The United Mine Workers of America is founded in Columbus, OH with the merger of the Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No. 135 and the National progressive Miners Union. The union’s constitution barred racial, religious and ethnic discrimination - 1890

National Association of Letter Carriers formed - 1889

Two strikers and a bystander are killed, 30 seriously wounded by police in Duluth, Minn. The workers, mostly immigrants building the city’s streets and sewers, struck after contractors reneged on a promise to pay $1.75 a day - 1889

A. Philip Randolph, civil rights leader and founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, born in Crescent City, Fla. - 1889

Six thousand railway workers strike for union and end of 18-hour day - 1889

Heywood Broun born in New York City. Journalist, columnist and co-founder, in 1933, of The Newspaper Guild - 1888

The time clock is invented by Willard Bundy, a jeweler in Auburn, N.Y. Bundy’s brother Harlow starts mass producing them a year later - 1888

United Hebrew Trades is organized in New York by shirtmaker Morris Hillquit and others. Hillquit would later would become leader of the Socialist Party - 1888

The Ladies Federal Labor Union Number 2703, based in Illinois, was granted a charter from the American Federation of Labor. Women from a wide range of occupations were among the members, who ultimately were successful in coalescing women’s groups interested in suffrage, temperance, health, housing, and child labor reform to win state legislation in these areas - 1888

Nineteen machinists working for the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad gather in a locomotive pit to decide what to do about a wage cut. They vote to form a union, which later became the International Association of Machinists - 1888

Nineteen machinists working for the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad gather in a locomotive pit to decide what to do about a wage cut. They vote to form a union, which later became the International Association of Machinists - 1888

The Sheet Metal Workers International Association (SMWIA) is founded in Toledo, Ohio as the Tin, Sheet Iron and Cornice Workers’ International Association - 1888