Jan. 28, 1945: Beginning of the Naples Congress, first congress of the united trade union movement in liberated Italy.

Jan. 29, 1889: Six thousand railway workers strike for union and end of 18-hour day. Jan. 29, 1912: During the Bread & Roses Strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, police kill Anna LoPizzo. Nineteen witnesses see officer Benoit fire the fatal shot, but strike leaders Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti, three miles away at the time, are arrested and held for eight months. The city declares martial law and brings in 22 extra militia companies. For more than nine weeks, strikers do not waver, even when 18-year-old worker John Rami is killed, when Annie Welzenbach and her two teenage sisters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night and arrested, or when 200 police go after 100 women picketers, knocking them to the ground and beating them with clubs. Jan. 29, 1936: Sit-down strike helps establish United Rubber Workers as a national union, Akron, Ohio.

Feb. 1, 1864: The Collar Laundry Union forms in Troy, New York. Led by Kate Mullaney, a National Labor Union activist, the union will successfully increase earnings for laundresses from two dollars to 14 dollars a week. Feb. 1, 1867: Bricklayers start working eight-hour days.

Feb. 3, 1908: US Supreme Court rules a union boycott violates Sherman Antitrust Act. Feb. 3, 1981: Striking Telecommunications Workers Union occupy offices of telephone company in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada.

Feb. 4, 1869: Birth of Big Bill Haywood, founder of Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Salt Lake City, Utah.

Feb. 5, 1922: Fifty-seven thousand Berlin public utility workers strike, stopping light and water.

Feb. 6, 1910: Philadelphia shirtwaist makers voted to accept arbitration offer and end strike as Triangle Shirtwaist strike winds down. Feb. 6, 1919: In one of the largest labor demonstrations in US history, the Seattle general strike takes control of the city of Seattle in support of 32,000 striking longshoremen.

Feb. 8, 1912: Vigilantes beat IWW organizers for exercising free speech rights in San Diego. Some are tarred and feathered, forced to kiss the American flag, and run out of town by the good citizens. Feb. 8, 1919: General strike in Butte, Montana, caused by dollar per day wage cut. Feb. 8, 1919: "La Canadienne" strike in Barcelona, Spain, taking its name from the principle electrical company involved, begins. Lasts 44 days, and extends to other companies, becoming a general strike--paralyzing entire city and industry. The government responds by imprisoning 3000 strikers of th anarchist union CNT, and declaring martial law. Eventually government gives in, granting all workers a wage increase and eight-hour day; those imprisoned during the strike are also freed. Over 20,000 people turn out to greet the release of the CNT leaders.

Feb. 9, 1917: American labor agitator Tom Mooney falsely convicted of fatal bombing. Pardoned and released over 22 years later, in 1939. Feb. 9, 1932: Harry Simms, youth organizer for National Miners Union, killed by company thugs, Kentucky.