On July 5

On this day in ...
... 1935 (years ago today), 2 months after a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court invalidated worker-friendly New Deal legislation in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935), President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the National Labor Relations Act. (credit for photo of signing, with IntLawGrrls' foremother Frances Perkins, then the Secretary of Labor, standing at right) Intended to guarantee workers' rights to form labor unions and bargain collectively with management in most industries that operate at an interstate level, the Act provided for a 5-member National Labor Relations Board, still in operation today. By a 5-4 vote, the Court sustained the Act as constitutional in N.L.R.B. v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937).

(Prior July 5 posts are here, here, and here.)

On May 14

On this day in ...
... 1965 (65 years ago today), Frances Perkins died 85 years after she'd been born Fannie Coralie Perkins in Boston, Massachusetts. In the last decade of her life Perkins, holder of an M.A. in social economics from Columbia University, served as a member of the faculty of the School and Industrial Relations at Cornell. She's best known, however, for having served as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor -- and so as the 1st woman Cabinet member in the United States. Perkins helped spearhead the United States' entry into the International Labour Organization. Among many other achievements, this feminist, labor activist, and settlement house worker "was also the principal architect of the Social Security Act." (credit for 1960 photo of Perkins, center, at event honoring the Act's 25th anniversary) She's also a foremother of ours, thanks to the nomination by IntLawGrrl Janie Chuang.

(Prior May 14 posts are here, here, and here)

On August 16

On this day in ...
... 1946, Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca died in New York City, 52 years and 6 days after she'd been born in Zemel, Latvia, the youngest of 4 daughters. In 1900 the family immigrated to Baltimore, where her father worked as a tailor and she attended public schools. Her mother died, and at age 13 Dorothy went to work, hand-sewing buttonholes on men's coat for $3 a week. (As no image of Bellanca appears to exist online, we post above left a photo of New York garment workers performing such work. (credit)) By age 15 she'd "organized female immigrant buttonhole makers into Local 170 of the United Garment Workers of America"; she'd go on to become a leading labor organizer who "promoted class solidarity, but took particular interest in organizing women." During the New Deal era -- at the request of Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, an IntLawGrrls transnational foremother -- she served on the Maternal and Child Welfare Committee. Bellanca also ran to be the Member of Congress representing Brooklyn, losing to the incumbent by a margin of fewer than 16,000 votes out of more than a quarter-million cast. Bellanca recently was featured as "Immigrant of the Day" by our colleagues at Immigration Prof Blog.
... 1869 (140 years ago today), la batallas de Acosta Ñú/Campo Grande, a struggle that had raged for days, took a particularly tragic turn: the massacre of thousands of Paraguayan child soldiers by troops from the Triple Alliance comprising Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Some of the children -- who'd been impressed into service by the leader of Paraguay (flag at right) after many adults were killed or captured -- "fought with fake beards to conceal their age." To this day the event is commemorated as Children's Day in Paraguay.

(Prior August 16 posts are here and here.)

Introducing Frances Perkins

My heartfelt thanks to Diane Amann for inviting me to participate in this blog – it’s a privilege to be a part of this fabulous online community.
Let me introduce Frances Perkins (1882-1965), Secretary of Labor under FDR and the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the United States. A strong advocate of workers’ rights and protections, Perkins began her career studying firsthand the problems of the working poor, particularly young women who had immigrated to the United States in search of jobs. During her tenure as Secretary of Labor, Perkins achieved landmark reforms, including giving workers the right to organize unions and bargain collectively, establishing a minimum wage and maximum workweek, and spearheading the development of the U.S. social security system. As former Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz put it, “[e]very man and woman who works at a living wage, under safe conditions, for reasonable hours, or who is protected by unemployment insurance or social security, is her debtor.”
Imagine what Perkins could have accomplished were she alive today. As our leaders continue to debate immigration reform and to develop/implement anti-trafficking laws and policies worldwide, may Perkins’ work inspire us to consider these issues from a labor perspective...