When the 4th of July approaches, many Americans think of moments of history: ragtag Minutemen in tricorn hats shooting from the timber as Redcoats march by in straight lines, or stirring comments from Thomas Paine or Patrick Henry, or Thomas Jefferson’s bold Declaration.
But each Independence Day may be a time for organized labor to reacquaint everyday workers with different declarations – unionizing, striking and struggling against difficult odds.
Before facts are erased in textbooks eliminating “disagreeable” moments from the past, mandated by MAGA-dominated states, or government records scrubbed – as the federal administration has tried to do concerning women and minorities, such as World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen or the contributions of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs – working people should remember the sacrifices made and courage displayed by labor.
The days before July 4 offer a glimpse of labor history.
JUNE 22: In 1922 during a United Mine Workers, strikers and supporters in Herrin, a mining town south of Carbondale, Ill., fought with strikebreakers, resulting in the deaths of more than 20 scabs.
JUNE 25: U.S, workers gained some federal protection in the 1938 passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which provided for a minimum wage, restrictions on child labor and other rights too many take for granted.
JUNE 27: The birthday of Emma Goldman. Born in 1869, the Lithuanian immigrant became a U.S. citizen in 1887, but – in a chilling reminder of current events – the labor activist, feminist and revolutionary was deported to Russia in 1919 as part of the infamous “Palmer Raids” supervised by J. Edgar Hoover in the first “Red Scare.”
She eventually denounced Russia for its tyranny and left for England, Spain and, finally Canada, continuing to advocate for workers’ and women’s rights.
JUNE 28: Maybe seeking to differentiate a U.S. holiday from the rest of the world, President Grover Cleveland signs a bill making the first Monday in September Labor Day (as opposed to May 1 in most of the planet).
JUNE 29: The National Labor Relations Board is set up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934 to enforce federal labor law.
JULY 2: Americans gain protections against discrimination based on race, color, gender, religion or national origin after President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
JULY 3: About 2,000 textile workers in Paterson, N.J., went on strike in 1835 for better working conditions – such as a six-day work week and an 11-hour day. At least 20 mills were affected, and many of the strikers were children.
Most days have key moments for labor.
No Executive Order can sanitize our heritage if we know it and pass it on, and we continue to resist those who’d take our independence from us.
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