The following is a timeline of labor history, organizing and conflicts, from the early 1600s to present.
1600s 1619 (United States) 1619 Jamestown Polish craftsmen strike.
1636 (United States) Maine Indentured Servant's and Fisherman's Mutiny.
1648 (United States) Boston Coopers and Shoemakers form guilds.
1661 (United States) Virginia's Indentured Servants' Plot.
1663 (United States) Maryland Indentured Servants' Strike.
1675 (United States) Boston Ship Carpenters' Protest.
1676 (United States) Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia.
1677 (United States) New York City Carter's Strike.
1684 (United States) New York City Carter's Strike.
1700s
1741 (United States) New York City Bakers' Strike.
1768 (United States) Florida Indentured Servants' Revolt.
1774 (United States) Hibernia, New Jersey, Ironworks Strike.
1778 (United States) Journeymen printers in New York combine to increase their wages.
1781 (Austria) Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II, issues the Serfdom Patent of 1781, to abolish serfdom throughout the Habsburg lands.
1791 (United States) Philadelphia carpenters conduct first strike in the building trades in the United States. 1792 (United States) Philadelphia has first local union in the United States organized to conduct collective bargaining. 1794 (United States) Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers formed in Philadelphia.
1797 (United States) Profit sharing originated at Albert Gallatin's glassworks in New Geneva, Pennsylvania.
1799 (England) Combination Act 1799 (39 Geo. 3. c. 81) outlawed trade unionism and collective bargaining by workers.
1800-1829 1805 (United States) Journeymen Cordwainers union includes a closed-shop clause in its constitution in New York City.
1806 (United States) Commonwealth v. Pullis was the first known court case arising from a labor strike in the United States. After a three-day trial, the jury found the defendants guilty of "a combination to raise their wages" and fined.
1816 (England) Food riots broke out in East Anglia. Workers demanded a double wage and for the setting of triple prices for food.
1824 (England) The Combination Act 1799 (39 Geo. 3. c. 81) was repealed.
1824 (United States) Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Textile Strike.
1825 (United States) United Tailoresses of New York organized in New York City.
1825 (United States) Boston House Carpenter's Strike
1827 (United States) Mechanics' Union of Trades' Associations formed in Philadelphia.
1827 (United States) Philadelphia Carpenter's Strike.
1828 (United States) Workingmen's Party was organized in Philadelphia by the Mechanics' Union of Trades' Associations.
23 April 1829 (United States) Committee of Fifty, a group of prominent trade unionists in New York City, organized to resist efforts by business owners to revoke the 10-hour workday and reinstate the 11-hour workday. Their efforts lead directly to the forming of the Workingmen's Party of New York.
1829 (United States) Workingmen's Party of New York formed.
1830s 1831 (United States) New England Association of Farmers, Mechanics, and other Workingmen formed.
9 January 1831 (England) Twenty-three workers from Buckingham were sentenced to death for destruction of a paper machine by one of a number of Special Commissions sent to East Anglia to suppress insurgent workers by the Whig Ministry.
11 January 1831 (England) Three workers in Dorset were sentenced to death for extorting money and two workers were sentenced to death for robbery by one of the Special Commissions sent by the Whig Ministry to suppress insurgent workers.
Fifty-five workers in Norwich were convicted of "machine breaking and rioting" by one of the Special Commissions sent by the Whig Ministry to suppress insurgent workers.
Three workers in Ipswich were convicted of extorting money by one of the Special Commissions sent by the Whig Ministry to suppress insurgent workers.
In Petworth, 26 workers were found guilty of "machine breaking and rioting" by one of the Special Commissions the Whig Ministry sent by the Whig Ministry to suppress insurgent workers.
"Upwards of thirty" workers in Gloucester were convicted of "machine breaking and rioting" by one of the Special Commissions sent by the Whig Ministry to suppress insurgent workers.
Twenty-nine workers in Oxford were convicted of "machine breaking and rioting" by one of the Special Commissions sent by the Whig Ministry to suppress insurgent workers.
1832 (United States) Boston Ship Carpenters' Ten-Hour Strike.
1833 (United States) Lynn, Massachusetts' Shoebinders' Protest begins.
1834 (England) The Tolpuddle Martyrs, agricultural workers who formed a trade union in Tolpuddle in Dorsetshire, were sentenced by a Whig Ministry Special Commission to transportation to a penal colony in Australia.
March 1834 (United States) National Trades' Union formed in New York when the New York General Trades' Union solicited labor organizations from around the country to send delegates to a national convention. This union was the first attempt to create a national labor federation.
1834 (United States) Lowell, Massachusetts Mill Women's Strike.
1834 (United States) Manayunk, Pennsylvania Textile Strike.
1835 (United States) Carpenters, masons, and stone-cutters began a strike as part of the Ten-Hour Movement among skilled workers. They drafted a strike circular in Boston outlining their demands and seeking assistance from other tradespeople. Wherever this circular was distributed, a strike in favor of the ten-hour workday erupted. The 1835 Philadelphia general strike, in which workers successfully struck for shorter working hours and higher wages, was influenced by the Boston circular.
3 July 1835 (United States) Textile workers, many of whom were children of Irish descent, launched the 1835 Paterson textile strike in the silk mills in Paterson, New Jersey fighting for the 11-hour day, 6 days a week.
1836 (United States) National Cooperative Association of Cordwainers formed in New York City. This association was the first national union for a specific craft.
1836 (United States) Lowell, Massachusetts, Mill Women's Strike.
1836 (United States) New York City Tailors' Strike.
1836 (United States) Philadelphia's Bookbinders' Strike.
1840s 1840 (United States) Ten-hour day for federal employees on federal public works projects without loss of pay established by President Martin Van Buren by executive order.
1842 (United States) Ten-hour Republican Association was formed by New England mechanics to pressure the Massachusetts legislature to establish a ten-hour workday throughout the state.
March 1842 (United States) Commonwealth v. Hunt was a landmark legal decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on the subject of labor unions. Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled that unions were legal organizations and had the right to organize and strike. Before this decision, labor unions which attempted to 'close' or create a unionized workplace could be charged with conspiracy. See Commonwealth v. Pullis
1844 (United States) Lowell Female Labor Reform Association formed.
April 1844 (United States) Fall River Mechanics' Association established 'The Mechanic', a weekly paper dedicated "to advocate the cause of the oppressed Mechanic and Laborer in all its bearings."
1847 (Scotland) The Educational Institute of Scotland, the oldest teachers' trade union in the world, was founded.
1847 (United States) New Hampshire is first state to establish the ten-hour workday.
1848 (United States) Pennsylvania's child labor law establishes the age of 12 as the minimum age for workers in commercial occupations.
1848 (Germany) Founding of the Allgemeine Deutsche Arbeiterverbrüderung (General German Workers-Brotherhood)Roland Roth, Dieter Rucht (edt), Die Sozialen Bewegungn in Deutschland seit 1945, Ein Handbuch (Frankfurt/New York, Campus Verlag, 2009), Page 159
1850s 1850 (United States) New York City Tailor's Strike.
13 June 1850 (United States) American League of Colored Laborers established in New York City.
July 1851 (Australia) Eureka Rebellion in the Colony of Victoria, Australia.
July 1851 (United States) Two railroad strikers are shot dead and others injured by the state militia in Portage, New York.
1852 (United States) Typographical Union founded.
21 April 1856 (Australia) Stonemasons and building workers in Melbourne achieve an eight-hour day, the first organized workers in the world to achieve an 8-hour day, with no loss of pay.
1859 (United States) Iron Molders' International Union founded.
1860s
1860 (United States) New England Shoemakers Strike of 1860 800 women operatives and 4,000 workmen marched during a shoemaker's strike in Lynn, Massachusetts.
1863 (United States) The first railroad labor union, The Brotherhood of the Footboard (later renamed the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers) is formed in Marshall, Michigan. It is headed by William D. Robinson.
1864 (Europe) International Workingmen's Association (often called the First International) is founded.
1864 (United States) Cigar Makers' Union founded.
1864 July 21 (United States) Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons' International Association founded.
1866 (United States) National Labor Union formed - 1st national labor federation in the US.
1866 (United States) Molders' Lockout takes place.
1867 (United States) Order of the Knights of St. Crispin, a union for factory workers in the shoe industry, founded.
1868 (Germany) The Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (ADGB)(Federation of General German Civil Servants) was founded and represented 142,000 workers.
1868 (United States) Women's Typographical Union is founded, the first labor union in the United States specifically for women
1868 (United States) First U.S. federal eight-hour law passed. This law only applied to laborers, workmen, and mechanics employed by the U.S. federal government.
1869 (United States) Colored National Labor Union founded.
1869 (United States) Uriah Smith Stephens organized a new union known as the Knights of Labor.
1869 (United States) Collar Laundry Union Strike in Troy, New York.
1870s 1870 (United States) The first written contract between coal miners and coal miner operators signed.
1872 (Europe) Karl Marx ejects Mikhail Bakunin and the other anarchists from the International Workingmen's Association
1873 (United States) In 1873 the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was established. In 1906 it became the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen.
13 January 1874 (United States) The original Tompkins Square Riot occurs in New York City. As unemployed workers demonstrated in New York City's Tompkins Square Park, a detachment of mounted police charged into the crowd, beating men, women and children indiscriminately with billy clubs and leaving hundreds of casualties in their wake.
1874 (United States) Peter M. Arthur elected Grand Chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. He remained in office until his death.
1875 (United States) The Molly Maguires are convicted for the anthracite coalfield murders.
1875 (United States) Anthracite Coal Strike takes place.
1876 (United States) Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers founded.
1876 (United States) Workingmen's Party is founded. It later becomes the Socialist Labor Party.
1876 (United States) Greenback Party is founded.
1877 (United States) Cigar Makers' International Union occurred.
1877 (United States) San Francisco Anti-Chinese Riots occur.
12 February 1877 (United States) The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 -- U.S. railroad workers began strikes to protest wage cuts. It started in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and then spread to many other states.
14 July 1877 (United States)