On this day in labor history, the year was 1919.
That was the day the telephone girls, as they were called, walked out on strike against New England Bell, essentially crippling communications in five New England states.
It was considered the most massive strike of women workers since the ‘Uprising of the 20,000’ in 1909.
They were members of the all-women National Telephone Operators’ Department of the IBEW.
Historian Stephen Norwood devoted many pages to the strike in his book, Labor’s Flaming Youth.
The government had taken over the nation’s telephone and telegraph industry during World War I and placed it under the control of Postmaster General Albert Burleson.
Just days earlier, thousands of angry women who worked in the Boston exchanges packed Faneuil Hall, demanding immediate strike action.
Julia O’Connor, the leader of the telephone operator’s union, called the strike at 7 a.m.
The union demanded a 60% wage increase and full scale to be reached after four years instead of seven.
Union and non-union alike responded to the strike call and walked off the job, establishing 24 hour picketing.
On the second day of the strike, over 1000 striking telephone operators marched through the streets of Boston and were cheered on by returning soldiers.
O’Connor organized picketing around the Boston hotels where out-of-town strikebreakers were housed.
Unionized service workers across the city denied services to the strikebreakers.
Postmaster Burleson smeared the striking women as unpatriotic and threatened to replace them with returning soldiers.
The soldiers however, sided with the telephone operators.
After five days, the union won direct bargaining rights and a $4 a week raise.
The strike was considered one of the few postwar World War I strikes to end in victory.
February 28 - Fighting for Equal Pay
February 27 - The 1937 Woolworth Sit-Down
February 26 - The Battle at Bethlehem
February 25 - The Paterson Silk Strike Begins
February 24 - Muller v Oregon Decided
February 23 - Black Workers Lead Historic Strike at UNC
February 22 - Labelling Teachers as Terrorists
February 21 - The First Female Telephone Operator
February 20 - Angelina Grimke is Born
February 19 - Philly Street Car Workers Spark General Strike
February 18 - Anti-Slavery Begins in America
February 17 - Standing Up By Sitting Down
February 16 - The Wisconsin Uprising Begins
February 15 - The Uprising of the 20,000 Comes to a Close
February 14 - Kansas City Laundresses Walk Off the Job
February 13 - Martial Law Declared to Crush the UAW
February 12 - The NAACP is Founded
February 11 - Cutting Corners on Safety at Sequoyah I
February 10 - Forty-Three Workers Buried Alive
February 9 - Organizing Bloody Harlan
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