 anarchists who were framed and executed for the
bombing at Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. More than 8,000 people
attended. At the base of the monument are Haymarket martyr August Spies’
last words: “The day will come when our silence will be more powerful
than the voices you are throttling today.” (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)
Striking Pullman workers confront National Guard troops in Chicago, 1894
June 25, 1894 – Eugene Debs and his American Railway Union called for a boycott of all Pullman railway cars during the now-famous Pullman Strike. Within days, 50,000 rail workers were participating, halting all railroad traffic out of Chicago. (From the Daily Bleed)
Robots in rebellion in 1922 performance of R.U.R.
June 25, 1921 -- Czech author Karel Capek's introduces the term robot in his play R.U.R.
(Rossum's Universal Robots) in which robots, fed up with lousy work and
pay, organize and rebel. The term comes from the Czech word “robota,”
which referred to days in which peasants were forced to leave their own
fields to work for free on the lands of the nobility. Even after
feudalism had ended, the term was used to describe labor that was
coerced, boring or uninteresting. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 25, 1938
- The Wages and Hours (later Fair Labor Standards) act was passed,
which banned child labor, set the 40-hour work week and set a national
minimum wage. (From Workday Minnesota and Shmoop Labor History)
June 25, 1941 -A.
Philip Randolph (president Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) called
off the Negro march on Washington that had been planned for July 1 when
President Roosevelt agreed to issue Executive Order 8802 banning racial
discrimination in defense industries and government employment (creating
the Fair Employment Practices Committee). (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)
June 25, 1943—Congress
passed the Smith-Connally Act allowing the government to take over
critical industries affected by strikes, overriding President
Roosevelt's veto. It also prevented unions from contributing to
political campaigns. (From Shmoop Labor History)
June 25, 1968 – The 50,000 strong Poor People's Campaign March from Georgia to Washington D.C., concluded.
June 25, 1975 – Mozambique achieved independence from Portugal.
