Labor Timeline 1930's
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.
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.
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.