Labor History Timeline--The 1960s and 70s

1962    Federal Workers Granted Right to Unionize. (Sources:UHWO)

1964    Civil Rights Act Bans Workplace Discrimination. (Sources:UHWO)

1965    Delano Grape Strike: The predominantly Filipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee launched the strike, but it was soon joined by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta’s Mexican-American National Farmworkers Association. The two groups eventually united to form the United Farmworkers (UFW). The union also initiated a nationwide grape boycott that lasted five years and ended with the first union contract for U.S. farm workers outside of Hawaii. (Sources: UHWO, Workday Minnesota)

1968    78 Miners Killed at Consolidated Coal Mines, West Virginia. (Sources: UHWO)

1968    Martin Luther King Assassinated while supporting the AFSCME Sanitation Strike, Memphis. (Sources: UHWO,Wikipedia)

1970    Postal Strike:  The first mass postal strike in U.S. history began when carriers in Manhattan and Brooklyn walked off the job, but quickly spread to 210,000 of the nation’s 750,000 mail carriers. (Sources: UHWO, AFGE)

Trailer for “Harlan County, USA”

1972    Bloody Coal Strike (Again) in Harlan County: Miners struck the Duke Power Company in Harlan County, Kentucky, the sight of numerous bloody strikes in the past (including the Battle of Evarts, 1931). (Sources: UHWO, Wikipedia, The Atlantic)

1974    Karen Silkwood Killed: Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union activist Karen Silkwood was assassinated during her investigation of a Kerr-McGee nuclear plant in Oklahoma. Her car was run off the road while she attempted to deliver documents to a New York Times reporter. (Sources: UHWO,Workday Minnesota)

1975    Jimmy Hoffa Disappears: (Sources: UHWO)        

Gates Buying Candidates for Teachers Unions

United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) just had one of its most contested elections ever for its decision-making body, the House of Representatives. 396 candidates fought for 209 positions, with 100 seats taken by rookie representatives, according to the LA Times. Many of these new delegates were sponsored by outside groups, like Educators 4 Excellence and Teach Plus. Another sponsoring organization, Teachers for a New Unionism, is headed by Mike Stryer, former activist with NewTLA, a conservative opposition movement that formed within UTLA a few years ago.

Each of these groups receives funding from free market education reform nonprofits, including the Gates Foundation and each wants to make the union focus more on the “interests of students” (weakening teachers’ job protections and working conditions). They have also been strong backers of Value Added evaluations and abolishing or weakening seniority.

On the one hand, serious union activists and teachers should be concerned that corporate money is being used to undermine their organizing efforts. On the other hand, this really isn’t anything new. Employers routinely interfere in organizing efforts, harass organizers, punish or fire employees who engage in union activities, and bombard them with misinformation about unions. The bosses just hadn’t been so effective at fielding their own candidates in union elections.

At the same time, UTLA veterans and other union bureaucrats and dinosaurs should consider why so many young teachers are either disillusioned with their unions or allying themselves with corporate Ed Deformers. A union that effectively fights for the interests of all their members should have no problem winning younger teachers over to their side or convincing them of the naiveté and self-destructiveness of these corporate alliances. It is true that UTLA must counter an effective anti-union propaganda machine. However, UTLA, like most other teachers unions, has contributed to its own negative image by making so many compromises with the enemy while doing little to support young teachers, who are often the first to go during layoffs.

Today in Labor History—January 9

Kropotkin, 1870

January 9, 1883 – In Lyon, France the trial continued for the 68 anarchists accused of inciting workers’ strikes and the abolition of property. The anarchists included Peter Kropotkin, Emile Gautier, Toussaint Bordat and Joseph Bernard. (From the Daily Bleed)

Karel Capek

January 9, 1890 -- Karel Capek, internationally renowned Czech novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, was born on this date in Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now in Czech Republic). Two of his best known works includeR.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which first introduced the word “robot,” and War with the Newts, which ridicules Nazi-Germany and fascism. (From theDaily Bleed)

Louise Michel in Uniform

January 9, 1905 – French anarchiste Louise Michel died on this date. Michel was a leader in the Paris Commune & co-founder of the Women's Battalion. Founder of the journal "Le libertaire" with Sébastien Faure. 100,000 mourners attended her funeral. (From the Daily Bleed)

Bloody Sunday massacre, St Petersburg

January 9, 1905 – Russia’s "Bloody Sunday" occurred on this date, with revolution breaking out in St. Petersburg. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 9, 1939 – The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union led a Missouri Highway sit-in of 1,700 tenant families. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 9, 1997 -- South Korea's primary labor group called the biggest strike in the nation's history to protest a controversial new labor law. (From the Daily Bleed)

11,000 Educators Fired in December

Clean Up Your Act Teachers or You're Out! (Image from Flickr, by  emilydickensonridesabmx)

The Great Recession has been officially over for more than three years, but the plunder of the public sector and middle class wealth continues. According to the Department of Labor, more than 13,000 public sector workers were laid off in December, more than 11,000 of whom were teachers or other school employees (see WSWS).

This is unusual. Typically, teacher layoff notices go out in February or March in anticipation of coming budget shortfalls, giving teachers the summer to look for work (or to be rehired, as often occurs when revenue picks up). Mid-year layoffs are an indication just how desperate many school districts are, with states continuing to have large deficits and the feds continuing to do nothing about it.

Indeed, by ignoring the problem, state and federal governments facilitate the deterioration of public education, making it easier to argue that it is broken beyond repair, or that it can only be repaired through privatization. Since 2008, the private sector has hired about 725,000 new workers, while the public sector has lost almost the same number of jobs (again, see WSWS)—a statistic that is largely due to the divestment of tax dollars from the public sector. Obama, despite receiving early endorsements and massive support from the NEA and AFT, has made no indication that he intends to help struggling school districts.

Many cities are shuttering their schools and selling off their facilities or the operation of their schools to private for-profit education management organizations (EMOs). According to the WSWS, Philadelphia plans to close 36 schools. Detroit has closed dozens of schools over the past few years, with former financial manager Robert Bobb attempting to close half the city’s schools in 2011. Many of the closed schools were sold or rented to private charter school operators. Recently, secret leaked documents revealed that Chicago has been planning to close or consolidate as many as 95 schools, with many of them going to private charter operators. New Orleans already has 70% of its students attending charter schools.

As schools close and teachers are let go, the teachers unions lose members and strength, something they seem unwilling or unable to fight. In fact, the social contract union leaders have made with the bosses to keep their members on the job at all costs (not to mention the no-strike clauses in many of their contracts and state prohibitions against public sector strikes) has effectively stymied the unions and is leading to their own downfall. The laid off teachers, however, are free to sell their labor to the highest bidder—Increasingly nonunionized private charter school operators that pay less and require far more work than the traditional public schools.

Labor History Timeline--WWII and the Post-War Wave of Strikes and Federal Suppression

1941    No Strike Pledges by AFL and CIO: The major unions sold out their members in the name of fighting fascism. (Sources:UHWO)

1943    Smith-Connally Act: The law restricted labor bargaining and organizing, required cooling off periods, imposed criminal penalties for encouraging strikes and allowed the president to seize control of struck plants. (Sources: UHWO)

1944    Port Chicago Mutiny, San Francisco Bay Area: Munitions exploded while mostly black sailors were loading ships, killing 320 and injuring 390. Unsafe working conditions continued after the disaster, prompting hundreds of the sailors to stop working and refuse to load anymore munitions. 50 of them were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to long prison terms, though the majority were released after a year and a half. (Sources:Wikipedia)

1945-1946       400,000 Miners & 750,000 Steelers Went on Strike—Part of the largest strike wave in U.S. history. At one point there were 1.6 million workers simultaneously on strike. By the end of the year, more than 4.5 million workers had deliberately stopped working. During World War II, most major unions signed no-strike pledges. As a result, there were numerous grievances and conflicts that had been building up during the war that came to a head in 1945-1946. The number of union members in the U.S. also doubled from 7 million in 1940, to 14.5 million by the war’s end. During the strike wave, over 400,000 coal miners struck, along with 750,000 steelworkers, 70,000 teamsters, 300,000 meatpackers, 175,000 electrical workers and nearly 50,000 petroleum workers and machinists. (Sources: Daily Kos, New York Times, Marxists.org, Counter Punch)

1945    Navy Seizes Oil Refineries: In October, Truman used the navy to seize half of the nation’s refining capacity to break a post-war strike in 20 states. (Sources: Lutins.org, Jeremy Brecker)

1946    Government Seizes Railways: In May, rail workers decided to join the miners and steelers. Such a strike threatened to bring the economy to a standstill as it would have significantly reduced the transport of goods. President Truman seized the railroads to break the strike, threatening to use the army to run the lines until the workers settled. (Sources: UHWO, Bits of News)

1946    Rochester General strike: The Rochester City Council fired nearly 500 city workers on May 15, 1946 for forming a union and then started to mass arrest picketers and organizers on May 21-23, provoking a General Strike later that month. (sources:Rochester Labor, Daily Kos)

1946    Oakland General Strike: The last General Strike in the U.S. occurred in 1946 in Oakland, California. The strike came in response to the anti-labor policies of Hastings and Kahn’s department stores in downtown Oakland. Hundreds of store clerks (mostly women) went on strike in late October. The store enlisted the police to clear away strikers and protect strike-breaking scabs. On December 3, 100,000 workers throughout Oakland joined the strike. The AFL eventually voted to walkout in solidarity with the clerks. However, Harry Bridges, who was then head of the California CIO, refused to become involved, while the AFL quickly brokered a sellout deal on December 5, when the city manager agreed not to use police to bring in scabs deal—a deal that angered of many store clerks and teamsters who continued to picket (Modern School, Counterpunch, Libcom).

1946    More General Strikes: Less well-known General Strikes also occurred in 1946 in Stamford, CT, and Lancaster, PA. (Sources:Jeremy Brecker)

1947    Taft-Hartley Act: This anti-labor law, which was passed in 1947, banned the General Strike, solidarity or sympathy strikes, and secondary boycotts. It prohibited closed union shops and opened the door to “right-to-work” legislation. President Truman, whose veto was overridden, called it an “intrusion on free speech.” The law also permits the president to obtain a strike-breaking injunction by claiming that national security is threatened by the strike. Many believe Taft-Hartley was a direct response by capital to the upheavals of the recent Oakland General Strike and the coal and steel strikes. (Wikipedia,Modern School)

1950    Army Seizes Railroads: Truman once again seized the railroads—this time to block a General Strike from occurring. The army occupied the railroads for two years before handing them back to their owners. (Sources: AFGE)

1952    Army Seizes Steel Mills: Truman also used the army to avert a major strike in the steel mills. The Supreme Court later ruled the move unconstitutional.  (Sources: AFGE)

1955    AFL and CIO merge: Two large pro-business unions merge into one mega-pro-business union hell bent on avoiding strikes and keeping production flowing.

1959    Longest Steel Strike in U.S. History: 90% of U.S. steel production was halted for 116 days. Eisenhower used Taft-Hartley to force the steelworkers back to work. (Sources:UHWO, Wikipedia)

Today in Labor History—January 8

January 8, 1811 – A slave uprising occurred on this date in New Orleans. (From the Daily Bleed)

Mary Kenney O'Sullivan (from I Am Woman blog)

January 8, 1864 – Mary Kenney O'Sullivan (1864-1943) was born on this date in Hannibal, Missouri. O’Sullivan was the first American Federation of Labor (AFL) woman organizer. She also organized the Woman's Bookbinder Union in 1880 and was a founder of the National Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL) in 1903. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 8, 1883 – In Lyon, France the trial of the anarchists known as "the 66" began on this date. "The 66" were accused of promoting workers' strikes and the abolition of the rights of property, family, fatherland and religion. Leaders like Peter Kropotkin, Emile Gautier, Joseph Bernard and Toussaint Bordat received four years in prison, while 39 of their cohorts received sentences ranging from six months to three years. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 8, 1892 – An anarchist revolt occurred in Andalusia involving hundreds of farm laborers who took the town of Jerez. The uprising was quickly subdued and its leaders captured and tortured. Four were sentenced to death and executed on February 10. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 8, 1933 – An anarchist uprising began in Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia. While the northern uprising was quickly suppressed, another anarchist uprising broke out in the Andalusian town of Casas Viejas on January 11. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 8, 1969 – In San Jose, California, teachers joined with striking students to oppose the Vietnam War. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 8, 1991 – 200 Teamsters leaders held a "Labor for Peace" meeting to oppose the Gulf War, New York City. (From the Daily Bleed)

Labor History Timeline--The Era of Depression and General Strikes

1933    National Industrial Recovery Act (NiRA): Companies that abided by NiRA codes for minimum wages and maximum working hours could not only skirt anti-trust laws, but could also enforce open shops and discriminate against union activists and workers of color. (Sources: WSWS, International Socialist Review)

Toledo General Strike

1934    Toledo General Strike: 2 workers were killed and over 200 were injured during the Auto-Lite strike in Toledo, Ohio. The auto strike began in February, 1934, with as many as 10,000 other employed and unemployed Toledo workers joining the General Strike in May. During the General Strike, there was a five-day running battle between thousands of workers and the Ohio National Guard. Workers fought the police and National Guardsmen with their fists and with bricks (sometimes firing them with slingshots made from inner tubes). The strike ended when public outrage over the brutality against the workers forced Auto-Lite to recognize the union and offer employees a 5% raise. (Sources: Wikipedia, WSWS)

SF General Strike

1934    San Francisco General Strike: The longshoremen’s strike, which began as a strike for a union hiring hall and union recognition, started on May 9 and lasted 83 days, leading ultimately to the unionization of all West Coast ports. After World War One, West Coast long shore workers were poorly organized or represented by company unions. The IWW had tried to organize them with some successes, like in San Pedro, in 1922, but they were ultimately crushed by injunctions, imprisonment, deportation and vigilante violence. While longshoremen lacked a well-organized union, they retained a syndicalist sentiment and militancy. On May 9, 1934, longshoremen walked off the job at ports up and down the West Coast, soon to be followed by sailors. 2 strikers were shot dead by the bosses’ goons in San Pedro. There was also violence in Oakland and San Francisco. Street battles between the cops and strikers continued in San Francisco, heating up on July 3, and culminating in Bloody Thursday, on July 5, when 3 workers were shot by police (two of them died). The attack led to a four-day general strike that effectively shut down commerce in San Francisco, despite police violence and attempts to weaken it by national unions. (From the Daily Bleed, Workday Minnesota and Wikipedia)

1934    Minneapolis General Strike: grew out of a Teamsters strike that began May 16. On Friday, July 20, 150 police opened fire on striking workers as they attempted to block a scab truck, killing two and injuring 67 others. That night, 15,000 workers protested, followed by a citywide strike of all transport workers on July 23. The next day, roughly 100,000 people participated in a march. On July 26, martial law was declared. Picketing and rallies were banned, while union leaders were arrested or and ordered to leave town. However, the strike was costing employers millions of dollars and the strike was ultimately settled with the employers recognizing the teamsters and offering workers a modest raise. (Sources: WSWS, Wikipedia)

1934    Eastern Textile General Strike: Over 400,000 textile workers participated in what was one of the largest strikes in U.S. history up until that point. The strike came in response to attacks by employers exploiting the new National Industrial Recovery Act (NiRA, see above), which allowed the mills to slash hours and weekly pay by 25%. In response, a General Strike of textile workers began on September 1 that spread throughout the South and the Eastern Seaboard.  The authorities in the various affected states responded by calling in National Guards, deputizing citizens, declaring martial law and other heavy handed tactics that resulted in numerous deaths and dozens of arrests. The workers’ ultimate defeat left most of the South non-unionized for the next 50 years. (Sources: International Socialist Review, North Carolina History Project, Wikipedia)

1935    The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) Foundedon November 9, 1935, as an opposition movement within the AFL (which expelled the CIO in 1938). Important founding members included the Steelworkers, Auto Workers and Textile Workers. The CIO ultimately merged with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1955 to form the AFL-CIO.  (Sources: International Socialist Review, Workday Minnesota)

1935    Wagner Act: A wave of strikes and labor turmoil during the Great Depression paved the way for the Wegner Act—also known as the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which legitimized unions, but also created rules by which they had to abide, promoting the bureaucratization and timidity of union leadership. Even with the rules of NLRA strongly favoring the bosses, they fought it tooth and nail, finally winning passage of the Taft Hartley Act, in 1947, which weakened NLRA by blocking unions from engaging in secondary boycotts, solidarity actions with other unions, and general strikes.  (Sources: Modern School)

1937    GM Sit-Down Strike: GM recognized the United Autoworkers (UAW) after their famous 44-day sit-down strike in Flint, MI. The Flint strike was actually preceded by two days when workers at the Fisher Body plant in Cleveland launched a sit-down strike. During the Flint strike, 5,000 armed workers circled the plant to protect the workers inside. Following police attacks with tear-gas, workers fought back with fire hoses. 13 workers were injured by police gunfire. By the time the National Guard arrived, sympathy strikes had spread to GM plants across the country, with 44,000 autoworkers participating. (Sources: Workday Minnesota, Daily Bleed)

Battle of the Overpass, National Archives

1937    Battle of the Overpass: United Auto Workers were attacked by Ford security forces. UAW organizers Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen were badly beaten, swaying public opinion in favor of the UAW. (Sources Wikipedia)

Memorial Day Massacre, National Archives

1937    Memorial Day Massacre: The Chicago police shot and killed 10 unarmed protesting workers during the “Little Steel Strike.” 30 others were injured, including 9 who were permanently disabled. Most were shot in the back as they fled. No police officers were ever prosecuted. (From Wikipedia, WSWS)

1938    Hilo Massacre: On August 1, 1938, police opened fire on 200 unarmed trade unionists protesting the unloading of a ship in Hilo Harbor, on the Big Island of Hawaii, in what became known as "the Hilo Massacre." The protest was in support of striking waterfront workers. 50 workers were injured. Police also used tear gas and bayonets. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—January 7

Semana Tragica

January 7, 1919 – This date marked the beginning of Argentina’s "Bloody Week" (AKA Tragic Week) in Buenos Aires. Workers (led by Italian anarchists) were demonstrating for the 8-hour work day and were fired upon by the authorities, leaving four dead and nearly 30 wounded. Clashes with the authorities on the day of the funerals left another 50 dead. A General Strike was called and strikers were attacked by trade union reformists and paramilitary groups collaborating with the police. By January 16 the strike was crushed, with as many as 700 dead and 2000 wounded, many of whom were Jewish-Russian immigrants targeted by racists and anti-Bolshevik hysteria.(From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

January 7, 1939 – Tom Mooney, a labor activist wrongly convicted of murder in the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing in July 1916, was freed after 22 ½ years in jail, granted an unconditional pardon by Governor Culbert Olson.(From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—January 6

January 6, 1878 - Author-poet Carl Sandburg was born on this date in Galesburg, Illinois. Sandburg worked as a labor organizer, published in the International Socialist Review and later worker for the Chicago Daily News. The Feds accused him of being a Bolshevik symp, when he was actually just a working class symp. Sandburg died on July 22, 1967. (From the Daily Bleed and Workday Minnesota)

WORKING GIRLS (by Carl Sandburg)

THE working girls in the morning are going to work--
     long lines of them afoot amid the downtown stores
     and factories, thousands with little brick-shaped
     lunches wrapped in newspapers under their arms.
Each morning as I move through this river of young-
     woman life I feel a wonder about where it is all
     going, so many with a peach bloom of young years
     on them and laughter of red lips and memories in
     their eyes of dances the night before and plays and
     walks.
Green and gray streams run side by side in a river and
     so here are always the others, those who have been
     over the way, the women who know each one the
     end of life's gamble for her, the meaning and the
     clew, the how and the why of the dances and the
     arms that passed around their waists and the fingers
     that played in their hair.
Faces go by written over: "I know it all, I know where
the bloom and the laughter go and I have memories,"
     and the feet of these move slower and they
     have wisdom where the others have beauty.
So the green and the gray move in the early morning
     on the downtown streets.

January 6, 1882 - The Toronto Labor Council voted to support equal pay for equal work. (From Workday Minnesota)

January 6, 1916 – A strike was called at the Youngstown Sheet & Tube plant by its 8,000 workers. On January 7, strikers were joined by their wives and other family members on the picket line. Company guards attacked the crowd with tear gas bombs and live fire killing three strikers and wounding 25 others.(From the Daily Bleed)

January 6, 1937 – The Abraham Lincoln Brigade formed to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War. Roughly 4,000 American men and women fought for the Republicans, most in violation of U.S. law. Nearly 2,000 of them died of wounds or disease. One of the casualties was Oliver Law, the first black man known to have commanded white U.S. troops. He led the Tom Mooney Machine-Gun Company (named for labor organizer Tom Mooney (see here,here and here), who spent years in prison on trumped up charges related to the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 6, 1970 – West Virginia miners launched a wildcat strike to protest the murder of their union reform leader Joseph "Jock" Yablonski. (From theDaily Bleed and Workday Minnesota)

January 6, 1975 – 12,000 workers struck at the Vaal Reefs gold mine in South Africa. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History--January 5

First Negro Labor Convention (From Harpers)

January 5, 1869 -- The First U.S. Negro Labor Convention was held on this date. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 5, 1914 - Ford raised its basic wage from $2.40 for a nine-hour day to $5 for an eight-hour day. (From Workday Minnesota)

Rosa Luxemburg

Karl Liebknecht

January 5, 1919 – The Spartacists, led by Karl Liebknecht & Rosa Luxemburg, led a revolt to renew the November revolution lasting 6 days (in Berlin). Both Liebknecht and Luxemburg were murdered by the so-called "democratic" left on January 15th. (From the Daily Bleed)

  

January 5, 1970 - Joseph "Jock" Yablonski, a United Mine Workers reform candidate who tried to unseat President Tony Boyle, was murdered, along with his wife and daughter, in their Pennsylvania home by assassins sent by Boyle who was later convicted of the killing.  (From Workday Minnesota)