Today in Labor History—May 21

May 21, 1856 – The first eight hour working day was achieved by stonemasons in Victoria, Australia. (From the Daily Bleed)

Barricade, Édouard Manet, 1871

 May 21, 1871 – The Bloody Week, a savage orgy of repression and violence, was launched against the Paris Commune. The French government’s massacres and summary executions resulted in 20,000 to 35,000 civilian deaths. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 21, 1934 – The Minneapolis General Strike by Teamsters Union on May 21, 1934, with a pitched battle between striking teamsters and business goons. (From the Daily Bleed)

Street battle between striking teamsters and cops, Minneapolis, 1934

May 21, 1945 – The "Little Wagner Act" was signed in Hawaii (still an American colony), guaranteeing collective bargaining rights for pineapple and sugar workers. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 21, 1946 – The U.S. government seized control of the nation’s coal mines in order to maintain production during a nationwide coal strike. Despite the government’s actions, miners continued to strike, forcing the government to concede to many of their demands, concessions that even the mine owners refused to grant. Miners struck again in November, in violation of a federal injunction, resulting in a $3.5 million fine. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

Rioters outside City Hall, S.F. (Image by Daniel Nicoletta)

May 21, 1965 – Clashes between striking mine workers in Bolivia and federal troops resulted in 48 deaths. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 21, 1979 – White Night riots occurred in San Francisco, California, in protest of the hand slap given to former city supervisor, Dan White, for murdering the city’s first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk, and mayor George Moscone. White was determined to be temporarily insane from having eaten too much junk food. A similar defense has failed repeatedly to get students excused from exams or school detentions. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—May 3

Mikhail Bakunin as a Young Man

May 3, 1849 – A popular rebellion broke out in Dresden, with the militant Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin emerging as an "heroic" leader. He was imprisoned in the Konigstein fortress and condemned to death. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1886 - At the height of the movement for the eight-hour day, police shot into a crowd of workers engaged in a general strike at McCormick Harvester Co. in Chicago. Four workers were killed and hundreds were injured. Anarchists called for a public rally the following day at Haymarket Square to protest the police brutality. At the rally, a bomb was thrown, killing several police. No one was ever caught, yet the police arrested eight leading anarchists who were convicted and sentenced to death. The event  became the inspiration for International Workers Day. (From Workday Minnesota and The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1886 – One thousand brewery workers, on strike for a wage increase, marched to the Falk Brewery, in Milwaukee, to encourage workers there to join their strike. They were members of the radical industrial union the Knights of Labor. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1887 – Two explosions at Mine #1 in Nanaimo, British Columbia, killed 97 white mineers and 52 Chinese miners. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1898 – Bread riots occurred in Milano, Italy. They were brutally repressed, with heavy loss of life. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1916 –An uprising by Vietnamese was suppressed by the French. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1919 – Pete Seeger was born, Patterson, New York. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1920 - A young anarchist printer, Andreas Salsedo, “fell” to his death from a 14th story window of an FBI detention room in New York City. He had been arrested during the anti-commie raids launched by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer. The FBI claimed it was suicide. (From Workday Minnesota and The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1926 – A general strike by the Trades Union Congress of Great Britain was finally ended after nine days, though coal miners continued to strike through the summer. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1928 – Anarchist Severino Di Giovanni bombed the Italian consulate in Buenos Aires to protest against the Italian dictatorship. The fascists were assassinating Italian antifascists in exile). Nine were killed and 34 wounded in the blast. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1934 – The IWW strike at Draper Manufacturing Co. began in Cleveland, Ohio. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1937 – The Spanish Republican government launched attacks on workers leading to open resistance against Republican and Communist authorities by radical workers, anarchists, and others opposed to the regional takeover of the worker-run telephone company in Barcelona. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1968 – The first battles of the May Upheaval began in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The police arrested 500 students meeting at the University of Sorbonne to protest repression at Nanterre. Revolt broke out along the route taken by police vans, with thousands fighting against the police. Throughout the month of May and part of June, workers and students occupied schools, factories and offices. By mid-May, 10 million workers were on strike. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1971 – 7,000 people were arrested trying to shut down the Pentagon in protest against the Vietnam war. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1974 – Spanish banker Balthasar Suarez was kidnapped in Paris by the "Groups of International Revolutionary Action" (GARI ) in an attempt to free 100 political prisoners in Spain being held by Franco. (From The Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—May 2

It Is Forbidden to Forbid, May 1968, Paris

May 2, 1886 – Twenty-five hundred workers marched in Milwaukee for the 8-hour day. Governor Jeremiah Rusk supplied the Milwaukee National Guard headquarters with increased ammunition and the entire city police force with four companies of infantry & artillery. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1896 – U.S. Marines landed at Corrinto, Nicaragua, to "protect" US interests. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1911 - The nation’s first workers’ compensation law was passed in Wisconsin, providing benefits for employees injured in the workplace. (From the Daily Bleed)

Gustav Landauer, 1890s

May 2, 1919 – Gustav Landauer, Education Minister in the short-lived Bavarian workers Republic, was murdered by soldiers. Landauer was a signatory to the Ernst Joël Petition (1915), along with other leading cultural figures of the day, like Walter Benjamin, Martin Buber, Kurt Eisner, S. Fischer, Alfred Kerr, Heinrich Mann, and Thomas Mann. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1919 – Beginning of a Brazilian General Strike that involved 50,000 workers throughout Sao Paulo. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1924 – The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the involuntary sterilization of mentally retarded persons. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1933 - Adolf Hitler abolished all labor unions, leading to the mass arrest and murder of thousands of communists, anarchists and labor activists. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1963 –Bull Connors jailed 958 children in Birmingham, Alabama. Those not jailed got blasted with fire hoses and attacked by dogs. (From the Daily Bleed)

Barricades, Paris, May 1968

May 2, 1968 – A Protest at University of Nanterre escalated into the French student strike. By May 20, six million workers were on strike, growing to ten million within a few days. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1968 – Though Martin Luther King, Jr. had recently been assassinated his Poor Peoples' March on Washington, D.C. proceeded as planned, led by successor Ralph Abernathy. 3,000 people erected Resurrection City on the Mall until the 17th. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1980 – Pink Floyd's hit single "Another Brick in the Wall," with its chorus of kids chanting "We don't need no education," was banned by the South African government. The song was adopted by striking black teachers and black children, upset about inferior education. The Apartheid government called the song is "prejudicial to the safety of the state." (From the Daily Bleed)

Paulo Freire, 1997 (Image by Slobodan Dimitrov

May 2, 1997 – Paulo Freire (1921-1997), Brazilian philosopher & educator, died of heart failure in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—December 27

December 27, 1913 -- A rebellion by IWW workers in Edmonton, Alberta forced the city to house 400 unemployed during winter. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 27, 1916 – A steelworkers strike occurred in Ohio in which workers were demanding the 8-hour day and an increase in wages. The strike ended quickly in their favor because the government needed steel for armaments. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 27, 1943 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt seized the railroads in attempt to block a nationwide rail strike. The railroads would be temporarily placed under the "supervision" of the War Department, which prompted the five railroad brotherhoods to accept his offer to arbitrate the dispute. (FromWorkday Minnesota)

Today in Labor History—May 21

May 21, 1856 – The first eight hour working day was achieved by stonemasons in Victoria, Australia. (From the Daily Bleed)

Barricade, Édouard Manet, 1871

 May 21, 1871 – The Bloody Week, a savage orgy of repression and violence, was launched against the Paris Commune. The French government’s massacres and summary executions resulted in 20,000 to 35,000 civilian deaths. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 21, 1934 – The Minneapolis General Strike by Teamsters Union on May 21, 1934, with a pitched battle between striking teamsters and business goons. (From the Daily Bleed)

Street battle between striking teamsters and cops, Minneapolis, 1934

May 21, 1945 – The "Little Wagner Act" was signed in Hawaii (still an American colony), guaranteeing collective bargaining rights for pineapple and sugar workers. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 21, 1946 – The U.S. government seized control of the nation’s coal mines in order to maintain production during a nationwide coal strike. Despite the government’s actions, miners continued to strike, forcing the government to concede to many of their demands, concessions that even the mine owners refused to grant. Miners struck again in November, in violation of a federal injunction, resulting in a $3.5 million fine. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

Rioters outside City Hall, S.F. (Image by Daniel Nicoletta)

May 21, 1965 – Clashes between striking mine workers in Bolivia and federal troops resulted in 48 deaths. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 21, 1979 – White Night riots occurred in San Francisco, California, in protest of the hand slap given to former city supervisor, Dan White, for murdering the city’s first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk, and mayor George Moscone. White was determined to be temporarily insane from having eaten too much junk food. A similar defense has failed repeatedly to get students excused from exams or school detentions. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—May 3

Mikhail Bakunin as a Young Man

May 3, 1849 – A popular rebellion broke out in Dresden, with the militant Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin emerging as an "heroic" leader. He was imprisoned in the Konigstein fortress and condemned to death. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1886 - At the height of the movement for the eight-hour day, police shot into a crowd of workers engaged in a general strike at McCormick Harvester Co. in Chicago. Four workers were killed and hundreds were injured. Anarchists called for a public rally the following day at Haymarket Square to protest the police brutality. At the rally, a bomb was thrown, killing several police. No one was ever caught, yet the police arrested eight leading anarchists who were convicted and sentenced to death. The event  became the inspiration for International Workers Day. (From Workday Minnesota and The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1886 – One thousand brewery workers, on strike for a wage increase, marched to the Falk Brewery, in Milwaukee, to encourage workers there to join their strike. They were members of the radical industrial union the Knights of Labor. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1887 – Two explosions at Mine #1 in Nanaimo, British Columbia, killed 97 white mineers and 52 Chinese miners. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1898 – Bread riots occurred in Milano, Italy. They were brutally repressed, with heavy loss of life. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1916 –An uprising by Vietnamese was suppressed by the French. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1919 – Pete Seeger was born, Patterson, New York. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1920 - A young anarchist printer, Andreas Salsedo, “fell” to his death from a 14th story window of an FBI detention room in New York City. He had been arrested during the anti-commie raids launched by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer. The FBI claimed it was suicide. (From Workday Minnesota and The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1926 – A general strike by the Trades Union Congress of Great Britain was finally ended after nine days, though coal miners continued to strike through the summer. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1928 – Anarchist Severino Di Giovanni bombed the Italian consulate in Buenos Aires to protest against the Italian dictatorship. The fascists were assassinating Italian antifascists in exile). Nine were killed and 34 wounded in the blast. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1934 – The IWW strike at Draper Manufacturing Co. began in Cleveland, Ohio. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1937 – The Spanish Republican government launched attacks on workers leading to open resistance against Republican and Communist authorities by radical workers, anarchists, and others opposed to the regional takeover of the worker-run telephone company in Barcelona. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1968 – The first battles of the May Upheaval began in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The police arrested 500 students meeting at the University of Sorbonne to protest repression at Nanterre. Revolt broke out along the route taken by police vans, with thousands fighting against the police. Throughout the month of May and part of June, workers and students occupied schools, factories and offices. By mid-May, 10 million workers were on strike. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1971 – 7,000 people were arrested trying to shut down the Pentagon in protest against the Vietnam war. (From The Daily Bleed)

May 3, 1974 – Spanish banker Balthasar Suarez was kidnapped in Paris by the "Groups of International Revolutionary Action" (GARI ) in an attempt to free 100 political prisoners in Spain being held by Franco. (From The Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—May 2

It Is Forbidden to Forbid, May 1968, Paris

May 2, 1886 – Twenty-five hundred workers marched in Milwaukee for the 8-hour day. Governor Jeremiah Rusk supplied the Milwaukee National Guard headquarters with increased ammunition and the entire city police force with four companies of infantry & artillery. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1896 – U.S. Marines landed at Corrinto, Nicaragua, to "protect" US interests. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1911 - The nation’s first workers’ compensation law was passed in Wisconsin, providing benefits for employees injured in the workplace. (From the Daily Bleed)

Gustav Landauer, 1890s

May 2, 1919 – Gustav Landauer, Education Minister in the short-lived Bavarian workers Republic, was murdered by soldiers. Landauer was a signatory to the Ernst Joël Petition (1915), along with other leading cultural figures of the day, like Walter Benjamin, Martin Buber, Kurt Eisner, S. Fischer, Alfred Kerr, Heinrich Mann, and Thomas Mann. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1919 – Beginning of a Brazilian General Strike that involved 50,000 workers throughout Sao Paulo. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1924 – The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the involuntary sterilization of mentally retarded persons. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1933 - Adolf Hitler abolished all labor unions, leading to the mass arrest and murder of thousands of communists, anarchists and labor activists. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1963 –Bull Connors jailed 958 children in Birmingham, Alabama. Those not jailed got blasted with fire hoses and attacked by dogs. (From the Daily Bleed)

Barricades, Paris, May 1968

May 2, 1968 – A Protest at University of Nanterre escalated into the French student strike. By May 20, six million workers were on strike, growing to ten million within a few days. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1968 – Though Martin Luther King, Jr. had recently been assassinated his Poor Peoples' March on Washington, D.C. proceeded as planned, led by successor Ralph Abernathy. 3,000 people erected Resurrection City on the Mall until the 17th. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 2, 1980 – Pink Floyd's hit single "Another Brick in the Wall," with its chorus of kids chanting "We don't need no education," was banned by the South African government. The song was adopted by striking black teachers and black children, upset about inferior education. The Apartheid government called the song is "prejudicial to the safety of the state." (From the Daily Bleed)

Paulo Freire, 1997 (Image by Slobodan Dimitrov

May 2, 1997 – Paulo Freire (1921-1997), Brazilian philosopher & educator, died of heart failure in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—December 27

December 27, 1913 -- A rebellion by IWW workers in Edmonton, Alberta forced the city to house 400 unemployed during winter. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 27, 1916 – A steelworkers strike occurred in Ohio in which workers were demanding the 8-hour day and an increase in wages. The strike ended quickly in their favor because the government needed steel for armaments. (From the Daily Bleed)

December 27, 1943 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt seized the railroads in attempt to block a nationwide rail strike. The railroads would be temporarily placed under the "supervision" of the War Department, which prompted the five railroad brotherhoods to accept his offer to arbitrate the dispute. (From Workday Minnesota)

Today in Labor History—May 21

May 21, 1856 – The first eight hour working day was achieved by stonemasons in Victoria, Australia. (From the Daily Bleed)

Communards in their coffins

May 21, 1871 – The "Semaine Sanglante" (Bloody Week), a savage orgy of repression and violence was launched against the Paris Commune. The French government’s massacres and summary executions resulted in 20,000 to 35,000 civilian deaths. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 21, 1934 – The Minneapolis General Strike by Teamsters Union on May 21, 1934, with a pitched battle between striking teamsters and business goons. (From the Daily Bleed)

Street battle between striking teamsters and cops, Minneapolis, 1934

May 21, 1945 – The "Little Wagner Act" was signed in Hawaii (still an American colony), guaranteeing collective bargaining rights for pineapple and sugar workers. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 21, 1946 – The U.S. government seized control of the nation’s coal mines in order to maintain production during a nationwide coal strike. Despite the government’s actions, miners continued to strike, forcing the government to concede to many of their demands, concessions that even the mine owners refused to grant. Miners struck again in November, in violation of a federal injunction, resulting in a $3.5 million fine. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

Rioters outside City Hall, S.F. (Image by Daniel Nicoletta)

May 21, 1965 – Clashes between striking mine workers in Bolivia and federal troops resulted in 48 deaths. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 21, 1979 – White riots occurred in San Francisco, California, in protest of the hand slap given to former city supervisor, Dan White, for murdering the city’s first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk, and mayor George Moscone. White was determined to be temporarily insane from having eaten too much junk food. A similar defense has failed repeatedly to get students excused from exams or school detentions. (From the Daily Bleed)