The first mass work stoppage in the 195-year history of the Postal Service began on March 18, 1970, with a walkout of letter carriers in Brooklyn and Manhattan who were demanding better wages.
Ultimately, 210,000 (in 30 cities) of the nation’s 750,000 postal employees participated in the wildcat strike.
The first mass work stoppage in the 195-year history of the Postal Service began on March 18, 1970, with a walkout of letter carriers in Brooklyn and Manhattan who were demanding better wages.
The Lawrence Textile Strike was a public protest mainly of immigrant workers from several countries, including Austria, Belgium, Cuba, Canada, France, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Syria, and Turkey. According to the 1910 census, 65% of mill workers (many of whom eventually struck) lived in the United States for less than 10 years; 47% for less than five years.
Lowell built on the advances made in the British textile industry, such as the use of the power loom, to industrialize American textile production. He was the first factory owner in the United States to create a textile mill that was vertically integrated.
In 2018, there were 20 major work stoppages involving 485,000 workers, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of major work stoppages beginning in 2018 was the highest since 2007 (21 major work stoppages). The number of workers involved was the highest since 1986 (533,000 workers).
This website includes the records of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and a collection of six oral histories from the National Education Association (NEA). Visit site
A new LAWCHA initiative to develop classroom and public knowledge of labor history. Teaching Labor’s Story will be a repository of primary sources with supporting teaching guides (textual, visual, audio). Resources in the Teaching Labor’s Story repository are designed to be readily incorporated into existing…
While studies of the New York City Teachers Union (TU) generally attribute its eventual demise to the Red Scares of the 1940s and 1950s, this article situates the TU in the history of New York City teachers associations more generally.
Not long ago, in the pages of this journal, I argued a number of propositions about the current state of historical research in the area of teacher unionism. One of those propositions was that a full explanation of the history of teacher union activity in the U.S.A. quite likely would require a three-pronged analysis involving the local, state, and national arenas.
The Takeaway traces it all back to August 1981, when nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike creating a standoff with Ronald Reagan that ended when he fired the majority of them and de-certified their union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization.
