Dave NearyOn this Labor Day, I want to draw attention to one of the founding moments of the American Labor movement, when hundreds of young women living in a factory town took a huge risk to defend their right to a fair wage. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_mill_girls
In 1834, 13 years after the founding of Lowell, and after a decade of hiring farm girls to work in the mills, the mill owners decided to reduce wages by 15% unilaterally, in response to an economic downturn. As a result, some of the mill girls went on strike. The strike did not last for long, and several of the leaders were fired, but it showed the mill owners that they could not unilaterally alter compensation without a reaction.
Two years later, they raised the rent for mill workers in the company boarding houses. This time, the strike was more popular, and led to the creation of the Factory Girls' Association. 1500 workers went on strike, and after several weeks on strike, during which the mills were essentially shut down, the proposed rent hike was cancelled. The Lowell Factory Girl strikes were big news at the time, and would sow the seeds for later labor movements.