civil rights timeline

Commonwealth v. Hunt decision frees unions from some prosecutions

New Hampshire enacts first state 10-hour-day law

Erdman Act prohibits discrimination against railroad workers because of union membership and provides for mediation of railway labor disputes

Anthracite strike arbitrated after President Theodore Roosevelt intervenes

Bill creating Department of Labor passes at the end of congressional session

Woodrow Wilson takes office as president and appoints the first secretary of labor, William B. Wilson of the Mine Workers

Railway Labor Act sets up procedures to settle railway labor disputes and forbids discrimination against union members

Davis-Bacon Act provides for prevailing wages on publicly funded construction projects

Norris-LaGuardia Act prohibits federal injunctions in most labor disputes

National Labor Relations Act passed

Social Security Act passed

Fair Labor Standards Act establishes first minimum wage and 40-hour week

Taft-Hartley Act restricts union members’ activities

Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (Landrum-Griffin) passed

President John F. Kennedy’s order gives federal workers the right to bargain

Equal Pay Act bans wage discrimination based on gender

Civil Rights Act bans institutional forms of racial discrimination

President George W. Bush pledges to strip collective bargaining rights from 170,000 civil servants in the new Transportation Security Administration and denies bargaining rights to airport-security screening personnel

President Obama signs the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which restored the rights of working women to sue over pay discrimination