On this day in labor history, the year was 1910.
That was the day streetcar workers in Philadelphia walked off the job just as garment workers were ending their victorious strike.
The walkout soon turned into a general strike.
The Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees Local 477 had been trying to negotiate fewer hours, higher wages and union recognition for almost a year.
Philadelphia Rapid Transit broke off negotiations in mid-February, fired 173 union members and imported scab replacements from New York City.
The Amalgamated called workers out. Strikers pulled apart buildings under construction and used the materials to block tracks and build strike shelters.
Many trolley cars were badly damaged when PRT attempted to resume service.
Scab drivers fared as badly as the trains they attempted to run.
The mayor called for citizens to serve police duty after strikers loaded dynamite onto tracks in Germantown.
The union offered up its members to preserve order but the Mayor refused.
Then the PRT brought in an additional 600 scabs and National Guardsmen to protect them.
Area workers were infuriated at this latest move, as were small businesses and religious groups.
On March 5, the Central Federated Union called a general strike.
More than 75,000 workers stayed off the job, to protest PRT’s anti-worker assaults.
Though the general strike was called off at the end of March, transit workers stayed out until April 19.
They won wage increases, rehiring of strikers and mediation for the initial 173 fired workers.
They could not secure exclusive union recognition.
But the strike solidified solidarity among area workers and demonstrated the capacity of labor to organize work actions across industrial lines.
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May 3 - First Workers Compensation Law is Passed
May 2 - Our Thing is DRUM!
May 1 - Mayday Marchers Attacked in Cleveland
April 30 - Refinery Workers Walk Off the Job
April 29 - Allis-Chalmers and the Road to Taft-Hartley
April 28 - OSHA Goes Into Effect
April 27 - Disaster in West Virginia
April 26 - National Guard Ousts Montgomery Ward CEO
April 25 - UAW Mobilizes Against Taft-Hartley
April 24 - The California Spinach Riot
April 23 - Sitting Down for Dignity at Ford
April 22 - The Red Jacket Mine Explosion
April 21 - The Hated Taylor Law Takes Effect
April 20 - Deepwater Horizon Explosion Kills 11
April 19 -The Daughters of Mother Jones
April 18 - We Have Fed You All A thousand Years
April 17 - Fatal Explosion in West, Texas
April 16 - Jacob Coxey is Born
April 15 - Telephone Girls Cripple New England Bell
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