Scroll to your region and learn more about its labor movement history!

West

The West's labor history is deeply tied to mining, agriculture, and radical politics. 

  • The Western Federation of Miners, founded in 1893, was one of America's most militant unions, involved in violent conflicts like the Cripple Creek strikes in Colorado where dynamite and armed confrontations were common. 

  • Founded in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), nicknamed the "Wobblies," found their strongest support in Western logging camps, wheat fields, and mining towns, preaching revolutionary industrial unionism. 

  • The 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike shut down every major port from San Diego to Seattle for 83 days, culminating in "Bloody Thursday" in San Francisco when police killed two strikers.

  • The West Coast also became a stronghold for Harry Bridges, elected president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in 1937. This was one of the most powerful and progressive unions in America, known for its opposition to racial discrimination and support for international solidarity movements. 

  • California's agricultural workers, long excluded from federal labor protections, finally gained a voice through César Chávez and the United Farm Workers, whose grape boycotts in the 1960s and 70s brought national attention to migrant worker conditions.

2024 union membership rates:

WA = 16%; OR = 15.9%; CA = 14.5%; NV = 12.1%; MT = 11.9%; CO = 7.7%; NM = 7.5%; WY = 5.6%; ID = 5%; UT = 3.7%; AZ = 3.7%

South

The South's union history is marked by fierce resistance from employers and unique challenges around race and agriculture. 

  • The textile strikes of 1929 and 1934 saw mill workers across the Carolinas and Georgia walk out in massive numbers, with the 1934 strike involving over 400,000 workers and resulting in multiple deaths when National Guard troops opened fire on strikers. 

  • Operation Dixie in the 1940s was an ambitious but largely unsuccessful attempt by the Congress of Industrial Organizations to mobilize Southern workers, hampered by racial tensions and employer hostility. 

  • The South pioneered misleadingly named "right-to-work" laws starting with Florida in 1944, designed to weaken unions by allowing workers to benefit from union contracts without paying dues. 

  • The Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968 brought Martin Luther King Jr. to the city, where he was assassinated while supporting the predominantly Black sanitation workers who carried signs reading "I Am a Man." 

  • Despite challenges, Southern workers achieved some notable victories, including the organization of tobacco workers in North Carolina through the 1940s and the successful unionization of some paper mills and chemical plants.

2024 union membership rates:

WV = 8.8%; KY = 8.8%; DE = 8.5%; AL = 6.6%; OK = 5.3%; VA = 5.2%; MS = 5.2%; FL = 5.1%; TN = 4.7%; TX = 4.5%; LA = 3.9%; GA = 3.8%; AR = 3.5%; SC = 2.8%; NC = 2.4%

Midwest

The Midwest became the heart of industrial unionism with some of the most dramatic labor battles in American history. 

  • The Haymarket Affair of 1886 in Chicago turned a peaceful labor rally into a deadly riot when a bomb killed several police officers, leading to a controversial trial that made the defendants martyrs for the eight-hour workday movement. 

  • The Pullman Strike of 1894 started when workers in the company town of Pullman, Illinois walked out over wage cuts and high rent in company housing, eventually paralyzing rail traffic nationwide until federal troops intervened.

  • The region produced legendary labor organizer Mother Jones, who earned the nickname "the most dangerous woman in America" for her fearless organizing of miners and factory workers for decades, from the 1900s through the 1920s.

  • Detroit's sit-down strikes of the 1930s revolutionized labor tactics when autoworkers literally sat down inside factories and refused to leave, forcing General Motors to recognize the United Auto Workers. 

  • Additionally, Wisconsin became the first state to grant public employees collective bargaining rights in 1959, pioneering a model that spread nationwide.

2024 union membership rates:

MN = 14.2%; MI = 13.4%; IL = 13.1%; OH = 12%; IN = 9%; MO = 8.6%; NE = 6.8%; IA = 6.4%; WI = 6.4%; KS = 6.3%; ND = 5%; SD = 2.7%

Northeast

The Northeast region birthed American organized labor and has some fascinating stories. 

  • The first recorded strike in America happened in 1768 when New York tailors walked off the job demanding higher wages. 

  • The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 started in West Virginia but exploded across northeastern cities like Baltimore and Pittsburgh, where federal troops were called in to restore order. 

  • The Northeast also raised some of America's most powerful labor leaders, including Samuel Gompers, who founded the American Federation of Labor in 1886.

  • The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 in New York City became a rallying cry for workplace safety after 146 garment workers died, many of them young immigrant women who couldn't escape because management had locked the exit doors. 

  • Boston's police strike of 1919 made national headlines when most of the city's police force walked out, leading to looting and chaos until the National Guard restored order.

2024 union membership rates:

NY = 20.6%; CT = 16.5%; NJ = 16.2%; MA = 14.6%; RI = 14.5%; VT = 14.3%; ME = 13.1%; PA = 11.7%; MD = 11.4%; DC = 10.6%; NH = 9.2%