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Labor History Database

June 16, 1933
The National Industrial Recovery Act became law, but was later to be declared unconstitutional. It established the right to unionize, set maximum hours and minimum wages for every major industry, abolished sweatshops and child labor. The Wagner Act, in effect today, was approved two years later to legalize unionization - 1933
June 6, 1933
The U.S. Employment Service was created - 1933
May 20, 1933
9,000 rubber workers strike in Akron, Ohio - 1933
May 15, 1933
900 workers for the R. E. Funsten Company, a pecan-processing corporation based in St. Louis, held a strike from May 15 to May 24, 1933. The workers, consisting largely of black women employed at facilities in both St. Louis and nearby East St. Louis, Illinois, were organized by the Food Workers Industrial Union and were demanding union recognition, an increase in pay, and equal pay for both African American and white American workers. The strike ended in success for the strikers, though within a few years, the union had been crushed by the company.
Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Funsten_Nut_strike
May 2, 1933
In Germany, Adolph Hitler issues an edict abolishing all labor unions, part of his effort to ban any political opposition - 1933
March 31, 1933
Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signs legislation establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps, to help alleviate suffering during the Depression. By the time the program ended after the start of World War II it had provided jobs for more than six million men and boys. The average enrollee gained 11 pounds in his first three months - 1933
March 9, 1933
Spurred by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S. Congress begins its 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation. Just one of many programs established to help Americans survive the Great Depression: The Civilian Conservation Corps, which put 2.5 million young men on the government payroll to help in national conservation and infrastructure projects - 1933
March 4, 1933
President Franklin D. Roosevelt names a woman, Frances Perkins, to be Secretary of Labor. Perkins became the first female cabinet member in U.S. history - 1933
January 5, 1933
Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins. Ten of the eleven deaths on the job came when safety netting beneath the site – the first-ever use of such equipment – failed under the stress of a scaffold that had fallen. Nineteen other workers were saved by the net over the course of construction. They became members of the (informal) Halfway to Hell Club - 1933
January 4, 1933
Angered by increasing farm foreclosures, members of Iowa's Farmers Holiday Association threaten to lynch banking representatives and law officials who institute foreclosure proceedings for the duration of the Great Depression - 1933
October 3, 1932
The state militia is called in after 164 high school students in Kincaid, Ill. go on strike when the school board buys coal from the scab Peabody Coal Co. - 1932
September 12, 1932
Jobless workers march on grocery stores and seize food in Toledo, Ohio - 1932