The forgotten anniversary

This autumn is the centenary of the "great strike" of 1902, the five-month shutdown of the anthracite coalfields which threatened to paralyse the country. Theodore Roosevelt's biographer, Edmund Morris, described it as "the greatest labour stoppage in history". A visiting British economist, Alexander Lowen, predicted that if the strike were not settled, it would cause "such social consequences as the world has never seen". There is a two-day conference being organised by some museums in Pennsylvania next month. Apart from that, no one seems to have noticed. [read more]

----------

http://www.behindthelabel.org/

----------

The Bay View Tragedy at Rolling Mills May 5, 1886
A Look at Milwaukee's 8-hour march, killings from the workers' point of view

Consider the conditions that workers endured over 100 years ago, such as the 16- hour days. That was about the age of free enterprise. You hear much about the age of free enterprise and that we mustn't interfere with workings of the free enterprise system.

When they're talking about the free market, they're talking about the market where people are helpless before those who run the corporations and those who make the decisions. And that's why people worked 16 hours a day and why people worked for virtually nothing, because that was the free market. There was no interference...the government did not interfere. You didn't have wage-hour laws, you didn't have Social Security, you didn't have unemployment compensation, workers compensation, you didn't have the Wagner Act. you didn't have anything like that. You had the wonderful operation of the free market which enabled corporations to do whatever they wanted, to work these people with nobody interfering.

Those conditions produced the movement for the eight- hour day. [read more]

----------

sweatshopwatch.org

Sweatshop Watch is a coalition of labor, community, civil rights, immigrant rights, women's, religious & student organizations, and individuals committed to eliminating sweatshop conditions in the global garment industry. We believe that workers should be earning a living wage in a safe and decent working environment, and that those who benefit the most from the exploitation of sweatshop workers must be held accountable. [read more]