Five hundred Japanese and 200 Mexican laborers unite to fight the labor contractor responsible for hiring at the American Beet Sugar Co. in Oxnard, Calif. They ultimately win higher wages and the right to shop at stores not owned by the company - 1903
Mary Harris ?Mother? Jones is arrested while leading a protest of conditions in West Virginia mines. She was 83 years old at the time - 1913
(The Autobiography of Mother Jones: Mary Harris Jones??Mother Jones??was the most dynamic woman ever to grace the American labor movement. Employers and politicians around the turn of the century called her ?the most dangerous woman in America? and rebellious working men and women loved her as they never loved anyone else.)
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) founds the Building and Construction Trades Department as a way to overcome the jurisdictional conflicts occurring in the building and construction unions - 1908
Wobbly activist Tom Mooney convicted in bombing frame-up orchestrated by Pinkerton Detective Agency. He was pardoned and released 22 years later - 1917
Mary Kenney O'Sullivan is born in Hannibal, Mo. At age 28 she was to be appointed the first female general organizer for the American Federation of Labor by AFL President Samuel Gompers - 1864