Today In Labor History—June 29

Michael Schwab

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.

(All from the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 25

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.

Today in Labor History—May 4

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)

Today in Labor History—May 3

Mikhail Bakunin as a Young Man

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)

Today In Labor History--May 1

May 1, International Workers Day!!!!

Mother Jones (Library of Congress)

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)

Today in Labor History—April 30

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 3^rd, the Chicago cops killed four unionists. A mass meeting and demonstration was called for the 4^th, 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 on  May 1^st 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).

Today in Labor History—December 10

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. 

Today in Labor History—December 6

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, 3^rd 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.

Today in Labor History—November 10

Louis Lingg (Public Domain)

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)

Today in Labor History—August 20

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)

Today in Labor History—July 12

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).

(All from the Daily Bleed)

Today In Labor History—June 29

Michael Schwab

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.

(All from the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 25

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.