The Great Machinist Strike of 1910
One year into a bitter, coast-wide industrial struggle for the eight-hour day, union machinists look toward inevitable victory.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In the month of May, 1910, the machinists on the Pacific Coast addressed communications to the secretaries of the Manufacturers Association connected with the metal trades, requesting an audience to discuss the eight-hour day. No answers were ever received. On June 1st, 1910, in city after city from Los Angeles on the south to Vancouver on the north, and as far as Spokane, the machinists quit work, believing the time was at hand for an eight-hour day. The first of this month marked a year of progress in the strike—a year that will go down in history as witnessing one of the most costly, determined, and bitter struggles this coast has ever seen. On one side, organized capital; on the other, an old and tired labor organization that has borne the brunt of many a hard-fought battle. Despite the heavy odds, the movement is bound to spread, and we are uttering no prophecy when we say that eight hours will, in the near future, become the universal workday of all producers in America.
“The modern development of machinery makes imperative the lessening of the hours of toil. Economic progress cannot be stayed by any combination of capital.”
The 1910 machinists' strike for an eight-hour day was a cornerstone of Pacific Northwest labor history, mirroring today's ongoing debates regarding labor rights, the gig economy, and the balance of power between workers and automated industry. The struggle here directly foreshadowed the standardization of the work week that became federal law years later.
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