Strikes That Changed Laws

Labor Strikes: Collective work stoppages have forced governments to write rules that most workers now take for granted, including the eight hour day, minimum wages, safety standards, equal pay and the legal right to organize. Many of these protections were won only after strikers faced arrests, firings and sometimes bullets.

Haymarket Affair: A May 1886 rally in Chicago for the eight hour day ended in a bomb blast and deadly police gunfire. The tragedy led labor movements worldwide to adopt May 1 as International Workers' Day.

Bread and Roses Strike: In 1912, roughly 20,000 mostly immigrant textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts walked out after a pay cut. The strike won raises and built momentum for Massachusetts to pass the first US minimum wage law, for women and minors, that same year.

Uprising of the 20,000: In 1909 and 1910, New York shirtwaist makers struck for safer conditions and fair pay after a rousing speech by Clara Lemlich. Their demands went largely unmet until the 1911 Triangle fire killed 146 workers and turned public opinion toward reform.

Pullman Strike: A 1894 railroad boycott that began over wage cuts in a company town froze national rail traffic. Within days of it ending, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making Labor Day a federal holiday.

Great Railroad Strike of 1877: America's first nationwide strike spread across rail lines after wage cuts and was crushed by militias and federal troops. Afterward, many states built National Guard armories in industrial cities.

Flint Sit Down Strike: Autoworkers occupied General Motors plants for 44 days from December 1936 to February 1937. GM finally recognized the United Auto Workers, a breakthrough for industrial unions under the new Wagner Act.

Match Girls Strike: In 1888, about 1,400 London women and girls at Bryant and May struck over fines and the toxic effects of white phosphorus, which caused a disfiguring jaw disease. The company moved to safer matches in 1901 and Britain banned white phosphorus matches in 1908.

London Dock Strike of 1889: Dockers struck for a wage of sixpence an hour, known as the dockers' tanner. The win helped launch the new unionism, bringing unskilled and casual workers into organized labor.

Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902: About 147,000 Pennsylvania miners struck for five months. President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in as a neutral arbiter, an early example of federal mediation, and the miners won a raise and a nine hour day.

Memphis Sanitation Strike: In 1968, Black sanitation workers carried I AM A MAN signs after two colleagues were crushed in a garbage truck. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated while supporting them, and the city soon recognized their union.

Delano Grape Strike: Filipino and Mexican American farm workers began a California grape strike in 1965 that grew into a five year boycott under Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. It led to the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the first US law guaranteeing farm workers collective bargaining.

Gdansk Lenin Shipyard: In August 1980 Polish workers struck after a crane operator named Anna Walentynowicz was fired. The resulting Gdansk Agreement created Solidarity, the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc.

Philadelphia Cordwainers: In 1806, striking shoemakers were convicted of criminal conspiracy for combining to raise wages. The case showed how union activity was treated as a crime until later rulings reversed that approach.

Iceland Women's Day Off: On October 24, 1975, about 90 percent of Icelandic women refused paid and unpaid work. A Gender Equality Act followed in 1976, and Vigdis Finnbogadottir was elected president in 1980.

Dagenham Sewing Machinists: In 1968, 187 women at Ford's Dagenham plant struck over being classed as unskilled and paid less than men. Their action helped push Britain to pass the Equal Pay Act in 1970.

Tolpuddle Martyrs: Six English farm laborers who formed a friendly society were sentenced in 1834 to seven years' transportation to Australia. Mass protests and a huge petition forced their pardon in 1836 and became a symbol of the right to organize.

Matignon Agreements: In June 1936, nearly two million French workers struck and occupied workplaces. The deal that ended it brought collective bargaining, the 40 hour week and two weeks of paid holidays.

Toronto Printers Strike of 1872: Typographers struck for a nine hour day, and union leaders were arrested under conspiracy law. The backlash led Prime Minister John A. Macdonald to pass the Trade Unions Act, which legalized unions in Canada.

Cananea Strike: In 1906, copper miners at a Mexican mine owned by an American company struck over pay and treatment. The uprising became a rallying point that fed into the labor rights of Article 123 in Mexico's 1917 constitution.

West Virginia Teachers Strike: In 2018, teachers in all 55 counties walked out for nine days despite a state law against public sector strikes. They won a 5 percent raise and sparked a wave of teacher walkouts in other states.

Great Steel Strike of 1919: About 350,000 steelworkers struck for an eight hour day and union recognition and lost. Public pressure over the brutal twelve hour shift later helped push US steel firms to abolish it in 1923.

Rand Formula: After a 99 day Ford strike in Windsor, Ontario in 1945, Justice Ivan Rand ruled in 1946 that all workers covered by a union contract must pay dues. The formula became a cornerstone of Canadian labor law.

Philadelphia Carpenters Strike of 1791: Carpenters walked out demanding a ten hour workday, one of the earliest recorded strikes in the new United States. It foreshadowed generations of struggle over working hours.

Winnipeg General Strike: In May and June 1919, about 30,000 Canadian workers shut down a city for six weeks. Leaders were arrested, including J. S. Woodsworth, who later led the Co operative Commonwealth Federation, forerunner of the New Democratic Party.