Today in Labor History: April 18

Clarence Darrow, 1922 (Library of Congress)

April 18, 1857 - Clarence Darrow was born. Darrow was the lawyer who defended Eugene V. Debs and the Wobblies, as well as John Scopes, the teacher who was prosecuted for teaching evolution in the famous "Scopes Monkey Trial." (From Workday Minnesota)

April 18, 1888 - The 260 women laborers at Shotwell, Clerihew & Lothman walked out of the clothing factory in downtown Minneapolis to protest a pay cut. They became known as the “striking maidens of 1888,” inspiring women in the cause of social justice. (From Workday Minnesota)

April 18, 1906--The Great San Francisco earthquake struck, killing over 500 people and making over 250,000 people homeless.

 

April 18, 1908 – The IWW poem We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years was published in the Industrial Union Bulletin. (From the Daily Bleed and the IWW)

We have fed you all for a thousand years
& you hail us still unfed
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the workers dead
We have yielded our best to give you rest
& you lie on crimson wool
But if blood be the price of all your wealth
Good God we have paid in full...

April 18, 1912 – The National Guard was called out against striking West Virginia coal miners, initiating one of the most violent strikes in the nation's history (50 people were killed). UMWA miners were demanding to be paid the same as other area miners in the area and to have their union recognized. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 18, 1941-- New York bus companies agreed to hire black workers following a 4-week boycott.
(From the Daily Bleed)

 

April 18, 1977 – Native American activist Leonard Peltier was found guilty of murdering two FBI agents, in a kangaroo court dead set on locking the American Indian Movement activist up for life. Government witnesses testified that he was not even present at the scene of the killings. He was framed by undercover FBI agents who were present on the reservation to conduct counterintelligence. (From the Daily Bleed and the Leonard Peltier site).

Leonard Peltier is still in prison and his health is deteriorating. There is a petition to get him transferred from prison to Mayo clinic in Minnesota.

Today In Labor History: April 5

Élisée Reclus (Image from Wikipedia)

April 5, 1871—Élisée Reclus, was taken prisoner during the Paris Commune. (From the Daily Bleed)

April 5, 1954 - Workers struck the Kohler Company in Wisconsin. The walkout was part ongoing labor disputes that lasted 30 years at the company. There had also been strikes from 1934 to 1941 and another, from 1954 to 1960. The latest dispute lasted until December, 1965, with the company agreeing to pay $4.5 million in back wages and pension credits for committing numerous unfair labor practices. (From Work Day Minnesota. For more on the strike, see here and here)

April 5, 1989 - The United Mine Workers launched their strike against Pittston Coal Co., eventually winning concessions by Pittston on February 20, 1990. The strike started in response to Pittston’s termination of health care for widows, retirees and disabled veteran miners. During the strike, there were 2,000 miners camped out daily at Camp Solidarity, and up to 40,000 total engaging in wild cat strikes, civil disobedience, picketing, occupations and sabotage. The strike reduced Pittston’s production by two-thirds, while over 4,000 strikers were arrested during the strike. (From Workday Minnesota and Wikipedia)

Today in Labor History—February 19, 2012

February 19, 1855 – Bread riots occurred in Liverpool. (From the Daily Bleed)

Bread and Roses, sung by Joan Baez

 

February 19, 1912—During the Bread & Roses Strike in Lawrence, MA, 200 police drew their clubs and went after 100 women picketers, knocking them to the ground and beating them. Big Bill Haywood from the IWW urged women not to picket. An Italian woman suggests responded: “All man, boy stay home, sleep. Only woman, girl on picket line tomorrow morning. Soldier & policeman no beat woman, girl. You see, I got big belly, she too got big belly. Policeman no beat us." However, the next morning, the women were beaten so badly that the Italian woman quoted above and another pregnant striker lost their babies & almost died. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 19, 1927 – A General Strike occurred in Shanghai. (From the Daily Bleed)

Joseph Caruso, Joseph J. Ettor (center), and Arturo Giovannitti, in handcuffs, awaiting trial for Lawrence Strike, Wikipedia

 February 19, 1948 – Joe Ettor died on this date. Ettor was an IWW union organizer, who helped spearhead the Lawrence Bread & Roses Strike of 1912. "If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists. As long as the workers keep their hands in their pockets, the capitalists cannot put theirs there. With passive resistance, with the workers absolutely refusing to move, lying absolutely silent, they are more powerful than all the weapons and instruments that the other side has for attack." (From the Daily Bleed)

February 19, 1972 – The longest ILWU strike  ended on this date. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 19, 1986 – The Farm Labor Organizing Committee signed an agreement with Campbell Soup, ending a seven-year-old boycott. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 19, 1990 - After a 10-month strike, rank-and-file miners at the Pittston Coal Co. ratified a new contract. Ninety-eight miners and a minister occupied a Pittston Coal plant in Carbo, Virginia, inaugurating the year-long strike. While a one month Soviet coal strike dominated the U.S. media, the year-long Pittston strike received almost no media coverage. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

February 19, 1997 – 1,200 rallied in support of the striking musicians union, forcing the cancellation of the opening night Disney production of "Beauty & the Beast" at 5th Ave. Theater in Seattle, Washington. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—December 14

Daneil DeLeon, 1902 (from Wikipedia, public domain)

December 14, 1852 -- Daniel DeLeon was born on this date in Curacao, West Indies. DeLeon was one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He was also a leader of the pro-political action faction within the IWW that hoped to create socialism through the ballot box. Soon after the founding of the IWW, his faction lost out to the pro-Direct Action faction, led by Big Bill Haywood, and eventually broke off to form the short-lived Workers International Industrial Union. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

Errico Malatesta (from Wikipedia, public domain)

 December 14, 1853 – Italian anarchist theorist and militant Errico Malatestawas born on this date in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Naples. (From the Daily Bleed )

December 14, 1957 – Dave Beck, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, was convicted of embezzling from his own union. (From the Daily Bleed )

Polish 1970 protests in Gdynia: body of  Zbyszek Godlewski) carried by the demonstrators.(from Wikipedia, public domain)

 December 14, 1970 – Strikes began in Gdansk, Poland, and spread to Gdynia, Szczecin, other industrial centers, with widespread factory occupations. Rioting toppled the Communist government, only to see it replaced with a new military regime. Labor resistance and protest continued in Gdansk, leading to the formation of Solidarnosc, which toppled the Communist government once and for all in the 1980s. (From the Daily Bleed )

December 14, 1992 – 300,000 coal workers struck against Poland’s "Solidarity" government. (From the Daily Bleed )

December 14, 1995 – 33,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers ended a 69-day strike at Boeing, winning increases in pay and health benefits and job protections against subcontracting.. (From Workday Minnesota)

Today in Labor History—November 20

Zumbi dos Palmares bust, Brasilia (image by Elza Fiúza/Agencia Brasil, creative commons)

November 20, 1695 – Zumbí, head of the Quilombo de Palmares, was assassinated on this date. Palmares was the largest and longest lasting Quilombo (community of freed slaves) in Brazil. Estimates range from 11,000 to more than 20,000 inhabitants living in Palmares during its height. The community lasted for more than 100 years. Members of Palmares routinely raided plantations, freeing slaves and brutally slaughtering their masters. Palmares was portrayed in the 1984 film, Quilombo, directed by Carlos Diegues.

Capoiera, or the Dance of War, by Johann Moritz Rugendas (1835)

November 20, 1896 – Rose Pesotta, anarchist labor activist and the only woman on the General Executive Board of the International Ladies' Garment Workers (ILGWU), from 1933-1944, was born on this date. (From the Daily Bleed)

Ricardo Flores Magon, portrait

 November 20, 1922 – Ricardo Flores Magón died on this date in Leavenworth, prison. Maginm with his brother Enrique, founded and edited the anarchist paper Regeneracion, founded the Partido Liberal de Mexico, organized with the IWW, and launched a short-lived revolution in Baja California, in which IWW members from the U.S. participated. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 20, 1936 -- Buenaventura Durutti, anarchist militant, was shot in the lung yesterday, and died this morning. Durutti's body was buried in Barcelona, in a ceremony attended by somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 people. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 20, 1946 – Bituminous coal workers went on strike directly against the US government, which had seized all the bituminous coal mines on May 21. The government secured an injunction against the strike, resulting in $3.5 million fine against the UMW. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 20, 1968 - The Consolidated Coal Company’s No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia, exploded, killing 78 miners. (From Workday Minnesota)

Today in Labor History—July 10

Striking Railroad Workers Confronting National Guard

 July 10, 1894 – The Pullman strike was put down by 14,000 federal and state troops. Over the course of the strike, federal troops killed 34 American Railway Union members in the Chicago area. Eugene Debs and many others were imprisoned during the strike for violating injunctions. (From the Daily Bleed)

July 10, 1902 –A coal mine explosion in Johnstown, Pennsylvania killed 112 workers. (From the Daily Bleed)

July 10, 1917 – The Jerome Deportation occurred in Arizona, a precursor to the more infamous Bisbee Deportation that occurred on July 12, 1917. (From the Daily Bleed)