March 20

Michigan authorizes formation of workers’ cooperatives. Thirteen are formed in the state over a 25-year period. Labor reform organizations were advocating "cooperation" over "competitive" capitalism following the Civil War and several thousand cooperatives opened for business across the country during this era. Participants envisioned a world free from conflict where workers would receive the full value of their labor and freely exercise democratic citizenship in the political and economic realms – 1865

Also on this date: The American Federation of Labor issues a charter to a new Building Trades Dept. IBEW reaches agreement with Westinghouse to end a 156-day strike. U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers could not exclude women from jobs where exposure to toxic chemicals could potentially damage a fetus. 300 family farmers at a National Pork Producers Council meeting in Iowa protest factory-style hog farms.

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