1877年,美国联邦军队杀死30名罢工工人,伤100。
1934年,国民自卫队军队杀死二名罢工者。
1894年,美国联邦军队杀死34名美国铁路工会成员。
1937年,芝加哥警察杀死10人,伤30多人。
等等,等等。
References:
27 April 1825
The first strike for the 10-hour work-day occurred by carpenters in
Boston.
3 July 1835
Children employed in the silk mills in Paterson, NJ went on strike
for the 11 hour day/6 day week.
July 1851
Two railroad strikers were shot dead and others injured by the state
militia in Portgage, New York.
1860
800 women operatives and 4,000 workmen marched during a shoemaker's
strike in Lynn, Massachusetts.
13 January 1874
The original Tompkins Square Riot. As unemployed workers demonstrated
in New York's Tompkins Square Park, a detachment of mounted police charged
into the crowd, beating men, women and children indiscriminately with billy
clubs and leaving hundreds of casualties in their wake. Commented Abram
Duryee, the Commissioner of Police: "It was the most glorious sight I ever
saw..."
12 February 1877
U.S. railroad workers began strikes to protest wage cuts.
21 June 1877
Ten coal-mining activists ("Molly Maguires") were hanged in Pennsylvania.
14 July 1877
A general strike halted the movement of U.S. railroads. In the following
days, strike riots spread across the United States. The next week, federal
troops were called out to force an end to the nationwide strike. At the
"Battle of the Viaduct" in Chicago, federal troops (recently returned from
an Indian massacre) killed 30 workers and wounded over 100.
5 September 1882
Thirty thousand workers marched in the first Labor Day parade in New
York City.
1884
The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, forerunner of
the AFL, passed a resolution stating that "8 hours shall constitute a legal
day's work from and after May 1, 1886." Though the Federation did not intend
to stimulate a mass insurgency, its resolution had precisely that effect.
Late 1885/Early 1886
Hundreds of thousands of American workers, increasingly determined
to resist subjugation to capitalist power, poured into a fledgling labor
organization, the Knights of Labor. Beginning on May 1, 1886, they took
to the streets to demand the universal adoption of the eight hour day.
Chicago was the center of the movement. Workers there had been agitating for an eight hour day for months, and on the eve of May 1, 50,000 workers were already on strike. 30,000 more swelled their ranks the next day, bringing most of Chicago manufacturing to a standstill. Fears of violent class conflict gripped the city. No violence occurred on May 1 -- a Saturday -- or May 2. But on Monday, May 3, a fight iinvolving hundreds broke out at McCormick Reaper between locked-out unionists and the non-unionist workers McCormick hired to replace them. The Chicago police, swollen in number and heavily armed, quickly moved in with clubs and guns to restore order. They left four unionists dead and many others wounded.
Angered by the deadly force of the police, a group of anarchists, led by August Spies and Albert Parsons, called on workers to arm themselves and participate in a massive protest demonstration in Haymarket Square on Tuesday evening, May 4. The demonstration appeared to be a complete bust, with only 3,000 assembling. But near the end of the evening, an individual, whose identity is still in dispute, threw a bomb that killed seven policemen and injured 67 others. Hysterical city and state government officials rounded up eight anarchists, tried them for murder, and and sentenced them to death.
On 11 November 1887, four of them, including Parsons and Spies, were executed. All of the executed advocated armed struggle and violence as revolutionary methods, but their prosecutors found no evidence that any had actually thrown the Haymarket bomb. They died for their words, not their deeds. A quarter of a million people lined Chicago's street during Parson's funeral procession to express their outrage at this gross mis-carriage of justice.
For radicals and trade unionists everywhere, Haymarket became a symbol of the stark inequality and injustice of capitalist society. The May 1886 Chicago events figured prominently in the decision of the founding congress of the Second International (Paris, 1889) to make May 1, 1890 a demonstration of the solidarity and power of the international working class movement. May Day has been a celebration of international socialism and (after 1917) international communism ever since.
The Bayview Massacre also took place at this time (for more detailed information visit http://www.execpc.com/~blake/rollin~1.htm), where seven people, including one child, were killed by state militia. On 1 May 1886 about 2,000 Polish workers walked off their jobs and gathered at Saint Stanislaus Church in Milwaukee, angrily denouncing the ten hour workday. They then marched through the city, calling on other workers to join them; as a result, all but one factory was closed down as sixteen thousand protesters gathered at Rolling Mills, prompting Wisconsin Govorner Jeremiah Rusk to call the state militia. The militia camped out at the mill while workers slept in nearby fields, and on the morning of May 5th, as protesters chanted for the eight hour workday, General Treaumer ordered his men to shoot into the crowd, some of whom were carrying sticks, bricks, and scythes, leaving seven dead at the scene. The Milwaukee Journal reported that eight more would die within twenty four hours, and without hesitation added that Governor Rusk was to be commended for his quick action in the matter.
4 October 1887
The Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of "prominent citizens," shot
35 unarmed black sugar workers striking to gain a dollar-per-day wage,
and lynched two strike leaders.
25 July 1890
New York garment workers won the right to unionize after a seven-month
strike. They secured agreements for a closed shop, and firing of all scabs.
6 July 1892
The Homestead Strike. Pinkerton Guards, trying to pave the way for
the introduction of scabs, opened fire on striking Carnegie mill steel-
workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania. In the ensuing battle, three Pinkertons
surrendered; then, unarmed, they were set upon and beaten by a mob of townspeople,
most of them women. Seven guards and eleven strikers and spectators were
shot to death.
11 July 1892
Striking miners in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho dynamited the Frisco Mill,
leaving it in ruins.
1893
The first of several bloody mining strikes at Cripple
Creek, Colorado.
5 July 1893
During a strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company, which had drastically
reduced wages, the 1892 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago's Jackson
Park was set ablaze, and seven buildings were reduced to ashes. The mobs
raged on, burning and looting railroad cars and fighting police in the
streets, until 10 July, when 14,000 federal and state troops finally succeeded
in putting down the strike.
1894
Federal troops killed 34 American Railway Union members in the Chicago
area attempting to break a strike, led by Eugene Debs, against the Pullman
Company. Debs and several others were imprisoned for violating injunctions,
causing disintegration of the union.
21 September 1896
The state militia was sent to Leadville, Colorado to break a miner's
strike.
10 September 1897
19 unarmed striking coal miners and mine workers were killed and 36
wounded by a posse organized by the Luzerne County sherif for refusing
to disperse near Lattimer, Pennsylvania. The strikers, most of whom were
shot in the back, were originally brought in as strike-breakers, but later
organized themselves.
1898
A portion of the Erdman Act, which would have made it a criminal offense
for railroads to dismiss employees or discriminate against prospective
employees based on their union activities, was declared invalid by the
United States Supreme Court.
12 October 1898
Fourteen were killed, 25 wounded in violence resulting when Virden,
Illinois mine owners attempted to break a strike by importing 200 nonunion
black workers.
29 April 1899
When their demand that only union men be employed was refused, members
of the Western Federation of Miners dynamited the $250,000 mill of the
Bunker Hill Company at Wardner, Idaho, destroying it completely. President
McKinley responded by sending in black soldiers from Brownsville, Texas
with orders to round up thousands of miners and confine them in specially
built "bullpens."
1899 and 1901
U.S. Army troops occupied the Coeur d'Alene mining region in Idaho.
12 October 1902
Fourteen miners were killed and 22 wounded by scabherders at Pana,
Illinois.
23 November 1903
Troops were dispatched
to Cripple Creek, Colorado to control rioting by striking coal miners.
July 1903
Labor organizer Mary
Harris ("Mother") Jones leads child workers in demanding a 55 hour
work week.
23 February 1904
William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Chronicle began publishing
articles on the menace of Japanese laborers, leading to a resolution of
the California Legislature that action be taken against their immigration.
8 June 1904
A battle between the Colorado Militia and striking miners at Dunnville
ended with six union members dead and 15 taken prisoner. Seventy-nine of
the strikers were deported to Kansas two days later.
17 April 1905
The Supreme Court held that a maximum hours law for New York bakery
workers was unconstitutional under the due process clause of the 14th ammendment.
1908
The Erdman Act was further weakened when Section 10 was declared unconstitutional.
This section had made it illegal for railroad employers to fire employees
for being involved in union activities (see 1898).
22 November 1909
The "Uprising of the 20,000." Female garment workers went on strike
in New York; many were arrested. A judge told those arrested: "You are
on strike against God."
25 December 1910
A dynamite bomb destroyed a portion of the Llewellyn Ironworks in Los
Angeles, where a bitter strike was in progress.
1911
The Supreme Court ordered the AFL to cease its promotion of a boycott
against the Bucks Stove and Range Company. A contempt charge against union
leaders (including AFL President Samuel Gompers) was dismissed on technical
grounds.
25 March 1911
The Triangle Shirtwaist Company, occupying the top three floors of
a ten-story building in New York City, was consumed by fire. One hundred
and forty-seven people, mostly women and young girls working in sweatshop
conditions, lost their lives. Approximately 50 died as they leapt from
windows to the street; the others were burned or trampled to death as they
desperately attempted to escape through stairway exits locked as a precaution
against "the interruption of work". On 11 April the company's owners were
indicted for manslaughter.
2 December 1911
A Chicago "slugger," paid $50 by labor unions for every scab he "discouraged,"
described his job in an interview: "Oh, there ain't nothin' to it. I gets
my fifty, then I goes out and finds the guy they wanna have slugged. I
goes up to `im and I says to `im, `My friend, by way of meaning no harm,'
and then I gives it to `im -- biff! in the mug. Nothin' to it."
24 February 1912
Women and children were beaten by police during a textile strike in
Lawrence, Massachusetts.
18 April 1912
The National Guard was called out against striking West Virginia coal
miners.
11 June 191?
Police shot three maritime workers (one of whom was killed) who were
striking against the United Fruit Company in New Orleans.
5 January 1914
The Ford Motor Company raised its basic wage from $2.40 for a nine
hour day to $5 for an eight hour day.
20 April 1914
The "Ludlow Massacre." In an attempt to persuade strikers at Colorado's
Ludlow Mine Field to return to work, company "guards," engaged by John
D. Rockefeller, Jr. and other mine operators and sworn into the State Militia
just for the occasion, attacked a union tent camp with machine guns, then
set it afire. Five men, two women and 12 children died as a result. Additional
web resources are catolged at www.holtlaborlibrary.org/ludlow.html#Web%20Sites.
13 November 1914
A Western Federation of Miners strike is crushed by the militia in
Butte, Montana.
19 January 1915
World famous labor leader Joe
Hill was arrested in Salt Lake City. He was convicted on trumped up
murder charges, and was executed 21 months later despite worldwide protests
and two attempts to intervene by President Woodrow Wilson. In a letter
to Bill Haywood shortly before his death he penned the famous words, "Don't
mourn - organize!"
On this same day, twenty rioting strikers were shot by factory guards at Roosevelt, New Jersey.
25 January 1915
The Supreme Court upholds "yellow dog" contracts, which forbid membership
in labor unions. 22 July 1916
A bomb was set off during a "Preparedness Day" parade in San Francisco,
killing 10 and injuring 40 more. Thomas J. Mooney, a labor organizer and
Warren K. Billings, a shoe worker, were convicted, but were both pardoned
in 1939.
19 August 1916
Strikebreakers hired by the Everett Mills owner Neil Jamison attacked
and beat picketing strikers in Everett, Washington. Local police watched
and refused to intervene, claiming that the waterfront where the incident
took place was Federal land and therefore outside their jurisdiction. (When
the picketers retaliated against the strikebreakers that evening, the local
police intervened, claiming that they had crossed the line of jursidiction.)
Three days later, twenty-two union men attempted to speak out at a local crossroads, but each was arrested; arrests and beatings of strikebreakers became common throughout the following months, and on 30 October vigilantes forced IWW speakers to run the gauntlet, subjecting them to whipping, tripping kicking, and impalement against a spiked cattle guard at the end of the gauntlet. In response, the IWW called for a meeting on 5 November. When the union men arrived, they were fired on; seven people were killed, 50 were wounded, and an indeterminate number wound up missing.
7 September 1916
Federal employees win the right to receive Worker's Compensation insurance.
12 July 1917
After seizing the local Western Union telegraph office in order to
cut off outisde communication, several thousand armed vigilantes forced
1,185 men in Bisbee, Arizona into manure-laden boxcars and "deported" them
to the New Mexico desert. The action was precipitated by a strike when
workers' demands (including improvements to safety and working conditions
at the local copper mines, an end to discrimination against labor organizations
and unequal treatment of foreign and minority workers, and the institution
of a fair wage system) went unmet. The "deportation" was organized by Sheriff
Harry Wheeler. The incident was investigated months later by a Federal
Mediation Commission set up by President Woodrow Wilson; the Commission
found that no federal law applied, and referred the case to the State of
Arizona, which failed to take any action, citing patriotism and support
for the war as justification for the vigilantes' action.
15 March 1917
The Supreme Court approved the Eight-Hour Act under the threat of a
national railway strike.
1 August 1917
IWW organizer Frank Little was lynched in Butte, Monatana.
5 September 1917
Federal agents raided the IWW headquarters in 48 cities.
3 June 1918
A Federal child labor law, enacted two years earlier, was declared
unconstitutional. A new law was enacted 24 February 1919, but this one
too was declared unconstitutional (on 2 June 1924).
27 July 1918
United Mine Workers organizer Ginger Goodwin was shot by a hired private
policeman outside Cumberland, British Columbia.
26 August 1919
United Mine Worker organizer Fannie Sellins was gunned down by company
guards in Brackenridge, Pennsylvania.
19 September 1919
Looting, rioting and sporadic violence broke out in downtown Boston
and South Boston for days after 1,117 Boston policemen declared a work
stoppage due to their thwarted attempts to affiliate with the American
Federation of Labor. Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge put down the
strike by calling out the entire state militia.
22 September 1919
The "Great Steel Strike" began. Ultimately, 350,000 steel workers walked
off their jobs to demand union recognition. The AFL Iron and Steel Organizing
Committee called off the strike on 8 January 1920, their goals unmet.
11 November 1919
IWW organizer Wesley Everest was lynched after a Centralia, Washington
IWW hall was attacked by Legionnaires.
22 December 1919
Amid a strike for union recognition by 395,000 steelworkers (ultimately
unsuccessful), approximately 250 "anarchists," "communists," and "labor
agitators" were deported to Russia, marking the beginning of the so-called
"Red Scare."
2 January 1920
The U.S. Bureau of Investigation began carrying out the nationwide
Palmer Raids. Federal agents seized labor leaders and literature in the
hopes of discouraging labor activity. A number of citizens were turned
over to state officials for prosecution under various anti-anarchy statutes.
19 May 1920
The Battle of Matewan. Despite efforts by police chief (and former
miner) Sid Hatfield and Mayor C. Testerman to protect miners from interference
in their union drive in Matewan, West Virginia, Baldwin-Felts detectives
hired by the local mining company and thirteen of the company's managers
arrived to evict miners and their families from the Stone Mountain Mine
camp. A gun battle ensued, resulting in the deaths of 7 detectives, Mayor
Testerman, and 2 miners. Baldwin-Felts detectives assasinated Sid Hatfield
15 months later, sparking off an armed rebellion of 10,000 West Virginia
coal miners at "The Battle of Blair Mountain," dubbed "the largest insurrection
this country has had since the Civil War" by The
Battle of Matewan Home Page.
1920 and 1921
Army troops were used to intervene against striking mineworkers in
West Virginia. Details of these events can be found in the extensive and
excellent article at www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh50-1.html.
22 June 1922
Violence erupted during a coal-mine strike at Herrin, Illinois. Thirty-six
were killed, 21 of them non-union miners.
2 June 1924
A child labor ammendment to the U.S. Constitution was proposed; only
28 of the necessary 36 states ever ratified it.
14 June 1924
A San Pedro, California IWW hall was raided; a number of children were
scalded when the hall was demolished.
25 May 1925
Two company houses occupied by nonunion coal miners were blown up and
destroyed by labor "racketeers" during a strike against the Glendale Gas
and Coal Company in Wheeling, West Virginia.
1926
Textile workers fought with police in Passaic, New Jersey. A year-long
strike ensued.
21 November 1927
Picketing miners were massacred in Columbine, Colorado.
3 February 1930
"Chicagorillas" -- labor racketeers -- shot and killed contractor William
Healy, with whom the Chicago Marble Setters Union had been having difficulties.
14 April 1930
Over 100 farm workers were arrested for their unionizing activities
in Imperial Valley, California. Eight were subsequently convicted of `criminal
syndicalism.'
4 May 1931
Gun-toting vigilantes attack striking miners in Harlan County, Kentucky.
7 March 1932
Police kill striking workers at Ford's Dearborn, Michigan plant.
10 October 1933
18,000 cotton workers went on strikein Pixley, California. Four were
killed before a pay-hike was finally won.
1934
The Electric
Auto-Lite Strike. In Toledo, OH, two strikers were killed and over
two hundred wounded by National Guardsmen. Some 1300 National Guard troops,
including included eight rifle companies and three machine gun companies,
were called in to disperse the protestors.
1934
International Longshoremans and Warehouse union strike of 1934. Two
longshoremen, Nick Bordoise and Howard Sperry, were shot to death by the
San Francisco Police. May 1934
Police stormed striking truck drivers in Minneapolis who were attempting
to prevent truck movement in the market area.
1 September - 22 September 1934
A strike in Woonsocket, RI, part of a national movement to obtain a
minimum wage for textile workers, resulted in the deaths of three workers.
Over 420,000 workers ultimately went on strike.
9 November 1935
The Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) was formed to expand
industrial unionism.
11 February 1937
General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers union following a
sit-down strike. Two months later, company guards beat up UAW leaders at
the River Rouge, Michigan plant.
26 May 1937
The 'Battle of the Overpass'. Walter Reuther and a group of UAW supporters,
fresh from having organized GM and Chyrsler, attempting to distribute leaflets
at Gate 4 of the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge plant, and were beaten
up (together with bystanders) by Ford Service Department guards. 30
May 1937
Police killed 10 and wounded 30 during the "Memorial Day Massacre"
at the Republic Steel plant in Chicago.
25 June 1938
The Wages and Hours (later Fair Labor Standards) Act is passed, banning
child labor and setting the 40-hour work week. The Act went into effect
in October 1940, and was upheld in the Supreme Court on 3 February 1941.
27 February 1939
The Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes are illegal.
20 June 1941
Henry Ford recognizes the UAW.
15 December 1941
The AFL pledges that there will be no strikes in defense-related industry
plants for the duration of the war.
28 December 1944
President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the Army to seize the executive
offices of Montgomery Ward and Company after the corporation failed to
comply with a National War Labor Board directive regarding union shops.
1946
Workers in packinghouses nation-wide went on strike.
1 April 1946
A strike by 400,000 mine workers in the U.S. began. U.S. troops seized
railroads and coal mines the following month.
4 October 1946
The U.S. Navy seized oil refineries in order to break a 20-state post-war
strike.
20 June 1947
The Taft-Hartley Labor Act, curbing strikes, was vetoed by President
Truman. Congress overrode the veto.
20 April 1948
Labor leader Walter Reuther was shot and seriously wounded by would-be
assassins.
27 August 1950
President Truman ordered the U.S. Army to seize all the nation's railroads
to prevent a general strike. The railroads were not returned to their owners
until two years later.
8 April 1952
President Truman ordered the U.S. Army to seize the nation's steel
mills to avert a strike. The act was ruled to be illegal by the Supreme
Court on 2 June.
5 December 1955
The two largest labor organizations in the U.S. merged to form the
AFL-CIO, with a membership estimated at 15 million.
5 April 1956
Columnist Victor Riesel, a crusader against labor racketeers, was blinded
in New York City when a hired assailant threw sulfuric acid in his face.
14 September 1959
The Landrum-Griffin Act passes, restricting union activity.
7 November 1959
The Taft-Hartley Act is invoked by the Supreme Court to break a steel
strike.
1 April 1963
The longest newspaper strike in U.S. history ended. The 9 major newspapers
in New York City had ceased publication over 100 days before.
10 June 1963
Congress passes a law mandating equal pay to women.
5 January 1970
Joseph A. Yablonski, unsuccessful reform candidate to unseat "Tough
Tony" Boyle as President of the United Mine Workers, was murdered, along
with his wife and daughter, in their Clarksville, Pennsylvania home by
assassins acting on Boyle's orders. Boyle was later convicted of the killing.
West Virginia miners went on strike the following day in protest.
18 March 1970
The first mass work stoppage in the 195-year history of the Post Office
Department began with a walkout of letter carriers in Brooklyn and Manhattan,
soon involving 210,000 of the nation's 750,000 postal employees. With mail
service virtually paralzyed in New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia, President
Nixon declared a state of national emergency and assigned military units
to New York City post offices. The stand-off culminated two weeks later.
29 July 1970
United Farm Workers forced California grape growers to sign an agreement
after a five-year strike.
3 August 1981
Federal air traffic controllers began a nationwide strike after their
union rejected the government's final offer for a new contract. Most of
the 13,000 striking controllers defied the back-to-work order, and were
dismissed by President Reagan on 5 August.
October 1982
A boycott was initiated by the Industrial Association of Machinists
against Brown & Sharpe, a machine, precision, measuring and cutting
tool manufacturer, headquartered in Rhode Island. The boycott was called
after the firm refused to bargain in good faith (withdrawing previously
negotiated clauses in the contract), and forced the union into an unwanted
and bitter strike during which police sprayed pepper gas on some 800 IAM
pickets at the company's North Kingston plant in early 1982. Three weeks
later, a machinist narrowly escaped serious injury when a shot fired into
the picket line hit his belt buckle. The National Labor Relations Board
subsequently charged Brown & Sharpe with regressive bargaining, and
of entering into negotiations with the express purpose of not reaching
an agreement with the union.
6 October 1986
1,700 female flight attendants won an 18-year lawsuit (which included
$37 million in damages) against United Arilines, which had fired them for
getting married.
24 October 1987
The 35-member executive council of the AFL-CIO decided unanimously
to readmit the 1.6-million member Teamsters Union to its ranks. The scandal-ridden
union had been expelled from the federation in 1957. President Jackie Presser
was awaiting trial at the time, and the U.S. Justice Department was considering
removal of the union's leadership because of possible links to organized
crime.
17 September 1989
Ninety-eight miners and a minister occupied the the Pittston Coal Company's
Moss 3 preparation plant in Carbo, Virginia, beginning a year-long strike
against Pittston Coal. While a month-long Soviet coal strike dominated
U.S. news broadcasts, the year-long Pittston strike garnered almost no
mainstream press coverage whatsoever.