Foss's tenure included the 1912 textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, which was stimulated by passage of a law limiting working hours of women and children. Organized by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or "Wobblies"), the labor action united numerous immigrant groups and involved more than 20,000 workers in all of the industrial city's mills. Incidents of violence in the strike prompted Foss to call out the state militia, and Foss applied pressure to the mill owners to settle the action by threatening to withdraw them.