On this day, 9 October 1912, the mostly female workforce at the Phoenix Mill in Little Falls, New York, walked out on wildcat strike to force their employer to follow a new state law limiting working hours to 54 per week, down from 60. 2,000 other workers from the Phoenix and Gilberts Mills joined them on strike, and the workers joined the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World union. The IWW sent in organisers including Matilda Rabinowitz, Big Bill Haywood and others, and fellow IWW member Helen Keller also supported the strike. The police chief declared:  “We have a strike on our hands and a foreign element to deal with. We have in the past kept them in subjugation and mean to hold them where they belong.” And he sent police to attack the workers and raid the strike headquarters, but the strikers held firm and by January they won shorter hours with no loss of pay. Learn more about women in the IWW in our podcast: https://workingclasshistory.com/2018/12/02/e16-women-in-the-early-iww/

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