Lawrence "Bread and Roses" Strike: IWW Unites 20,000 Workers Across 51 Nationalities, Wins 15% Raise

Polish women textile workers at the Everett Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts walked out after discovering their employer had reduced wages by $0.32 when Massachusetts enforced a law cutting mill workers’ hours from 56 to 54 per week. The strike spread rapidly to more than 20,000 workers involving nearly every mill in Lawrence, uniting workers from more than 51 different nationalities. Working conditions were brutal: half of children died before age six, 36% of mill workers died before age 25, and average life expectancy was 39 years. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or “Wobblies”) assumed leadership through Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti, forming a strike committee of 56 people representing fourteen nationalities. New tactics emerged: when police dispersed picket lines, Ettor devised the “moving picket line” circling the entire mill district 24 hours a day. Strike demands included a 15% wage increase, acceptance of the 54-hour week, an end to the premium and bonus system, double pay for overtime, and no retaliation. On March 12, American Woolen Company reached a settlement meeting all four original demands. Other companies followed and the strike ended March 24, 1912. The victory proved the AFL wrong in believing unskilled, foreign-speaking workers incapable of organizing. Other New England mills raised wages to avoid similar strikes. The Lawrence strike “signaled the high-water mark of the Wobblies.”