The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue- and white-collar workers in both the public and private sectors, totalling about 1.3 million members in 2015. The union was formerly called the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America.
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.
Henry Tifft Gage was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat. A Republican, Gage was elected to a single term as the 20th governor of California from 1899 to 1903. Gage was also the U.S. Minister to Portugal for several months in 1910.
The 1934 West Coast waterfront strike lasted 83 days, and began on May 9, 1934, when longshoremen in every US West Coast port walked out. Organized by the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), the strike peaked with the death of two workers on "Bloody Thursday" and the subsequent San Francisco General Strike, which stopped all work in the major port city for four days and led ultimately to the settlement of the West Coast Longshoremen's Strike.
Patrick Henry McCarthy, nicknamed "Pinhead", was an influential labor leader in San Francisco and the 29th Mayor of the City from 1910 to 1912. Born in County Limerick, Ireland, he apprenticed as a carpenter in Ireland before emigrating to the United States in 1880. He moved to San Francisco in 1886, where he rose through the ranks to become president of Carpenters Local 22, then President of the Building Trades Council in 1896. He was one the founder of the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League that 2 years later renamed into the Asiatic Exclusion League.
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.
Eugene Edward Schmitz, often referenced as "Handsome Gene" Schmitz, was an American musician, musical director, and politician. He was the 26th Mayor of San Francisco, who was in office during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
The International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink and Distillery Workers was a labor union in the United States. The union merged with the Teamsters in 1973.
Employers Group was founded as the Merchants and Manufacturers Association (M&M) in 1896 in California. It has become a worldwide organization advocating for employers and giving guidance about employment laws and regulations, professional development, consulting projects, and compensation and workplace trends surveys.
Abraham Ruef was an American lawyer and politician. He gained notoriety as the corrupt political boss behind the administration of Mayor Eugene Schmitz of San Francisco during the period before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
The New Orleans general strike was a general strike in the U.S. city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, that began on November 8, 1892. Despite appeals to racial hatred, black and white workers remained united. The general strike ended on November 12, with unions gaining most of their original demands.
The Los Angeles Times bombing was the purposeful dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times Building in Los Angeles, California, United States, on October 1, 1910, by a union member belonging to the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers (IW). The explosion started a fire which killed 21 occupants and injured 100 more. It was termed the "crime of the century" by the Los Angeles Times newspaper, which occupied the building.
The 1905 Chicago Teamsters' strike was a sympathy strike and lockout by the United Brotherhood of Teamsters in the summer of 1905 in the city of Chicago, Illinois. The strike was initiated by a small clothing workers' union. But it soon spread as nearly every union in the city, including the Teamsters, supported the job action with sympathy strikes. Initially, the strike was aimed at the Montgomery Ward department store, but it affected almost every employer in the metropolitan region after the Teamsters walked out. The strike eventually pitted the Teamsters against the Employers' Association of Chicago, a broad coalition of business owners formed a few years earlier to oppose unionization in Chicago.
Cornelius P. Shea was an American labor leader and organized crime figure. He was the founding president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, holding the position from 1903 until 1907. He became involved with the Chicago Outfit, and although he was indicted many times, he usually escaped conviction. After a short prison term for attempted murder removed him from union affairs, Shea was appointed secretary-treasurer of the Mafia-dominated Theatrical Janitors' Union in Chicago.
Citizens' Alliances were state and local anti-trade union organizations prominent in the United States of America during the first decade of the 20th century. The Citizen's Alliances were closely related to employers' associations but allowed participation of a broad range of sympathetic citizens in addition to those employers apt to be affected by strikes. Originating in the American state of Ohio as the "Modern Order of Bees," the Citizens' Alliance movement spread westwards, playing a particularly important role in labor relations in the states of Colorado and California. Citizens' Alliance groups often worked in tandem with smaller but better financed employers' organizations interested in establishing or maintaining open shop labor conditions, including the Mine Owners' Associations (MOA) or the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).
The San Francisco streetcar strike of 1907 was among the most violent of the streetcar strikes in the United States between 1895 and 1929. Before the end of the strike, thirty-one people had been killed and about 1100 injured.
The Social-Democratic Party of Wisconsin (SDPW) was established in 1897 as the Wisconsin state affiliate of the Chicago faction of the Social Democratic Party of America. When that organization merged in 1901 to form a political party known as the Socialist Party of America, the Social-Democratic Party of Wisconsin became the state affiliate of that organization, retaining its original name. For most of its 75 years, the Social-Democratic Party of Wisconsin was the state affiliate of the Socialist Party of America, established in 1901. The party was one of the largest state organizations which together comprised the Socialist Party of America.
The San Francisco graft trials were a series of attempts from 1905 to 1908 to prosecute public officials in the city of San Francisco, California, for graft and other political corruption. Among those implicated were Mayor Eugene Schmitz, political boss Abe Ruef, and various members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, all of whom had taken bribes from business owners. Ruef was at the center of the corruption; while acting as Schmitz's attorney, he approved all city contracts and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payment from business owners, keeping a portion for himself and distributing the remainder to the Mayor and Supervisors.
Olaf Anders Tveitmoe was a Norwegian-born American teacher, newspaper editor, and labor leader. Tveitmoe was a leading trade union functionary for the construction industry in the state of California for the first two decades of the 20th century. He was the founding editor of the weekly newspaper Organized Labor, which he edited for 20 years. He is best remembered for tangential trade union activity as the founder and president from 1904 to 1912 of the Asiatic Exclusion League, a political organization which sought to bolster American domestic wage levels by restricting immigration from Japan, China, and Korea.
