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 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, generally known as P. H. McCarthy and sometimes, more jocularly, as "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.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1922, or the Railway Shopmen's Strike, was a nationwide strike of railroad workers in the United States. Launched on July 1, 1922 by seven of the sixteen extant railroad labor organizations, the strike continued into August before collapsing. A sweeping judicial injunction by Judge James Herbert Wilkerson effectively ended the strike on September 1, 1922.
The history of the city of San Francisco, California, and its development as a center of maritime trade, were shaped by its location at the entrance to a large natural harbor. San Francisco is the name of both the city and the county; the two share the same boundaries. Only lightly settled by European-Americans at first, after becoming the base for the gold rush of 1849 the city quickly became the largest and most important population, commercial, naval, and financial center in the American West. San Francisco was devastated by a great earthquake and fire in 1906 but was quickly rebuilt. The San Francisco Federal Reserve Branch opened in 1914, and the city continued to develop as a major business city throughout the first half of the 20th century. Starting in the later half of the 1960s, San Francisco became the city most famous for the hippie movement. In recent decades, San Francisco has become an important center of finance and technology. The high demand for housing, driven by its proximity to Silicon Valley, and the limited availability has led to the city being one of America's most expensive places to live. San Francisco is currently ranked 16th on the Global Financial Centres Index.
Tirey Lafayette Ford was an American lawyer and Republican politician who served as a California State Senator and the 18th Attorney-General of California. He acted as General Counsel for the United Railroads in San Francisco.
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.
Charles Boxton served as the 27th mayor of San Francisco for seven days, from July 9 to July 16, 1907.
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 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.
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 California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA) is a landmark statute in United States labor law that was enacted by the state of California in 1975, establishing the right to collective bargaining for farmworkers in that state, a first in U.S. history.
William Matthew Malone was an American lawyer and political boss who chaired the California Democratic Party during and after World War II.
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 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.
Fairfax Henry Wheelan was an American businessman, philanthropist, and political reformer. As the chief complaining witness of voter fraud in 1904, he played a primary role in the eventual downfall of San Francisco Mayor Eugene Schmitz and his attorney and political boss Abe Ruef.
Isadore Less was a German-American labor leader. He was the original driving force behind the formation of the San Francisco Union Labor Party. At the time he was the Secretary of the local Journeymen Barber's Union, and was selected as the ULP's candidate for Auditor in the 1901 elections. During the campaign, he misappropriated union funds, leading to his flight from the country and eventual arrest.
