The Homestead strike, also known as the Homestead steel strike, Homestead massacre, or Battle of Homestead, was an industrial lockout and strike that began on July 1, 1892, culminating in a battle in which strikers defeated private security agents on July 6, 1892. The governor responded by sending in the National Guard to protect strikebreakers. The dispute occurred at the Homestead Steel Works in the Pittsburgh-area town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and the Carnegie Steel Company. The final result was a major defeat for the union strikers and a setback for their efforts to unionize steelworkers. The battle was a pivotal event in U.S. labor history.
The American Federation of Labor was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL–CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual support and disappointed in the Knights of Labor. Samuel Gompers was elected the full-time president at its founding convention and was re-elected every year except one until his death in 1924. He became the major spokesperson for the union movement.
The One Big Union is an idea originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries amongst trade unionists to unite the interests of workers and offer solutions to all labour problems.
A dockworker is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships.
The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada (FOTLU) was a federation of labor unions created on November 15, 1881, at Turner Hall in Pittsburgh. It changed its name to the American Federation of Labor (AFL) on December 8, 1886.
Joseph James "Smiling Joe" Ettor (1885–1948) was an Italian-American trade union organizer who, in the middle-1910s, was one of the leading public faces of the Industrial Workers of the World. Ettor is best remembered as a defendant in a controversial trial related to a killing in the seminal Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912, in which he was acquitted of charges of having been an accessory.
The following is a timeline of labor history, organizing & conflicts, from the early 1600s to present.
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) was an American labor union formed in 1876 to represent iron and steel workers. It partnered with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee of the CIO, in November 1935. Both organizations disbanded May 22, 1942, to form a new organization, the United Steelworkers.
The Buffalo switchmen's strike was a two-week strike in August 1892 by railroad workers employed by three railroads in Buffalo, New York. The strike collapsed after two weeks when 8,000 state militia entered the town and other unions refused to support the workers.
The United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) was a labor union formed in 1937 and incorporated large numbers of Mexican, black, Asian, and Anglo food processing workers under its banner. The founders envisioned a national decentralized labor organization with power flowing from the bottom up. Although it was short-lived, the UCAPAWA influenced the lives of many workers and had a major impact for both women and minority workers in the union.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is a union of wage workers which was formed in Chicago in 1905 by militant unionists and their supporters due to anger over the conservatism, philosophy, and craft-based structure of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Throughout the early part of the 20th century, the philosophy and tactics of the IWW were frequently in direct conflict with those of the AFL concerning the best ways to organize workers, and how to best improve the society in which they toiled. The AFL had one guiding principle—"pure and simple trade unionism", often summarized with the slogan "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work." The IWW embraced two guiding principles, fighting like the AFL for better wages, hours, and conditions, but also promoting an eventual, permanent solution to the problems of strikes, injunctions, bull pens, and union scabbing.
The Union Labor Party was a San Francisco, California working class political party of the first decade of the 20th century. The organization, which endorsed the doctrine of nativism, rose to prominence in both the labor movement and urban politics in the years after 1901, electing its nominee as Mayor of San Francisco in 1901, 1903, 1905, and 1909.
The 1835 Paterson textile strike took place in Paterson, New Jersey, involved more than 2,000 workers from 20 textile mills across the city. The strikers, many of whom were children and of Irish descent, were seeking a reduction in daily working hours from thirteen and a half hours to eleven hours. Support from other workers in Paterson and nearby cities allowed the strikers to sustain their efforts for two weeks. Employers refused to negotiate with the workers, and were able to break the strike by unilaterally declaring a reduction in work hours to twelve hours daily during the week and nine hours on Saturdays. Many leaders of the strike and their family were blacklisted by employers in Paterson after it ended. Due to the lack of long distance communication and the lack of birth certificates, many people who were blacklisted ran off using a new identity, the most famous person to do this is the infamous Anthony Gunk.
The 1920 Alabama coal strike, or the Alabama miners' strike, was a statewide strike of the United Mine Workers of America against coal mine operators. The strike was marked by racial violence, and ended in significant defeat for the union and organized labor in Alabama.
Dockworkers in New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century often coordinated their unionization efforts across racial lines. The nature of that coordination has led some scholars to conclude that the seeming interracial union activity was in fact biracial: a well-organized plan of parallel concerted activity with coordination and support between the groups, but with a clear divide along racial lines.
William Daniel Mahon (1861–1949) was a former coal miner and streetcar driver who became president of the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees of America, now the Amalgamated Transit Union.
The Los Angeles streetcar strike of 1919 was the most violent revolt against the open-shop policies of the Pacific Electric Railway Company in Los Angeles. Labor organizers had fought for over a decade to increase wages, decrease work hours, and legalize unions for streetcar workers of the Los Angeles basin. After having been denied unionization rights and changes in work policies by the National War Labor Board, streetcar workers broke out in massive protest before being subdued by local armed police force.
The 1895 New Orleans dockworkers massacre was an attack against black, non-union dockworkers by unionized white workers on March 11 and 12, 1895. The mob killed six black workers. The incident had its roots in both economic pressure and racial hatred. The riot marked the end of fifteen years of racially unified unions in New Orleans, for example in the successful 1892 New Orleans general strike just three years before.
Andrew Cameron (1834–1892) was an American trade unionist and newspaper editor who founded the National Labor Union alongside William H. Sylvis. He represented the National Labor Union as a delegate to the Basle Congress (1869) of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA).
The Bogalusa saw mill killings was a racial attack that killed four labor organizers on November 22, 1919. It was mounted by the white paramilitary group the Self-Preservation and Loyalty League (SPLL) in Thibodaux, Louisiana. They were supported by the owners of Great Southern Lumber Company, a giant logging corporation, that hoped to prevent union organization and the Black and White labor organizations from merging.
