Today in Labor History—March 5

Engraving of the Boston Massacre by Paul Revere (from Wikipedia)

March 5, 1770 – The Boston Massacre took place on this date in 1770. As British soldiers quartered in colonists’ homes started taking jobs from local workers, the rope makers started provoking British soldiers, who fired at and killed Crispus Attucks, a multiethnic colonist. They went on to kill 4 others. Attucks is considered the first casualty in the American Revolution. (From Workday Minnesota)

Barricade During Spartacist Uprising (from Wikipedia)

 March 5, 1871 – Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) was born on this date in Zamosc, Poland. Together with Karl Liebknecht, she helped found the radical Spartacus League in 1916. After the Spartacist uprising in Berlin, they were both arrested and murdered by German soldiers. (From the Daily Bleed)

Exoduster Handbill (from Center for Teaching American History)

 March 5, 1879 – The first group of black “exodusters” arrived in St. Louis aboard the steamer Colorado on their way to Kansas, which was then considered the “promised land” for jobs. Many were fleeing harsh sharecropper contracts, pass laws, imprisonment and racist violence.
Tennessee cabinetmaker, "Pap" Singleton, who called himself the Father of the Colored Exodus, encouraged the migration by printing handbills. A steamboat strike later slowed the migration, reducing the exodus to a trickle by 1881. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 5, 1917 – Members of the Industrial Workers of the World, (IWW, Wobblies) went on trial in Everett, Washington for being the victims of an assault by a  government sanctioned mob (sheriff-led vigilantes). (From the Daily Bleed)

Labor History Timeline--Rise of IWW, Garment Workers and State/Employer Violence

Lucy Parsons

1905    The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies) was founded on June 27, 1905, by Big Bill Hayward, Daniel De Leon, Eugene Debs, Lucy Parsons, Father Haggarty, Mother Jones, Ralph Chaplin and others, in part in response to the defeats of the WFM in Colorado, Utah and Idaho and in opposition to the conservative AFL. The IWW was not just a labor union fighting for better conditions for working people, but a revolutionary organization out to abolish the wage system and employer class completely. Like the Knights of Labor, they organized all workers into one big union and were inclusive of all workers, regardless of race, gender or national origin. Unlike the Knights, they eschewed political action, favoring direct action like strikes, slow-downs, work-to-rule and sabotage. (Sources: The IWW;Wikipedia; Libcom.org; Helen Keller; Harry Siitonen; Sabotage, by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: Western Mining History; Lucy Parsons Project)

1905    Chicago Teamsters Strike: 21 workers were killed in what would escalate into a General Strike. Riots continued on a near daily basis from April through July. The Teamsters had attempted to end the strike by bribing members of the Employers Association, leading to allegations of corruption that would weaken the union in the following years. (Sources:Wikipedia; Chicago’s Strike Ordeal, Stanley Powers, 1905)

GE in 1907

1906    First Sit-Down Strike: America’s first sit-down strike was organized by the Wobblies (IWW) at General Electric, in Schenectady, NY. 3,000 workers participated in the occupation of the facilities for 65 hours, bringing production to a standstill.(Sources: UHWO, Wikipedia)

1907    Nation’s Worst Mining Disaster: 361 coal miners were killed in Monongah, West Virginia. (Sources: UHWO)

2 Picketers Among the Uprising of 20,000

1909    Uprising of 20,000: The Lady Garment Workers Strike in New York (AKA the Shirtwaist Strike) was a strike by mostly Jewish women and girls against sweatshop working conditions. 700 were arrested in just one month. Male goons were hired to intimidate and assault the women. A judge told the women they were striking against God. However, the women remained resolute and public sentiment turned in the favor. The strike ended in 1910 with increased wages and improved working conditions and hours. (Sources: Wikipedia; AFL-CIO; Jewish Women’s Archive)

The Little Red Song Book

1909    The Little Red Song Book, from the IWW, was first published in Spokane and included songs by Joe Hill, Ralph Chaplin, T-Bone Slim, and others. The early editions contained many of the labor songs that are still famous, such as "The Red Flag," "The Internationale," and "Solidarity Forever," while later editions included such classics as “Rebel Girl,” “Mr. Block,” and “The Preacher and the Slave.” You can see video versions of some of these on the Labor Music Video Page. (Sources: IWW; The Sacred Chao)

LA Times Building After Bombing

1910    Llewellyn Ironworks and Los Angeles Times bombings: A bomb destroyed the LA Times building in October, killing 21 employees and injuring over 100, and another destroyed a portion of the Llewellyn Ironworks in December. The Iron Workers had been engaged in a brutal and protracted battle with U.S. Steel and the American Bridge Company, which had been successfully busting their union through the use of spies, informants, scabs and agents provocateur, as well as propaganda by their friend Harrison Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times. James McNamara and his brother, John McNamara, secretary-treasurer of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, were convicted after being kidnapped and allegedly framed by private cops.(Sources: Modern School; Workday Minnesota)

1910-1911       Westmoreland Coal Strike: 16 workers and family members were killed during this strike by the UMWA. The strike lasted from March, 1910 through July, 1911, encompassing 65 mines and 15,000 miners, with the miners and the UMWA losing the strike. Miners’ wives showed up to support their husbands, harassing scabs and getting arrested. Because they couldn’t afford the fines, the women were forced to serve a month in jail with their babies and children. (Sources: Wikipedia;patheoldminer; Jones, Mary Harris: The Autobiography of Mother Jones. 4th ed. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co., 1996)

Triangle Shirtwaist Building, March 11, 1911

1911    Triangle Shirtwaist fire: 147 women and girls died (mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants) in this tragic fire, many because the managers had locked all the doors, preventing escape. The company’s owners were acquitted of any crimes, but were forced to pay nominal civil damages of $75 per victim. (Sources:Remembering the Triangle Fire; Wikipedia; Democracy Now)

1912    Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike in West Virginia lasted from April, 1912, until July 1913, and resulted in 50 workers’ deaths through violence, plus numerous more deaths from starvation. The strike and resulting violence were a prelude to the later Matewan massacre and Battle of Blair Mountain. The miners were striking for union recognition, free speech, an end to blacklisting and cribbing, among other demands. Beatings, sniper attacks and sabotage against the workers were routine. The Baldwin-Felts private police were called in by the mine owners. (Sources: Wikipedia; “History is a Weapon,” Mother Jones speech to striking coal miners; “The Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike,” San Francisco Bulletin, March 21, 1913)

Lawrence Strike

1912    Lawrence Textile Strike (AKA The Bread and Roses Strike, because the women were demanding not only a living wage, so they could feed their families, but a better quality of life, too). This IWW-led strike was the first known strike to implement the moving picket line, so as to avoid arrests for loitering. The strike was also unique in that the workers spoke 22 different languages and came from 24 different nationalities, prompting the IWW to give each language group a delegate on the strike committee and complete autonomy. (Sources: The Lucy Parsons Project; Libcom.org; Bread and Roses Centenial;Rense.com)

1912    IWW struck Galloway Lumber Company in Grabow, LA. Also known as the Graybow Riot (July 7), four workers were killed, 50 were wounded, and 58 were arrested. (Sources: IWW)

1913    Calumet Christmas massacre (AKA the Italian Hall Disaster): 73 men, women and children, mostly striking miners and their families, were crushed to death on Christmas Eve at during a party at the Italian Hall in Calumet, MI, when someone falsely yelled “fire.” Company thugs have been blamed for the false cry and for blocking the doors in a deliberate attempt to crush the union. (Sources: Wikipedia; the Italian Hall Disaster; Daily Kos)

Strike leaders Patrick L. Quinlan, Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Adolph Lessig, and Bill Haywood.

1913    Patterson Silk Strike was an IWW-supported strike for better working conditions and the 8-hour day. Nearly 2,000 workers were arrested, including IWW members Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Big Bill Haywood. (Sources: The Masses (John Reed);Wikipedia; The Lucy Parsons Project; Patterson Friends of the Great Falls; Sabotage, by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn)

1913    United Fruit Strike: New Orleans: police shot three IWW members, killing one. United went on to be one of the dominant neocolonial powers in Central America (along with Standard Fruit), supporting Banana Republic dictators and their violent anti-labor policies. United Fruit is now known as Chiquita. (Sources: Rense.com, Wikipedia, the Daily Bleed)

1913    Wheatland Riots: Hop pickers struck against Durst Ranch in Wheatland, CA, when Durst advertised for twice as many workers as he needed in order to drive down wages. Over 100 vigilantes arrived and shot into the crowd, killing 2 workers, a deputy and a district attorney. IWW organizers Ford and Suhr were blamed and sentenced to 15 years in prison.. (Sources:IWW; Wikipedia; libcom.org; Labor.net)

Ludlow

1914    Ludlow Massacre: John D. Rockefeller and other mine operators engaged company goons and the Colorado State Militia to crush 10,000 striking miners in Ludlow, Colorado. The militia attacked a tent camp with machine guns and then set it ablaze, killing 5 men, 2 women and 12 children. By the end of the strike, more than 75 people had been killed. (Sources: Howard Zinn; Colorado Coalfields War Project; Wikipedia; AFGE;Modern School)

1914    The Montana militia crushed a strike by WFM miners in Butte. (Source: AFGE, ButteAmerica.com)

Roosevelt Massacre

1915    Factory guards shot 20 rioting strikers in Roosevelt, New Jersey, killing several of them. (Source: AFGE)

1916    Youngstown Massacre (January 6): Company guards at the Youngstown Sheet and Tube plant attacked a crowd of striking workers and their wives and children with tear gas bombs and live fire, killing three strikers and wounding 25 others. (Source:  Daily Bleed)

Joe Hill, executed, with Bullet Holes

1916    Joe Hill (1879-1915) was executed on trumped up murder charges. Hill was a Swedish immigrant who became an IWW organizer and prolific song writer (Rebel Girl, Preacher and the Slave, The Tramp, Casey Jones the Union Scab). (Sources:Wikipedia, Joe Hill Project)

1916    Everett Massacre: 7 workers were killed and 50 injured when vigilantes hired by local businesses fired upon IWW members arriving in Everett by boat from Seattle. 75 Wobblies (IWW) were later arrested for murder. (Sources: Wikipedia; Everett Public Library; UW Everett Collection; IWW; Rense.com)

1916    "Preparedness Day" parade bombing occurred in San Francisco, killing 10 and injuring 40. Labor organizer Thomas J. Mooney and Shoe Worker Warren K. Billings, both IWW members, were convicted, spending years in prison before being pardoned in 1939. (Source: AFGE, Wikipedia, Modern School)

Striking miners and others rounded up by the armed posse

1917    Bisbee Deportation: On July 12, 1,300 striking IWW miners, their supporters, and innocent bystanders were illegally deported from Bisbee, AZ,  by 2,000 vigilantes—over 200 miles in cattle cars, without food or water for 16 hours. (Sources: the Daily Bleed, Modern School, IWW, and Wikipedia)

Frank Little, 1907

1917    Frank Little Lynching: On August 1, IWW organizer Frank Little was lynched in Butte, Montana. Little, a Native American, was kidnapped from his home by six Anaconda Copper Company thugs, dragged by a car and hanged from a railroad trestle. He had also been advocating that workers refuse to collaborate with the capitalists by fighting in WWI. (Sources:Workday Minnesota, IWW, Wikipedia)

Newspaper cartoon of woman pleading for democracy during East St. Louis Riot

1917    East St. Louis Labor and Race Riot (40-200 deaths): The “Great Migration” north was already well underway, with African Americans moving to industrial cities like Chicago seeking work. In East St. Louis, resentful white mobs frequently attacked black workers and their families, culminating in a riot on July 2 that killed as many as 200 African Americans and left thousands of them homeless. Many of the unions fed the racism not only by generalizing all black workers as scabs, but by doing little to organize them or build solidarity with them. (Sources: Wikipedia,the Black Past)

1917    IWW Offices Raided in 48 U.S. Cities. Roughly 165-300 IWW members were arrested initially, but within six months, 2,000 were in jail and sentenced to lengthy terms. In Spokane, martial law was declared. Virtually every IWW union hall in the country was busted. The raids and arrests were so extensive that the union never regained its strength or influence. (Sources:HistoryLink.org, IWW, History Matters)

Today in Labor History—November 5

Debs leaving the White House after being released from prison, 1921

November 5, 1855 - Labor leader and socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana.  (From Workday Minnesota)

November 5, 1911—A Francisco Ferrer statue was erected at the Place de Sainte-Catherine, Brussels, in honor of the radical educator executed by the Spanish government in 1909. The statue was destroyed by the Germans in 1915, but re-erected in 1926.

Hugo Gerlot, killed in the Everett Massacre

 November 5, 1916 -- The Everett Massacre occurred in Everett, Washington. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) labor activists were killed by the Everett police. On October 30, in the midst of a depression, forty IWW members arrived by boat in Everett to help support the shingle workers strike, but before they could land they were clubbed and jailed by local deputies. Later that night they were beaten. On Nov. 5, 250 more IWW supporters arrived to fight for free speech and support their jailed comrades, but gunfire broke out as soon as they arrived. Between 5 and 12 Wobblies were killed, and another 31 were injured. Both Big Bill Haywood and Samuel Gompers called on the federal government to protect the rights of working-class citizens in Everett, but no action was taken. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 5, 1918 – For the first time ever, the Farmer Labor Party appeared on the ballot in Minnesota. David Evans, a hardware merchant from Tracy, ran for governor and Tom Davis, a prominent Minneapolis labor attorney, campaigned for the office of attorney general. (From Workday Minnesota)

November 5, 1928 –5,000 banana workers struck against United Fruit Company in Columbia, 1,000 of them were killed. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 5, 1968 – Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman elected to Congress. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 5, 2001 – At least four hunger strikers who were protesting Turkish prison conditions died in a police raid. Their deaths brought the total to 45 deaths in the last year. Hundreds of jailed left-wing militants had joined the death fast to protest being kept in isolation cells in “F-type” high security prisons, subjected to torture, beatings and abuse. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—October 30

October 30, 1916 –IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) members were forced to run a brutal gauntlet by vigilantes in Everett, Washington. A few days later, between 5 and 12 Wobblies would be shot dead by vigilantes during the Everett massacre. Tensions had been growing during a severe depression. The IWW had arrived to support a five-month long shingle workers strike. When a boat full of Wobblies arrived in Everett, the sheriff asked who their leader was. “We all are!” they shouted back. The sheriff said they couldn’t land and the Wobblies said, “like hell we can’t.” Someone fired a shot. No one knows who, but the majority of Wobblies were unarmed and the majority of subsequent rounds did come from the vigilantes on shore. (From the Daily Bleed)

October 30, 1986 – Attorney General Ed Meese urged employers to begin spying on workers in locker rooms, parking lots, shipping and mail room areas and even in the bars to try to catch them using drugs. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—August 19

Little Red Songbook

August 19, 1909 – The first edition of the IWW’s The Little Red Songbook was published. (From the Daily Bleed)

August 19, 1916 – Strikebreakers attacked and beat picketing IWW strikers in Everett, Washington. The police refused to intervene, claiming it was federal jurisdiction. However, when the strikers retaliated, they arrested the strikers. Vigilante attacks on IWW picketers and speakers escalated and continued for months, culminating in the Everett massacre on November 5, when union men were fired upon, with seven dying and 50 being wounded. (From the Daily Bleed)

August 19, 1920 – A peasant insurrection began in Tambov, USSR. The Bolsheviks were unable to suppress the revolt until May, 1921. (From the Daily Bleed)

August 19, 1936 -- Members of the Newspaper Guild struck the Hearst-owned "Seattle Post-Intelligencer," shutting it down for nearly four months. (From the Daily Bleed)

August 19, 1953 – Royalist troops in Iran overthrew the liberal-leaning Premier Mohammed Mossadegh and istalled the pro-Western Shah Mohammed Pahlevi. (From the Daily Bleed)

August 19, 1954 – The Communist Control Act was passed in the U.S., outlawing the Communist Party. (From the Daily Bleed)

August 19, 1959 – The second longest labor strike in Butte, Montana's history began, lasting 181 days (-February 15, 1960). (From the Daily Bleed)

August 19, 1996 – ACTU labor protesters attacked the Australian Parliament in Canberra with battering rams and sledgehammers. (From the Daily Bleed)

August 19, 1997 –, United Parcel Service agreed to a contract with the Teamsters, after a 16-day strike. This was labor's first successful nationwide strike in two decades. (From Shmoop Labor History)