Frame-Breaking by Luddites, 1812 (Frame-breaking was outlawed in 1721
)
June 28, 1816
–Luddites attacked the Heathcoat and Boden's Mill at Loughborough,
smashing 53 frames worth £6,000. Troops were sent in. Six Luddites were
executed. The attack was part of a general revival of violence and
sabotage of machinery following a bad harvest. At this same time, 'Swing' riots erupted in the countryside as a protest against low wages, unemployment & the Game Laws.
Monument to the Potemkin Mutineers in Odessa
June 28, 1905
-- The mutinous crew of the battleship "Potemkin" entered the port of
Odessa, which had been taken by revolutionaries. Workers' Councils
formed.
June 28, 1914
– Austria's Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by the Serbian
anarchist Gavrilo Princip, whose attentat was said to have set off World
War I, which killed between 5 and 10 million soldiers.
June 28, 1916 – 50,000 workers staged a one day protest strike against the trial of Karl Leibnecht.
June 28, 1956 – 100,000 workers struck in Poznañ, Poland, shouting "Bread & Freedom. The protests were violently suppressed, with at least 67 workers killed.
The government sends 10,000 soldiers to the city. The next day, another
70 would be killed, 700 would be arrested, and hundreds more would be
wounded.
June 28, 1969
– Gay activists demonstrated in Sheridan Square and in front of the
Stonewall Inn, where a riot occurred at 3 am earlier this morning when
police raided the bar. Demonstrators were confronted by NYC Tactical
Police.
April 7, 1919—A
Workers Republic was declared in Bavaria by the anarchists in the
fledgling soviet republic, against the wishes of the Communists in the
government. The Socialists sent in troops, massacring over 700. (From
the Daily Bleed)
April 7, 1933—Prohibition
ended, allowing unions to once again freely organize workers in the
bars and workers to once again drink freely. As Oscar Wilde said, “Work
is the curse of the drinking class.”
April 7, 1947
- The National Federation of Telephone Workers (NFTW) launched the
first nationwide strike against AT&T and Bell. As many as 300,000
telephone workers walked off the job. By mid-May 18, 37 of the 39 member
unions had won new contracts with raises. NFTW became the
Communications Workers of America later that year. (From Workday Minnesota)
April 6, 1712
- New York City saw its first slave revolt, which occurred just north
of Wall Street, in response to the execution of twenty-one blacks for
killing nine whites. Conditions were ideal for a revolt, as black slaves
and freemen worked in proximity to each other, making communication and
planning easier. In the aftermath of the revolt, 70 black men were
jailed, with six “committing suicide” in custody. Twenty of those
arrested were executed by burning and one was executed on the “breaking
wheel.” New regulations were also put into place, prohibiting black men
from meeting in groups larger than three or carrying firearms. Free men
were also denied the right to own property. (From Workday Minnesota and Wikipedia)
Tupac Amaru
April 6, 1781—Tupac Amaru was captured in Peru after being denounced by a turncoat. (From the Daily Bleed)
April 6, 1919—Bavarian
Raterepublik was declared, with novelist B. Traven (e.g., Death Ship,
Treasure of the Sierra Madre) serving on its Central Council of Workers,
Soldiers and Farmers. (From the Daily Bleed)
April 6, 1968—Oakland police attacked the Black Panthers headquarters and assassinated an unarmed teenager, Bobby Hutton. (From the Daily Bleed)
February 24, 1912 - Women and children were beaten by police during the Bread and Roses textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)
February 24, 1917 – A
Petrograd bread riot turned into revolution when soldiers refused to
fire on demonstrators turned on their officers, stormed the arsenal and
liberated 20,000 automatic pistols, torched the police stations and
emptied the prisons.(From the Daily Bleed)
February 24, 1919 – A
new Federal Child Labor law passed and was declared unconstitutional in
1924. A similar law passed two years earlier was declared
unconstitutional in 1918.(From the Daily Bleed)
February 24, 1923 – A U.S. Labor Party convention repudiated Communism. (From the Daily Bleed)
February 24, 1939 – The Supreme Court ruled that sit-down strikes were illegal. (From the Daily Bleed)
February 24, 1965 – District 1199 Health Care Workers became the first U.S. labor union to oppose the war in Vietnam.(From the Daily Bleed)
February 15, 1910
– “The Uprising of the Twenty Thousand," International Ladies' Garment
Workers Union Shirtwaist strike that began September 27 was declared
officially over on this date by the ILGWU. By this date, 339
manufacturing firms had reached agreements with the union. 13 firms,
including Triangle Shirtwaist Company did not settle. One of the demands
of the demands had been for adequate fire escapes and for open doors to
the streets for emergencies. In 1911, 146 girls and women were killed
in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. (From the Daily Bleed)
February 15, 1950
– The CIO expelled the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, the Food,
Tobacco and Agricultural Workers, and the United Office and Professional
Workers for “communist tendencies.” (From the Daily Bleed)
February 15, 2003
- 25 million people demonstrated against President George W. Bush’s
plan to go to war in Iraq, making it the largest coordinated protest in
history. Demonstrations took place in over 100 countries. (From workday Minnesota)
Portrait of Absalom Jones by Raphaelle Peale (1774–1825), Delaware Art Museum
January 2, 1800 – The free black community of Philadelphia, led by Absalom Jones, petitioned Congress to abolish slavery and to end the fugitive slave act of 1793. (From the Daily Bleed and USHistory.org)
January 2, 1873 -- Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960) was born on this date. Pannekoek was a Dutch astronomer, mathematician and radical left-communist. Among other works, he published the pamphlet Darwinism and Marxism, 1916, which strongly attacked the social Darwinists, like Spencer. He also wrote the classic, “Workers Councils.” (From the Daily Bleed)
January 2, 1905 - A conference of 23 industrial unionists met in Chicago and issued a manifesto calling for an industrial Union Congress to be held in Chicago on June 27—a meeting that would lead to the formation of the Industrial Workers of the World (or IWW or "Wobblies"). (From Workday Minnesota)
December 18, 1829 – Scientist Jean-Baptiste Lamark died on this date. (From the Daily Bleed) Lamarck was best known for his discredited theory of inheritance of acquired traits, the idea that characteristics acquired during the parents’ lifetime would be passed on to offspring. It was later discovered that traits of the parents are passed down to offspring through DNA, while acquired traits (e.g., losing a finger in an accident or getting larger muscles from weight lifting) do not involved changes to the DNA that can be passed down. Yet, over the past decade, with the discovery of epigenetics, Lamarck’s theory has been shown to be true under certain circumstances. Some experiences that occur during the parents lifetime that do not change the DNA, but add epigenetic markers to the DNA, are not only passed on the their children, but can be passed on to grandchildren and great grandchildren, too. (For more on epigenetics, see the NOVA special “The Ghost in the Genes.”)
Horse-Powered Thresher
December 18, 1830 - The "Swing Rioters" went on trial on this date. The rioters were agricultural laborers who fought for a minimum wage during the early decades of the 19th century. During this time, England shifted from self-sufficient, open fields to farms rented by tenant farmers. Technology, including the increasing use of threshers, and a surplus of labor, drove down wages. Farm workers in the "swing" counties of the south and east of England responded by destroying farm machinery. Hundreds were arrested, jailed and executed. (From Workday Minnesota)
December 18, 1878—Joseph Stalin was born on this date and went on to slaughter between 10 and 60 million peasants, workers and other mostly innocent civilians. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)
December 15, 1792 - The U.S. Bill of Rights was adopted promising freedom of speech, religion, the press, and "the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." (From Workday Minnesota
December 15, 1882 – The women tailors union, first women's trade union in Australia, was formed on this date. (from the Daily Bleed)
December 15, 1941 – The AFL labor union pledged not to strike in any defense-related industries for the duration of the war. (from the Daily Bleed)
December 15, 1965 – In an attempt to outdo their patriotism during World War II, the AFL-CIO pledged its "unstinting support" for the U.S. war effort in Vietnam. (from the Daily Bleed)
December 15, 1970 – Polish youth and workers torched the Gdansk Communist Party headquarters and quietly watched it burn. Elsewhere in Poland, ZOMO riot police shot miners striking at "Manifest Lipcowy" mine in Jastrzebie, Upper Silesia, wounding four. (from the Daily Bleed)
December 15, 1992 -- 300,000 coal miners struck against the Solidarity government in Poland. (from the Daily Bleed)
December 13, 1924 - American Federation of Labor founder and President Samuel Gompers died at age 74. One of his most famous quotes was "We want more schoolhouses and less jails, more books and less arsenals, more learning and less vice, more constant work and less crime, more leisure and less greed, more justice and less revenge (From Workday Minnesota) December 13, 1971 -- Workers in Namibia struck against the contract labor system imposed by the South African government, marking the beginning of popular support for southern African liberation struggles. (From the Daily Bleed) December 13, 1981 – Communist General Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland for the next three years to suppress and destroy the 10-million strong Solidarnosc trade union workers' movement, during which at least 10,000 activists were. This date is now known as "Solidarity Day."
November 7, 1912 – Enest Riebe's "Mr. Block," IWW labor comic strip first appeared in print. Mr. Block was one of the best-loved features in the Wobbly press. Joe Hill wrote a song about "Mr. Block," who was a boss-loving, American Dream-believing, self-sabotaging knucklehead. Some call Riebe the first "underground" comic book artist. (From the Daily Bleed)
Mr. Block (by Joe Hill)
1. Please give me your attention, I'll introduce to you
A man who is a credit to the ["Our] old Red White and Blue["]
His head is made of lumber and solid as a rock
He is a common worker and his name is Mr. Block
And Block [he] thinks he may be premier [President] some day
Chorus
Oh Mr. Block, you were born by mistake
You take the cake, you make me ache
[Go] tie a rock on your block and then jump in the lake
Kindly do that for Liberty's sake!
2. Yes, Mr. Block is lucky - he got a job, by gee!
The shark got seven dollars for job and fare and fee
They shipped him to a desert and dumped him with his truck
But when he tried to find his job he sure was out of luck
He shouted, "That's too raw! I'll fix them with the law!"
3. Block hiked back to the city but wasn't doing well
He said "I'll join the union, the great AF of L".
He got a job that morning, got fired by the night
He said, "I'll see Sam Gompers and he'll fix that foreman right!"
Sam Gompers said, "You see, you've got our sympathy."
4. Election day he shouted, "A Socialist for Mayor!"
The comrade got elected [and] he happy was for fair
But after the election he got an awful shock
[When] a great big socialistic bull did rap him on the block
And Comrade Block did sob, "I helped him get his job!"
5. Poor Block he died one evening, I'm very glad to state
He climbed the golden ladder up to the pearly gate
He said, "Oh Mister Peter, one thing I'd like to tell
I'd like to meet the Astorbilts and John D Rockerfell!"
Old Pete said, "Is that so? You'll meet them down below!"
Tune: It Looks to me Like a Big Time Tonight. from Al Grierson,
by Joe Hill, in 13th ed. of the Little Red Songbook
November 7, 1915 – Emiliano Zapata proposed a new labor law that included an 8-hour day, prohibition of work for children under age 14, worker cooperatives to run factories abandoned by owners, and a fixed minimum wage. (From the Daily Bleed)
German Revolutionaries Summarily Executed, March 1919, During Counter-Revolution from the Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)
November 7, 1918 – The imprisonment of 600 sailors during the Kiel Mutiny in Germany led to a general uprising. Within months, the Independent Social Democrats, who were heading the provisional government, were overthrown by the Bavarian Raterepublik, composed of Workers', Soldiers', and Farmers' Councils. Those fighting the socialists included anarchists and anti-authoritarian communists like Erich Mühsam, Gustav Landauer, Ernst Toller and Ret Marut (who became known as the novelist B. Traven after fleeing the counterrevolution and living in exile in Mexico). (From the Daily Bleed)
IWW Union Office Ransacked During Palmer Raid
November 7, 1919 – The first Red Scare, or "Palmer’s Reign of Terror," began in the U.S. on this date with the imprisonment of 3,000 anarchists without bail at Ellis Island. During the Palmer raids, hundreds of anarchists, communists, union leaders and other radicals were rounded up, imprisoned, deported and even killed. (From the Daily Bleed)
November 7, 1959 - The U.S. Supreme Court used the Taft-Hartley Act to break a steel strike. Taft-Hartley was passed in 1947, in the wake of the 1946 Oakland General Strike. It severely limited strike activities, specifically prohibited sympathy strikes and General Strikes, and was essentially a giveaway to employers helping pave the way for the progressive weakening of the U.S. labor movement. (From Workday Minnesota)
October 14, 1877 – New York City cigar makers struck against pay cuts and repressive factory rules during October. The strike ended in January1878 with the pay cuts and repressive rules intact. Samuel Gompers, the strike leader, was blacklisted and unable to find work for four months. (From the Daily Bleed)
Freiheit, the newspaper of Johann Most, One of the Founding Members of the IWPA
October 14, 1883 – The two-day founding congress of the International Working People's Association (IWPA) occurred in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, marking the beginning of the anarchist-trade union movement in the US. The congress endorsed "propaganda by the deed," which included assassinations. (From the Daily Bleed)
October 14, 1912 – President Teddy Roosevelt was shot and seriously wounded by anarchist William Schrenk, who was engaging in propaganda by the deed. Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee and was shot in the chest at close range, surviving only because the bundle of manuscripts he had in the breast pocket slowed the bullet. (From the Daily Bleed)
The IWPA Brought Together Albert Parsons, August Spies and Several Other Future Haymarket Martyrs
October 14, 1949 – 11 leaders of the US Communist party were convicted of conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of the US government. Ten of the defendants were sentenced to five years in prison and the eleventh was sentenced to three years. The Supreme Court upheld the convictions in June of 1951. (From the Daily Bleed)
October 14, 1976 – A General Strike of 189,000 workers occurred in Canada as part of the National Day of Protest called by the Canadian Labour Council against wage controls. (From the Daily Bleed)
October 14, 1981 -- Dock workers in Darwin, Australia, began a seven-day strike, refusing to load uranium on board "Pacific Sky" for eventual use by the U.S. military. After a week, the ship was forced to leave without its cargo. (From the Daily Bleed)
October 8, 1889 - The Printing & Graphic Communications Union was created. (From Workday Minnesota)
Tom Mooney
October 8, 1919 –A General Strike was called to demand the release of Tom Mooney and amnesty for all political prisoners. Mooney was a labor organizer who was falsely convicted of the fatal Preparedness Day bombing. He was not released until 1939. (From the Daily Bleed)
Preparedness Day Bombing
October 8, 1965 – The Indonesian military began massacring thousands of "suspected" Communists. The U.S. embassy provided death squads with the names of 5,000 “communists.” Overall, the reign of terror led to 500,000 civilian deaths. (From the Daily Bleed)
October 8, 1967 - Ernesto “Che” Guevara was executed in Bolivia. (FromWorkday Minnesota)
October 8, 1969 – SDS Weathermen launched their "Days of Rage" in Chicago, during which they blew up a statue commemorating the police involved in the 1886 Haymarket tragedy bombing which resulted in the execution of innocent anarchists. The statue was replaced and blown up again in 1970. (From the Daily Bleed)
October 8, 1969 -- Disguised as a funeral procession, the Uruguayan Tupamaro urban guerrilla organization occupied the town of Pando, robbing three banks of over 40 million pesos. (From the Daily Bleed)
September 4, 1894 – 12,000 un-unionized tailors launched a successful spontaneous strike. (From the Daily Bleed)
Cripple Creek 1900
September 4, 1903 – Police and deputy sheriffs were relieved of their duties in Cripple Creek, Colorado, and all citizens were required to register their firearms, as mine owners attempted to bust the labor union. Governor Peabody sent in the militia. In 1904 they took over the local newspaper and rounded up strikers into "bullpens." Dozens were arrested without warrants.(From the Daily Bleed)
Captured British tank, Archangel
September 4, 1918 – American troops invaded the U.S.S.R., landing at Archangel, one year after the Russian Revolution. They were soundly defeated. (From the Daily Bleed)
September 4, 1920 – Hundreds of miners assembled at Lens Creek, West Virginia in response to rumors that women and children were being killed in Logan County by the anti-union mine owners and deputy sheriffs who were on their payroll. 5,000 miners had arrived by nightfall. Many of them were armed. (From Jeremy Brecher’s, Strike!, pp135-36 and the Daily Bleed)
Fables of Faubus, Charles Mingus
September 4, 1957 – Nine Negro students tried to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Governor Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to block them. (From the Daily Bleed)
William Kunstler, 1989, by Joel Seidenstain
September 4, 1995 – Radical lawyer William Kunstler (1919-1995) died. During his long career, Kunstler defended the Chicago Seven, Angela Davis, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, Lenny Bruce, H. Rap Brown, American Indian Movement activists after the siege at Pine Ridge, and Attica prisoners after the siege there. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)
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)
Women and children taking a cannon to the barricades during the Paris Commune
July 9, 1906
– Gabriel-Constant Martin (1839-1906) died. Gabriel-Constant Martin was
a teacher and elected member of the Paris Commune and the First
International. (From the Daily Bleed)
July 9, 1917 -- Federal troops raided the IWW hall in Yakima, Washington. (From the Daily Bleed)
July 9, 1935
– The first Transport Workers Union (TWU) strike began in protest of
the dismissals of six car cleaners who refused work speed-up. All were
reinstated. (From the Daily Bleed)
July 9, 1947 – The Greek government ordered the arrest of 11,500 people on charges of plotting a Communist revolution. (From the Daily Bleed)
July 9, 1951
– Dashiell Hammett was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for
refusing to cooperate with the US House of Representatives Committee on
Un-American Activities' (HUAC) inquiries into domestic "subversion." (From the Daily Bleed)
July 9, 1952 - The first U.S. mine safety law was enacted to prevent mine disasters. (From Workday Minnesota)
July 9, 1978 – 100,000 marched in Washington, D.C. for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. (From the Daily Bleed)
Frame-Breaking by Luddites, 1812 (Frame-breaking was outlawed in 1721
)
June 28, 1816
–Luddites attacked the Heathcoat and Boden's Mill at Loughborough,
smashing 53 frames worth £6,000. Troops were sent in. Six Luddites were
executed. The attack was part of a general revival of violence and
sabotage of machinery following a bad harvest. At this same time, 'Swing' riots erupted in the countryside as a protest against low wages, unemployment & the Game Laws.
Monument to the Potemkin Mutineers in Odessa
June 28, 1905
-- The mutinous crew of the battleship "Potemkin" entered the port of
Odessa, which had been taken by revolutionaries. Workers' Councils
formed.
June 28, 1914
– Austria's Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by the Serbian
anarchist Gavrilo Princip, whose attentat was said to have set off World
War I, which killed between 5 and 10 million soldiers.
June 28, 1916 – 50,000 workers staged a one day protest strike against the trial of Karl Leibnecht.
June 28, 1956 – 100,000 workers struck in Poznañ, Poland, shouting "Bread & Freedom. The protests were violently suppressed, with at least 67 workers killed.
The government sends 10,000 soldiers to the city. The next day, another
70 would be killed, 700 would be arrested, and hundreds more would be
wounded.
June 28, 1969
– Gay activists demonstrated in Sheridan Square and in front of the
Stonewall Inn, where a riot occurred at 3 am earlier this morning when
police raided the bar. Demonstrators were confronted by NYC Tactical
Police.
