On August 5, 1993, the Family and Medical Leave Act went into effect. This was an important, if not world-changing, piece of legislation that demonstrates the historical difficulties of groundbreaking
On July 28, 1933, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins gave a speech in Homestead, Pennsylvania. When the town’s political leaders discovered she wanted to speak to workers outside the designated
On July 10, 1986, United Airlines agreed to pay a minimum of nearly $33 million in restitution and reinstate at least 475 fired flight attendants to compensate for illegally firing them for getting ma
On June 15, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act into law. This law was directly targeted at leftist and labor organizations critical of the U.S. entering World War I, a sign of how
On June 4, 1912, Massachusetts established the nation’s first minimum wage. This was a result of long-time worker outrage over the conditions of their lives and the strikes that resulted. It also le
On May 29, 1996, the United Farm Workers came to an agreement with Bruce Church, Inc., one of the nation’s leading lettuce growers, after an 18-year boycott. The fight was over workers picking R
Above: Slaves at a coffee yard in a farm. Vale do Paraiba, Sao Paulo, 1882 On May 13, 1888, Brazil abolished slavery. The last nation in the Western Hemisphere to do so, it brought to an end the funda
On May 1, 1943, Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9340, authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to seize the nation’s coal mines after the United Mine Workers of America refused