Greater Westmoreland County Labor Council

George Bear, President of the Philadelphia and Reading RR, said this about coal mine breaker boys: "They don't suffer; they don't even speak English." Breaker boys working in Ewen Breaker of Pennsylvania Coal Co., South Pittston, PA, Jan. 1911, Lewis Hine photograph

Sorry to say that Mammoth Fest scheduled for the first Sunday in June has been cancelled -- The Parks Department just informed me -- there has been no decision on the Cedar Creek Park or the Northmoreland Labor United Celebration as yet --

Happy to see everyone who came to my porch to support Mariah Fisher for State Rep. in the Special Election on May 18th

May Day! The History Matters: MAY DAY VS. LABOR DAY: Ever wonder why the U.S. celebrates Labor Day, the first Monday in Sept, while May 1 is recognized around t...he world as a workers’ holiday, a day of solidarity between workers of all nationalities? May Day was bound up with the struggle for the shorter workday a demand of major political significance for the working class. ‘Eight hours for work eight for restand eight for what we will.’ At the opening of the 19th century workers in the US made known their grievances against working from "sunrise to sunset," the then prevailing workday. Fourteen, 16 and even 18 hours a day were not uncommon. The 1820s and 1830s are full of strikes for a reduction of hrs. of work. Demands for a 10-hour day were put forward in many industrial centers the Mechanics' Union of Philadelphia led a strike of building trade workers in Philadelphia in 1827 for the 10-hour day Lowell’s ‘mill girls’ did the same. The 8-hour day movement, which gave birth to May Day, is connected to a broad-based movement initiated in the U.S. On August 20, 1866, delegates from over 50 craft unions formed the National Labor Union. Its founding convention dealt with the shorter workday: The first and great necessity of the present, to free labor of this country from capitalist slavery, is the passing of a law by which 8 hours shall be the normal working day in all states in the American union. We are resolved to put forth all our strength until this glorious result is attained. Then the First International adopted the Eight-Hour Day in Sept. 1866 at the Geneva Congress of the First International. The legal limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvements and emancipation of the working class must prove abortive....The Congress proposes 8 hours as the legal limit of the working day. The Second International, held at Paris in 1889, designated May 1st be set aside as a day upon which the workers of the world, organized in their political parties and trade unions, were to fight for the 8-hour day. The Paris decision had been influenced by events in the U.S., where in 1886 a call was made for a general strike on May 1, 1886, for the 8-hour day.