The work is based on extensive sources from archives in Russia, Belarus, Lithuania and the Netherlands. It makes a contribution to the history of the protests of Jewish workers in the Russian Empire between 1895 and 1904. The focus is on the complex, reciprocal relationships between the strikes - especially those of women workers - and the workers' movement, the Jewish factory owners and the local and central ones Authorities in the northern part of the Jewish Pale of Settlement in the Tsarist Empire. The investigation of specific strikes in three factories in the then cities of Vil’na, Grodno and Dvinsk reveals the actions and patterns of interpretation of the various groups of actors, as well as their interdependence with the general developments of the time. Particularly noteworthy is the self-confidence of the workers, which developed in their actions for better working and living conditions.