June 3, 1900 - The International Ladies’ Garment
Workers Union (ILGWU) was founded. (From Workday Minnesota)
June 3, 1901 – Carpenters
struck for higher wages & union recognition in Ottawa, Canada. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 3, 1910—The Francisco Ferrer Association was
founded in Harlem, by supporters of the educator who had been executed by the
Spanish government the year before. The organization’s goals included founding
libertarian schools throughout the U.S. based on the principals of Francisco
Ferrer.
June 3, 1918 - A federal child labor law that had
been enacted in 1916 was declared unconstitutional. A new version was enacted
on February 24, 1919, but was also later declared unconstitutional. It was not
until the 1930s that child labor provisions were enacted as part of sweeping
labor law reforms, though exploitation of children continues to be a problem in
the United States today). (From Workday Minnesota)
May 23, 1827
–The first American nursery school was established in New York City as a
way to “relieve parents of the laboring classes” and offer their
children “protection from idleness” and other evils that typically
infected the rabble. (From the Daily Bleed)
Statue of Sam Sharpe, Montego Bay (Image by Pozole, wikipedia)
May 23, 1832
– Jamaican national hero Samuel Sharpe was executed. He was an
instigator of the 1831 Slave Rebellion which was largely instrumental in
bringing about an end to slavery. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 23, 1838 – The second "Trail of Tears" began, resulting in the deaths of over 4,000 relocated Cherokee. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 23, 1871
– The "Bloody Week" (Semaine Sanglante) entered its third day, as the
citizens of the The Paris Commune were slaughtered by government troops.
(From the Daily Bleed)
May 23, 1903 – Thousands of children went on strike in the textile mills of Philadelphia. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 23, 1933 -
The "Battle of Toledo" erupted when sheriffs' arrested picket leaders
at the Auto-Lite plant in Toledo, Ohio, and beat an old man. 10,000
strikers blockaded the plant for seven hours, preventing strikebreakers
from leaving. Ultimately, the crowd was broken up with tear gas and
water cannons. The National Guard was called in the following day. The
strikers held their ground against the troops, who shot and killed two
of their members and wounding 15 others, winning union recognition and a
5% raise after two weeks on the picket line. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)
May 23, 1963 – Congress passed the first law to ensure women equal pay for equal work. The legislation was originally submitted in 1947. (From the Daily Bleed)
May 23, 2006
– Angry garment workers in Bangladesh set fire to seven textile
factories in and around the capital in the wake of the police killing of
a worker during recent protests for better pay and working conditions. (From the Daily Bleed)
Utah Phillips at Haymarket Martyrs Memorial on 100th Anniversary, 1986
May 23, 2008 –Labor folk singer and IWW member U. Utah Phillips (1935-2008) died. (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 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)
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)
December 8, 1886 - The American Federation of Labor was organized in Columbus, Ohio, growing out of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, which started in 1881 in Pittsburgh. From its very beginning, the AFL represented nearly half a million workers, fighting for the eight-hour workday, an end to child labor and compensation for workers injured on the job. (From Workday Minnesota)
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)
September 27, 1875 - Textile workers struck in Fall River, Massachusetts, demanding bread for their starving children. Approximately one in six children between the ages of 10 and 15 was working during the second half of the 19thcentury, primarily in textile mills, print shops, coal mines and factories. (FromWorkday Minnesota)
September 27, 1940 – FDR met with A. Philip Randolph, president of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Walter White, executive secretary NAACP, and T. Arnold Hill, acting secretary of the National Urban League, to demand the desegregation of the armed forces. (From the Daily Bleed)
September 27, 1950 – President Truman ordered the U.S. Army to seize the nation's railroads to prevent a General Strike. The railroads were held by the military for two years. (From the Daily Bleed)
September 27, 1954 - A U.S. Senate Committee censured Joe McCarthy, bringing to an end the witch hunts (not). (From Workday Minnesota)
Our Infallible Tests Have Identified You As A Textile Worker, So Get to Work!
For
generations, Madison Avenue has marketed toys, sugary cereals and other
products directly to children, through television, radio, billboards and
product placement in stores at children’s eye level even though most of these
products are bought by their parents. The reason why they do this is obvious to
most of us: if you can get the kids excited about a product they will nag and
cajole their parents, whine, argue that their friends’ parents do it, throw
tantrums, and try just about everything they can come up with to get their
parents to buy it.
Now the
people at the ACT testing service are developing
a tool that will test children as young as five to determine their
career interests and academic performance, according to Good
Education. The results of these tests can then be used to market career
training curriculum, toys and games to young children. The results would also likely
be used to direct students into certain career pathways at a much younger age
than is currently done, well before they have had the experiences and education
necessary to really know what all of their interests are.
Just because
a child performs well in a particular subject does not mean the child necessarily
wants to (or should) pursue a career in that field. Conversely, just because a
child is currently performing poorly in a particular subject at the K-5 level
does not mean that child cannot later develop proficiency in that subject and
go on to have a successful career in it. Yet by pigeon holing children at an
early age, educators run the risk of overemphasizing areas where the child already
has competency at the expense of areas where the child really needs support and
good teaching, thus depriving that child of a thorough, well-balanced
education.
Perhaps the
most disturbing aspect of this scheme is its emphasis on careers, particularly
at such a young age. Younger children tend to like school, and they like it
best when it provokes their curiosity and creativity. As they get older, school
and especially work often feel like tedious chores. Dumping a lot of testing,
test preparation and now career training on younger children has the potential stifle
their creativity and dampen their curiosity, making school seem a tedious chore
much earlier.
So why is a
testing service like ACT really interested in career testing at the K-5 level?
It is certainly not because they care about children’s future career success.
They must be aware that most people change jobs numerous times over the course
of their lives and that few people can identify the career of their dreams even
by the time they’ve declared their undergraduate major, let alone in elementary
school. Likewise, they have certainly heard the current mantra that we’re preparing students
today for jobs that have not yet been invented. So how is it possible to
identify kindergartners’ career aptitudes and interests for these jobs?
Of course
ACT is in the business of selling tests. The more tests they can sell, the more
money they can earn. Thus by creating tests for K-5 students that were
previously only given to high school students, ACT vastly increases it
profitability.
Preparing elementary
school students now for a future career that may or may not happen has the
added bonus of conditioning them at an early age to accept a future of
drudgery, rules and obsequiousness, thus making them more saleable as future
employees and less likely to resist inequality and injustice. Then again, this
has always been the primary function of public education. ACT has merely come
up with a new way to profit from it before kids have graduated from high school.
Perhaps the
unions should consider marketing labor history and pro-union curriculum to
elementary schools, too.
July 7, 1903
– The "March of the Mill Children" began, led by Mary Harris “Mother”
Jones, from Philadelphia to Teddy Roosevelt’s summer home in Oyster Bay,
Long Island. The goal of the march was to publicize the terrible
conditions for children laborers and to demand a 55 hour work week.
July 7, 1882
- Striking longshoremen in New York City held a meeting to plan how to
keep new immigrants from scabbing on them. They were successful, at
least temporarily, as 500 newly arrived Jews marched straight from the
ship to the union hall on July 14. The following day, 250 Italian
immigrants stopped scabbing on the railroad and joined the union. (From Workday Minnesota)
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