The US Textile Workers' Strike of 1934, colloquially known later as The Uprising of '34 was the largest textile strike in the labor history of the United States at the time, involving 400,000 textile workers from New England, the Mid-Atlantic states and the U.S. Southern states, lasting twenty-two days.
The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization or PATCO was a United States trade union that operated from 1968 until its decertification in 1981 following an illegal strike that was broken by the Reagan Administration.
Boston police officers went on strike on September 9, 1919. They sought recognition for their trade union and improvements in wages and working conditions. Police Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis denied that police officers had any right to form a union, much less one affiliated with a larger organization like the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which some attribute to concerns that unionized police would not protect the interest of city officials and business leaders. Attempts at reconciliation between the Commissioner and the police officers, particularly on the part of Boston's Mayor Andrew James Peters, failed.
The Baltimore Police Strike was a 1974 labor action conducted by officers of the Baltimore Police Department. Striking officers sought better wages and changes to BPD policy. They also expressed solidarity with Baltimore municipal workers, who were in the midst of an escalating strike action that began on July 1. On July 7, police launched a campaign of intentional misbehavior and silliness; on July 11 they began a formal strike. The department reported an increase in fires and looting, and the understaffed BPD soon received support from Maryland State Police. The action ended on July 15, when union officials negotiated an end to both strikes. The city promised police officers a wage increase in 1975, but refused amnesty for the strikers. Police Commissioner Donald Pomerleau revoked the union's collective bargaining rights, fired its organizers, and pointedly harassed its members.
The 2005 New York City transit strike, held from December 20 through 22, 2005, was the third strike ever by the Transport Workers Union Local 100 against New York City's Transit Authority and involved between 32,000 and 34,000 strikers.
The U.S. postal strike of 1970 was an eight-day strike by federal postal workers in March 1970. The strike began in New York City and spread to some other cities in the following two weeks. This strike against the federal government, regarded as illegal, was the largest wildcat strike in U.S. history.
Henry Loeb III was an American politician of the Democratic Party, who was mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, for two separate terms in the 1960s, from 1960 through 1963, and 1968 through 1971. He gained national notoriety in his second term for his role in opposing the demands of striking sanitation workers in early 1968. A segregationist, he opposed civil rights for African Americans and promoted white supremacy, continuing former Memphis mayor and political boss E. H. Crump's legacy.
The Memphis sanitation strike began on February 12, 1968, in response to the deaths of sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker. The deaths served as a breaking point for more than 1,300 African American men from the Memphis Department of Public Works as they demanded higher wages, time and a half overtime, dues check-off, safety measures, and pay for the rainy days when they were told to go home. The Memphis sanitation strike was led by T.O. Jones and had the support of Jerry Wurf, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The AFSCME was chartered in 1964 by the state; the city of Memphis refused to recognize it. This resulted in the second sanitation Worker Strike in 1968 which began because of several incidents that led the employees to strike. Mayor Henry Loeb refused to recognize the strike and rejected the City Council vote, insisting that only he possessed the power to recognize the union. The Memphis sanitation strike prompted Martin Luther King Jr.'s presence, where he famously gave the “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech a day before his assassination.
A police strike is a potential tactic when law enforcement workers are embroiled in a labour dispute. Sometimes military personnel are called in to keep order or discipline the strikers. Police strikes have the potential to cause civil unrest.
The Charleston hospital strike was a two-month movement in Charleston, South Carolina that protested the unfair and unequal treatment of African American hospital workers. Protests began after twelve black employees were fired for voicing their concerns to the president of Medical College Hospital, which is now the Medical University of South Carolina. The strike was one of the last campaigns of the civil rights movement in South Carolina, and the first of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. the year before.
Eric Joseph Schmertz was an American lawyer who specialized in labor negotiation, helping reach agreements between workers and management in many strikes and other threatened union actions in New York City, including actions by the city's taxi drivers and other municipal workers, as well as helping resolve other negotiations elsewhere in the United States. A law professor for many years, he also served as dean of Hofstra University School of Law.
The 1974 Baltimore municipal strike was a strike action undertaken by different groups of municipal workers in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It was initiated by waste collectors seeking higher wages and better conditions. They were joined by sewer workers, zookeepers, prison guards, highway workers, recreation & parks workers, animal control workers, abandoned vehicles workers, and eventually by police officers. Trash piled up during the strike, and, especially with diminished police enforcement, many trash piles were set on fire. City jails were also a major site for unrest.
The 2013 Hong Kong dock strike was a 40-day labour strike at the Kwai Tsing Container Terminal. It was called by the Union of Hong Kong Dockers (UHKD), an affiliate of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) on 28 March 2013, against contracting companies to whom workforce management had been out-sourced by the Hongkong International Terminals Ltd. (HIT), subsidiary of Hutchison Port Holdings Trust (HPHT), which is in turn owned by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd (HWL), flagship company of Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong's richest man. The strike workers demanded better pay and working conditions. The strike ended on 6 May 2013 when the strikers accepted the offer of 9.8% pay rise. It was the longest running industrial action in Hong Kong in years. Public support and media attention on the strike were unprecedented in the city's history. Some observers marked this as the rejuvenation of political engagement.
The St. Petersburg sanitation strike of 1968 was a labor strike by city sanitation workers in St. Petersburg, Florida that lasted an estimated four months. The strike of 1968 was one of three labor strikes that took place within three years by city sanitation workers, who cited grievances of pay inequality and poor working conditions. A wage dispute over a newly implemented 48-hour work week triggered the sanitation strike which lasted 116 days. 211 sanitation workers participated in the work stoppage, 210 of whom were African-American. The racial makeup of the strikers increased tensions surrounding the work stoppage and impaired social race relations in the city.Strikers participated in nonviolent marches, economic boycotts, picketing, and human blockades which eventually turned violent with four nights of riots. During the four-month strike, sanitation crew chief Joe Savage led nearly 40 marches down to City Hall, and participated in nonviolent protests which resulted in mass arrests. The strike gained the attention of local and national civil rights advocates, designating this as a significant event in the city's history.
The Atlanta sanitation strike of 1977 was a labor strike involving sanitation workers in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Precipitated by wildcat action in January, on March 28 the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) agreed to strike. The main goal of the strike was a $0.50 hourly wage increase. With support from many community groups, Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson resisted the strike, firing over 900 striking workers on April 1. By April 16, many of the striking workers had returned to their previous jobs, and by April 29 the strike was officially ended.
The 2018 Atlanta sanitation strike was a labor strike involving 120 sanitation workers for Republic Services in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The workers, members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, went on strike on August 10, 2018, with the strike ending later that day. Several days later, the union and company reached an agreement on new labor contracts.
The 1914–1915 Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills strike was a labor strike involving several hundred textile workers from the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The strike, which involved about 500 millworkers, began on May 20, 1914 and ended almost a year later on May 15, 1915 in failure for the strikers.
The 2021 Heaven Hill strike was a labor strike involving about 420 workers for the Heaven Hill bourbon whiskey distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky, United States. These workers are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23D and were on strike since September 11. The labor dispute is over the terms of a new five-year labor contract between the union and the company, which is one of the largest bourbon producers in the world. In particular, union members were concerned about "gray areas" in the contract that they believed could lead to union employees working weekends and extra overtime without pay. Additional concerns from the union were over reduced take-home pay and a removal of the limit on premiums for health care insurance. On September 9, union members voted by about 96 percent to reject the proposed contract and authorized strike action. As a result, the union's existing contract expired without replacement on September 10 and striking commenced the following day.
The 1964–1965 Scripto strike was a labor strike that involved workers for the Scripto company in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The strike began on November 27, 1964, and lasted until January 9, 1965, when the company and union agreed to a three-year contract that included wage increases and improved employee benefits. The strike was an important event in the history of the civil rights movement, as both civil rights leaders and organized labor activists worked together to support the strike.
The 1945–1946 Charleston Cigar Factory strike was a labor strike involving workers at the Cigar Factory in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. The strike commenced on October 22, 1945, and ended on April 1 of the following year, with the strikers winning some concessions from the company.
