Bread and Roses Centennial in Lawrence Marks Kick-off for Year of Major Labor Fights
LAWRENCE- SEIU Local 615 President Rocio Saenz spoke at the commemoration of the centennial of the Great Strike of 1912 on January 12, 2012 at the Everett Mill. Saenz, one the most powerful Latino leaders in Boston, led a successful three-week strike of immigrant janitors in 2002 which led to higher wages and health insurance for workers.
Saenz spoke about the connection between the Bread and Roses strike and the plight of present day immigrant janitors in Boston.
Lawrence was the hub of industry in 1912, employing thousands of workers in substandard conditions. Lawrence mill workers had the sixth highest death rate in the country, and the fifth for children under five. On payday of January 11, 1912, workers, realizing another wage deduction, walked out of the mills shouting “short pay,” and “strike.”
The strike, one of the most important in labor history, resulted in 25,000 workers walking out on their jobs ushered in a new era of labor organizing.
100 years later workers continue the fight for justice started in Lawrence. “There is a yawning gap between the rich and the poor. While executives are making record amounts, income for 95 percent of American households has either stayed the same or fallen since 1970, and income inequality is at its worst since the 1920’s,” Saenz said, “We can’t let income inequality go unchecked, we must fight for good jobs that strengthen the middle class.”
“It is said that the past binds up to the future. It binds us in good ways and in bad. 80 years after that strike many in the labor movement still felt that immigrants would not, could not strike. We proved them wrong in 1990 in Century City and again in 2002 right here in Boston,” Saenz said.