Made in Lowell: America’s Workforce
One of the earliest efforts by American workers to organize took place in Massachusetts, right here in Lowell.
In 1834, more than a century before the National Labor Relations Act became law, the Lowell “mill girls” — some as young as twelve years old — organized to fight back against corporations demanding they take a pay cut while continuing to work 13-hour days in dangerous conditions.
They went on strike, and they got other mill workers to do the same. They held an outdoor rally and started a petition saying that they would not return to their jobs unless their wages were restored.
The owners and managers of the mills took extraordinary steps to defeat the strike, and they won. But little did they know that this was only the first battle.
Two years later, the mill girls went on strike again in response to wage cuts. They were better organized, but the result was the same.
Soon after, they formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association to focus on reducing workdays to 10 hours. They would go on to form chapters in mill towns across Massachusetts and New Hampshire, draft petitions with thousands of signatures, testify before a state legislative committee, and even oust an anti-worker legislator at the ballot box — all before women had the right to vote.
Because of their influence, New Hampshire became the first state to pass a 10-hour workday law. Although the new law was hardly enforceable, the mill girls’ movement showed the power of workers joining together, organizing, and demanding more not only for themselves, but for all workers.
They created the model that we celebrate this Labor Day — the same model that led to the national labor movement of the early 1900s, the creation of the National Labor Relations Act, and the continued benefits that organized labor delivers for all workers to this day.
Like most families across America, I’ve seen those benefits firsthand. My Brazilian grandmother was a mill girl, working in downtown Lowell after coming to the United States as an immigrant. She reaped the rewards of the generations of mill girls before her who fought for fair wages, shorter workdays, and safer work conditions. My Portuguese grandfather came to the United States and became a union carpenter.
One generation later, my dad became a union ironworker. Thanks to the protections his union negotiated and his hard work, he could afford to keep a roof over our heads, put food on the table for my three sisters and me, and make sure we had access to decent healthcare.
This deeply personal connection with organized labor is why I’m proud of my roots in a union home, in a union city, in a union state. It’s also why I know that the most important thing we can do on Labor Day is not celebrate the unofficial end of summer, but rather recommit ourselves to protecting and strengthening workers’ ability to organize and collectively bargain.
That means ensuring that those appointed to oversight positions on the National Labor Relations Board actually have workers’ best interests in mind and are willing to hold corporations that bust unions or interfere in organizing efforts accountable for breaking the law.
It means opposing dubiously titled “Right-to-work” laws that strengthen corporations at the expense of unions and workers.
It means getting legislation passed, like my bill that’s waiting for a vote in the Senate, to ban offensive lock-outs — when a company expels its union-represented employees from work, locks the doors, and refuses to let them return to work unless they accept an employer’s demands.
And it means further supporting the goals of workers by ensuring that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — also known as OSHA — has the ability and means to prevent employers from subjecting workers to unsafe work conditions.
This Labor Day, I hope families across Massachusetts will join my union family in celebrating how far workers’ rights have come thanks to organized labor while also recognizing how far we have to go to ensure that those same rights are protected and strengthened, especially at this moment when so many essential workers are risking their health to meet the challenges of this unprecedented global pandemic.
