Today In Labor History--May 1

May 1, International Workers Day!!!!

Mother Jones (Library of Congress)

May 1, 1830 - Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was born. Mother Jones was renowned for her militancy and fiery oration, as well as her many juicy quotes. She once said, “I’m no lady. I’m a hell-raiser.”  She also was an internationalist, saying “My address is wherever there is a fight against oppression.” Despite the difficulties of constant travel, poor living and jail, she lived to be 100.  (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

May 1, 1866 – Beginning on this day, white Democrats and police attacked freedmen and their white allies in Memphis. By the end of the three-day race riot, 48 were killed. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 1, 1883 - Cigar makers in Cincinnati threatened to strike factory owners continued to make them pay 30 cents per month to heat their factories.   (From The Unionist)

May 1, 1884 – The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU), forerunner of the AFL, resolved that "8 hours shall constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886." Ironically, the FOTLU, which was one of the first bureaucratized “business” unions and which was created as a conservative foil against the radical Knights of Labor, essentially contributed to the ensuing mass insurgency with its resolution. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 1, 1886 – The first nationwide General Strike for the 8-hour day occurred. 340,000 workers struck in Chicago, Milwaukee cities throughout the U.S. Four demonstrators were killed and over 200 wounded by police in Chicago. The US will set another day as Labor Day to undercut world solidarity. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 1, 1888 - Nineteen machinists at the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad, angered over a wage cut, voted to form a union, which ultimately became the International Association of Machinists. (From Workday Minnesota)

May 1, 1889 – The first International Labor Day was celebrated. The U.S. decided to create its own labor day in September to undercut worker solidarity and to white wash away its violent history of repressing strikes and worker protest. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 1, 1890 – The first May Day celebration in Poland saw about 10,000 workers assemble in Warsaw. All nine organizers were arrested and sent to Russian prisons, where two of them died. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 1, 1891 –The French army tested their new Lebels machine guns against peaceful May Day demonstrators that included women and children carrying flowers and palms, killing 14 and wounding 40. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 1, 1894- The cross-country march by Coxey’s Army of the Unemployed ended with in a march down Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C. (From Workday Minnesota. Also see Today in Labor History, April 29)

May 1, 1899 – Tzarist police arrested 3000 of the 20,000 participants in Warsaw’s May Day demonstration. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 1, 1901- The Cooks’ and Waiters’ Union struck in San Francisco. They were demanding one day of rest per week, a ten-hour work day and a closed union shop for all restaurants in the city. (From The Unionist)

May 1, 1905 – 60 workers found were killed in fights with police during May Day protests in Poland. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 1, 1906 – 1,200 members of the Iron Molders Union in Milwaukee struck for shorter hours and more pay. They lost the strike after two years of bitter struggle. One employer, Allis-Chalmers, spent $21,700 to hire the Burr-Herr Detective Agency, resulting in more than 200 assaults on union members, including union leader Peter Cramer, whose was killed. The agency offered one unionist 10 dollars for each striker he beat up. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 1, 1933 - The first issue of the Catholic Worker was published. The Catholic Worker was founded in New York City by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, anarchist-Catholics. The first run of the paper published 2,500 copies. By 1936, circulation had risen to 150,000. (From the Daily Bleed and Workday Minnesota)

May 1, 1938 - Congress enacted amendments to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, extending protections to the employees of state and local governments. However, these protections didn’t take effect until 1985 because of court challenges.(From The Unionist)

May 1, 2006 - Millions of immigrants, participating in a national day of mobilization, stayed home from work. Their goal was to demonstrate their economic power and demand comprehensive reform of U.S. immigration laws. It is estimated that 100,000 gathered in San Jose, California, 200,000 in New York, 400,000 each in Chicago and Los Angeles.  There were demonstrations in at least 50 cities. Despite their numbers, the country has seen a wave of increasingly repressive and racist immigration laws enacted locally in places like Arizona, Georgia, Florida. (From Workday Minnesota, The Unionist)

Today in Labor History—February 13, 2012

Boston Latin School, c1635

February 13, 1635 - Boston Latin School was opened, the first public school in the United States. (From Workday Minnesota)

February 13, 1837 – A flour Riot occurred in New York City. 6,000 New Yorkers attending a "bread, meat, rent, and fuel" meeting in Chatham Square assaulted local flour merchants who they claimed were hoarding flour in order to drive up the price. (From the Daily Bleed)

Jesse James, c1882

February 13, 1866 – Jesse James held up his first bank, Liberty, Missouri. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 13, 1882 – Knights of Labor founder Uriah Stephens (b.1821) died on this date. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 13, 1917 – Strikes and meetings in Petrograd factories launched the Russian Revolution. (From the Daily Bleed)

Dresden After the Bombing (Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 146-1994-041-07)

 February 13, 1945 – Over 130,000 civilians were killed in the Allied firebombing of Dresden. In a three-day period, 3,400 tons of explosives and incendiaries were dropped, reducing six square miles of the city to rubble. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 13, 1967 – The National Student Association revealed that it had "secretly and indirectly" received more than $3 million from the CIA over a 15-year period. NSA President Eugene Grove denied any of the money was used for intelligence work. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—February 12, 2012

Darwin Caricature, 1871

February 12, 1809 – Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was born on this date in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The Origin of Species, published November 24, 1859, sold out immediately. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 12, 1853 – Illinois passed a law requiring any blacks entering the state & staying more than 10 days to pay a $50 fine. If unable to pay, they would be sold into slavery for a period commensurate with the fine. (From the Daily Bleed)

John Lewis, 1922

 February 12, 1880 - John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers and founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), was born was born on this date. In 1935, he pulled the UAW from the American Federation of Labor (and punched out Carpenters Union President William Hutcheson in the process) when the AFL refused to endorse industrial unionism. Lewis then formed the CIO, which organized millions of unskilled, mass production workers into unions in the 1930s and 1940s. (From Workday Minnesota)

DuBois in 1918

 February 12, 1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded on this date by W.E.B. DuBois & others, New York City. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 12, 1913 – Mary Harris "Mother" Jones led a protest against conditions in the West Virginia mines was arrested. (On May 8, newly-elected Governor Hatfield releases her from jail.)

A government official once called Mary Jones "The most dangerous woman in America." She was still out there at age 83. No rockin' chair for her... (From the Daily Bleed)

February 12, 1913 – A New York commission reported widespread violations of child labor laws. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 12, 1946 – Picketers demanded amnesty for jailed war resisters at Danbury Federal Penitentiary, Connecticut. (From the Daily Bleed)


February 12, 1947 – 60 anti-draft demonstrators burned their draft cards in New York City during an antiwar demonstration. Between 400 and 500 veterans and conscientious objectors from World Wars I and II burned their draft cards in two demonstrations, in front of the White House in Washington and at the Labor Temple in New York City, in protest of a proposed universal conscription law. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—February 3

February 3, 1908 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that union boycotts violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 3, 1910 – Mary Harris "Mother" Jones addressed Milwaukee brewery workers during a two-month stint working alongside women bottle-washers while on leave from the United Mine Workers:

"Condemned to slave daily in the wash-room in wet shoes and wet clothes, surrounded with foul-mouthed, brutal foremen . . . the poor girls work in the vile smell of sour beer, lifting cases of empty and full bottles weighing from 100 to 150 pounds, in their wet shoes and rags, for they cannot buy clothes on the pittance doled out to them. . . . Rheumatism is one of the chronic ailments and is closely followed by consumption . . . An illustration of what these girls must submit to, one about to become a mother told me with tears in her eyes that every other day a depraved specimen of mankind took delight in measuring her girth & passing comments." (From the Daily Bleed)

Flyer distributed in Lawrence, September 1912, Wikipedia

 February 3, 1912 – 32,000 textile mill workers were actively involved in the "Bread & Roses" strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The strike began last month and continued for over nine weeks. Several strikers were killed by cops and goons. Annie Welzenbach and her two teenage sisters were dragged from their beds in the middle of the night. 200 police attacked striking women with their clubs. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 3, 1964 – 464,000 students (45% of all students) boycotted New York City schools to protest segregation. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 3, 1965 – 3,200 were arrested, including many school children, in week-long voter registration demonstrations in Selma, Alabama. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 3, 1981 – Striking Telecommunications Workers occupied the offices of a telephone company in Nanaimo, British Columbia and renamed it "Co-Op Tel." (From the Daily Bleed)

February 3, 1994 -- A General Strike of 500,000 workers was declared in Equador. (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)