Today in labor history June 25 Congress, bans child labor and sets the 40-hour work week

[Omaha Steve]

June 25

June 25, 1893 - The Haymarket Martyrs Monument was dedicated at Forest Home Cemetery in Chicago to honor those framed and executed for the bombing at Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. More than 8,000 people attended the dedication ceremony. At the base of the monument are the last words of Haymarket martyr August Spies: “The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today.”

June 25, 1938 - The Wages and Hours (later Fair Labor Standards) act was passed, banning child labor and setting the 40-hour work week. The act went into effect in October 1940 and was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 3, 1941.



June 25, 1941 - At the urging of black labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph, who saw jobs opening up in defense plants but not being offered to blacks, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order barring discrimination in defense industries.

Decatur, Ill. police pepper-gas workers at A.E. Staley plant gate one year into the company’s two and one-half year lockout of Paperworkers Local 7837 - 1994