Several dozen people gathered in Central Falls Monday to recognize Labor Day, and commemorate the Saylesville Massacre. That historic skirmish started as a protest led by local factory workers.
In 1934, thousands of factory workers across the country went on strike to protest poor conditions and labor practices. In Central Falls, a major textile producer at the time, demonstrators were met with police and military.
Pat Crowley, a union organizer with the National Education Association, says textile workers were protesting their long hours in unsafe working conditions at local factories.
“The stretch out, which was the companies’ attempt to have a worker who used to work five looms work ten looms, in the same period of time with no increase in pay, drove workers sometimes crazy with the pressure of the job,” said Crowley.
Four workers were killed during those clashes that spilled into the Moshassuck cemetery. Bullet holes can still be found in some of the historic tombstones.
Union organizer Pat Crowley says Rhode Island workers struggled for years even after the massacre to secure fair labor rights.
“That continues to this day to make sure that basic human rights are recognized for any working person,” said Crowley. “And across the world and across the country and across the world, those rights are still under threat. We’ve got to make sure that all human rights are respected including the right to organize.”
In 1941, the RI General Assembly declared workers’ rights to organize and bargain with employers was in the public interest.
