The National Federation of Telephone Workers – later to become the Communications Workers of America – is founded in New Orleans - 1938

To “organize workers into a powerful industrial union,” United Mine Workers of America President, John L. Lewis called a meeting in Pittsburgh’s Islam Grotto, founding the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) - 1938

The first U.S. federal minimum wage – 25 cents an hour – takes effect, thanks to enactment of the Depression-era Fair Labor Standards Act. The law required an increase to 30 cents an hour one year from this date, and to 40 cents an hour on this date in 1945. The FLSA also established the 40-hour work week and forbade child labor in factories - 1938