Tagged labor unions

(Kveller via JTA) – On Nov. 22, 1909, at a massive workers meeting held at Cooper Union, Clara Lemlich Shavelson made herself known. In Yiddish, she declared, “I am tired of listening to speakers who talk in general terms. …  I move that we go on a general strike!”… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Congress declared Labor Day a public holiday in 1894, workers had more to lament than to celebrate: an economic depression, a growing concentration of corporate wealth and power, and the brutal suppression of their unions. A momentous national railroad strike to protest deep wage… Read more »

Some of the 146 victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire lay on the streets of New york's Lower East Side, March 25, 1911. (International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (JTA) — Late on the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire erupted at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company on the top floors of a modern, fire-proof building at the corner of Manhattan’s Washington Place and Greene Street, near Washington Square Park. In the bedlam precipitated by… Read more »