Loray Mill Strike

Examples of Loray Mill Strike in the following topics:

• The Gastonia Strike of 1929

  • The Loray Mill Strike of 1929, although not attaining its goals, garnered national attention and gave the labor movement momentum.
  • The Loray Mill Strike of 1929 in Gastonia, North Carolina was one of the most notable strikes in the labor history of the United States.
  • The workers voted unanimously to strike and on April 1, 1,800 mill workers from the Loray Mill walked off their jobs to protest intolerable working conditions.
  • The situation continued throughout the next few months as the workers continued to strike despite the return to production at the Loray Mill, making their situation appear hopeless.
  • Seven men were charged with her murder, six of whom were Loray Mill employees; all were found not guilty.

• Setbacks for Unions

  • There was, however, a resurgence of labor support in the textile industry, notably in the Loray Mill strike of 1929.
  • In April 1929, the Communist-affiliated National Textile Workers Union (NTWU) focused its attention on the small town of Gastonia, North Carolina, where it helped organize a strike of 1,800 Loray Mill employees who demanded a 40-hour work week, minimum $20 weekly wage, union recognition, and the abolition of the stretch-out system.
  • In response, management evicted families from mill-owned homes and North Carolina Governor O.
  • Seven men, including Loray Mill workers, were acquitted of the crime.
  • Workers, including an 11-year-old boy holding his coat, outside the Loray Mill in Gastonia, N.C.

• The New Immigrants on Strike

  • Two important labor strikes led by immigrant groups were the New York shirtwaist strike of 1909 and the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912.
  • Prompted by one mill owner's decision to lower wages when a new law shortening the workweek went into effect in January, the strike spread rapidly through the town, growing to more than twenty thousand workers at nearly every mill within a week.
  • Joseph Ettor (of the IWW) and Arturo Giovannitti (of the Italian Socialist Federation of the Socialist Party of America) quickly assumed leadership of the strike, forming a strike committee made up of two representatives from each ethnic group in the mills, which took responsibility for all major decisions.
  • The city responded to the strike with a company of local militia to patrol the streets and harass strikers picketing in front of the mills.
  • When mill owners turned fire hoses on the picketers gathered in front of the mills, they responded by throwing ice at the plants, breaking a number of windows.

• Lockouts

  • Spontaneous strikes are sometimes called "wildcat strikes;" they were the key fighting point in May 1968 in France.
  • Companies may also take out strike insurance prior to an anticipated strike, to help offset the losses which the strike would cause.
  • How long will the strike last?
  • In the United States, it is legal to fire striking public sector employees if the strike is illegal.
  • Industrialist Henry Clay Frick sent private security agents from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to break the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers strike at a Homestead, Pennsylvania steel mill.

• Factories, Working Women, and Wage Labor

  • In 1793, he established a cotton-spinning mill with a fully mechanized water-power system at the Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
  • At its peak, more than 1,000 mills operated in this valley.
  • In this model, mill villages employed all members of a family.
  • Similar strikes occurred at Lowell and in other mill towns such as Dover, New Hampshire, where the women employed by the Cocheco Manufacturing Company ceased working in December 1828 after their wages were reduced.
  • In the 1830s, female mill operatives in Lowell formed the Lowell Factory Girls Association to organize strike activities in the face of wage cuts and, later, established the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association to protest the twelve-hour workday.

• The Homestead Lockout

  • The strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) at the Homestead steel mill in 1892 was different from previous large-scale strikes in American history, such as the Great railroad strike of 1877 or the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886.
  • The Homestead strike was organized and purposeful, a harbinger of the type of strike that would mark the modern age of labor relations in the United States.
  • Carnegie corporate attorney Philander Knox devised a plan to get the Pinkertons onto the mill property.
  • At 4:00 p.m., events at the mill quickly began to wind down.
  • Frick, too, needed a way out of the strike.

• The Great Steel Strike

  • The strike began in September 1919, and collapsed in January 1920.
  • In 1892, the AA had lost a bitter strike, called the Homestead Strike, which had culminated with a gun battle that left 12 dead and dozens wounded.
  • The National Committee debated the strike issue, and agreed to begin a general steelworker strike in September 1919 .
  • Public opinion quickly turned against the striking workers .
  • Between 30,000 and 40,000 unskilled African-American and Mexican American workers were brought to work in the mills.

• "Mother" Jones

  • With the U.M.W., she frequently led strikers in picketing and encouraged the striking workers to stay on strike when the management brought in strike-breakers and militias.
  • As a union organizer , she gained prominence for organizing the wives and children of striking workers in demonstrations on their behalf.
  • In 1901, the workers who were employed in the Pennsylvania silk mills went on strike, many of them being young female workers who were demanding they be paid adult wages.
  • She made claim that the young girls working in the mills were being robbed and demoralized.
  • However, the mill owners held stock in essentially all of the newspapers.

• The Labor Wars

  • A girl weaver in a non-union mill would receive $4.20 a week, versus $12.00 for the same work in a union mill.
  • Strikes occurred over the years, and some were successful.
  • The mill strikes of 1834 and 1836, while largely unsuccessful, involved upwards of 2,000 workers and represented a substantial organizational effort.
  • An estimated $340,000 worth of property damage occurred during the strike.
  • 1894 strike by the American Railway Union.

• Production Inputs and Process

  • Girls running warping machines in Loray Mill, Gastonia, N.C. by Lewis Hine, 1908.