Today in Labor History—January 22

January 22, 1849 – Terence Powderly, leader of the Knights of Labor was born on this date. (From the Daily Bleed)

Farabundo Marti, 1929

January 22, 1932 – A peasant uprising in El Salvador was met with extreme state violence, resulting in the "Matanza Massacre" of 30,000.  Salvadoran communists, peasants and indigenous had rebelled against the military dictatorship, creating the first soviets in the Western hemisphere. The state violence and repression that followed obliterated what was left of the country’s indigenous population, as well as most of its socialists, communists, anarchists and labor organizers. One of the first to go before Martinez’ firing squads was Farabundo Marti. Martinez once said that America was great because it wiped out its Indians and so, too, must El Salvador. (From Daily Bleed, Eduardo Galeano, Memory of Fire)

January 22, 1997 – 150,000 South Korean workers walked off their jobs to protest recent anti-labor legislation. The recent strike wave had already "cost" South Korean corporations about $3 billion in lost production.