Today's Labor History

January 31
12,000 pecan shellers in San Antonio, Tex. – mostly Latino women – walk off their jobs at 400 factories in what was to become a three-month strike against wage cuts. Strike leader Emma Tenayuca (in photo above) was eventually hounded out of the state - 1938

After scoring successes with representation elections conducted under the protective oversight of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the United Farm Workers of America officially ends its historic table grape, lettuce and wine boycotts - 1978

Union and student pressure forces Harvard university to adopt new labor policies raising wages for lowest-paid workers - 2002

February 1
John J. Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO from 1995 to 2009, dies at age 86.  The son of Irish immigrants — his father was a bus driver, his mother a domestic worker — Sweeney worked for the Intl. Ladies Garment Workers then the Service Employees, where he served as president, before his time at the AFL-CIO - 2021

Led by 23-year-old Kate Mullaney, the Collar Laundry Union forms in Troy, N.Y, raises earnings for female laundry workers from two dollars to 14 dollars a week - 1864

25,000 Paterson, NJ silk workers strike for eight-hour work day and improved working conditions. 1,800 were arrested over the course of the six-month walkout, led by the Wobblies. They returned to work on their employers’ terms - 1913

- David Prosten

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