On This Day in Working Class History

On this day, 24 September 1945 in New York City, around 1.5 million workers got an impromptu day off when elevator workers in over 2,000 city high-rise buildings, including the Empire State building, went on strike against pay cuts, which workers said breached the contract recommendations of the War Labor Board. Garment workers walked out on sympathy strike. The strike remained strong for five days until the governor intervened, persuading the workers to stop their strike if the employers agreed to arbitration, which they did. The arbitrators eventually ruled in favour of the workers.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9699/high-rise-elevator-workers-strike

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On this day, 23 September 2017, the strike of video game voice actors in the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) against 11 US video game developers and publishers, including Activision, Electronic Arts, Disney and others, ended in a partial victory after 340 days. It was the longest strike in the history of the union.
In particular, employers agreed to additional bonus payments of between $75 and $2100 depending on the number of sessions worked.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9614/video-game-voice-actors-strike-ends

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On this day, 22 September 1912, the syndicalist union the Casa del Obrero Mundial (House of the World Worker) was formed in Mexico during the turbulent events of the revolution, despite repression by the then-government of Francisco Madero. 
However, the union later began supporting a capitalist faction involved in the conflict – the constitutionalist forces of Venustiano Carranza – and wound up fighting against the revolutionary peasant army of Emiliano Zapata.
After it had outlived its usefulness, the Carranza government turned on the union and shut it down.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9521/casa-del-obrero-mundial-founded

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On 21 September 1945, a strike began of supervisors in US coal mines demanding recognition for their union, the United Clerical, Technical and Supervisory Employees of the Mining Industry, part of the United Mine Workers of America.
The strike began to spread, and rank-and-file coalminers stopped work in solidarity with their supervisors. Eventually, 200,000 miners were out, shutting down at least 82 bituminous mines across eight states or more.
Although the strike was solid and still growing, it was called off by union leader John Lewis on October 17 despite not achieving the union's demand.
The stoppage was part of a wave of strikes which followed the end of World War II.
More info in this excellent book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/products/strike-jeremy-brecher

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On this day, 20 September 1979, Aotearoa's (New Zealand's) only nationwide general strike took place when the Federation of Labour called a one-day strike of all its members in support of the Drivers Union. 300,000 people took to the streets around the country after a pay agreement between transport workers and employers was blocked by the government. The government claimed that the strike had no impact, but they agreed to refer the dispute to the Arbitration Court, which upheld the original wage agreement as demanded by the strikers.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9334/new-zealand-general-strike

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See all of our anniversaries each day, alongside sources and maps on the On This Day section of our Stories app: stories.workingclasshistory.com/date/today
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