Today in Labor History—June 28

Frame-Breaking by Luddites, 1812 (Frame-breaking was outlawed in 1721

)

June 28, 1816 –Luddites attacked the Heathcoat and Boden's Mill at Loughborough, smashing 53 frames worth £6,000. Troops were sent in. Six Luddites were executed. The attack was part of a general revival of violence and sabotage of machinery following a bad harvest. At this same time, 'Swing' riots erupted in the countryside as a protest against low wages, unemployment & the Game Laws.

Monument to the Potemkin Mutineers in Odessa

June 28, 1905 -- The mutinous crew of the battleship "Potemkin" entered the port of Odessa, which had been taken by revolutionaries. Workers' Councils formed.

June 28, 1914 – Austria's Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by the Serbian anarchist Gavrilo Princip, whose attentat was said to have set off World War I, which killed between 5 and 10 million soldiers.

June 28, 1916 – 50,000 workers staged a one day protest strike against the trial of Karl Leibnecht.

June 28, 1956 – 100,000 workers struck in Poznañ, Poland, shouting "Bread & Freedom. The protests were violently suppressed, with at least 67 workers killed. The government sends 10,000 soldiers to the city. The next day, another 70 would be killed, 700 would be arrested, and hundreds more would be wounded.

June 28, 1969 – Gay activists demonstrated in Sheridan Square and in front of the Stonewall Inn, where a riot occurred at 3 am earlier this morning when police raided the bar. Demonstrators were confronted by NYC Tactical Police.

(All from the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History-June 18

June 18, 1918 - The American Federation of Teachers issued a charter to the St. Paul Federation of Women Teachers Local 28, and then, one year later, the issued a charter to the men’s teachers’ local. Both locals participated in the first organized teachers’ strike in the nation, in 1946. (From Workday Minnesota)

Assassination of Kurt Wilckens in the Penitenciaría Nacional.

June 18, 1923 – A nationwide General Strike took place in Argentina in protest of the assassination of the anarchist Kurt Wilckens in his prison cell. Two workers were killed in the strike as police tried to raid the offices of the anarchist union (FORA (Fédération Ouvrière Régionale Argentine). (From the Daily Bleed)

June 18, 1954 – The US-CIA supported coup against Arbenz in Guatemala was completed.  (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 15

June 15, 1381 – Rebel leader Wat Tyler (1350-1381) was executed, Smithfields, London. (From the Daily Bleed)

Aftermath of the first Battle of Bud Dajo

June 15, 1913 – U.S. troops finally ended the Moro Uprising (1899-1913) in the Philippines, with the extermination of 500 men, women and children. The Moros had refused to submit to American colonization and rose up against the colonialists. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 15, 1947 – The CIO expelled the Fur and Leather Workers and the American Communications Association for "communist" activities. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 15, 1950 – As part of their Cold War hysteria, the Senate opened an investigation of 3,500 alleged "sex perverts" (homosexuals) in the federal government, somehow overlooking their cross dressing darling, J. Edgar Hoover. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 15, 1950 – A General Strike against apartheid began in South Africa. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 14

June 14, 1381 – Wat’s Rebellion continues, with peasant rebels capturing London Bridge and the Tower of London and killing the English Chancellor and Treasurer. (From the Daily Bleed)

Antonio Maceo

June 14, 1848 –Cuban revolutionary and guerrilla leader Antonio Maceo was born (1848-1896). Known as the "Titan of Bronze," Maceo helped defeat the Spanish and win Cuban independence. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 14, 1877 – The First American Flag Day was declared by US government (on this 100th anniversary of the flag’s creation). Howard Zinn said, "There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." (From the Daily Bleed)

June 14, 1905 – A mutiny broke out on the Russian battleship Potemkin after sailors were shot for complaining about being served maggot-ridden meat. Civilians soon joined the mutineers in revolutionary actions that included the burning of granaries, quays and ships in harbor. The insurrection was part of the 1905 Russian Revolution in which the soviet (councilist) form first appeared. The mutiny was the basis for the seminal film by Sergei Eisenstein, with music scored by Dmitri Shostakovich. (From the Daily Bleed)

Battleship Panteleimon (formerly Potemkin)

 June 14, 1914 – An Italian General Strike was broken through the treason of the Socialists and their trade union, bringing an end to "The Red Week of Ancône." (From the Daily Bleed)

Sheriffs positioning themselves to attack miners during the Battle of Blair Mountain

June 14, 1921 – In West Virginia, which was under martial law due to ongoing violence between miners and thugs hired by the mining companies, state police and vigilantes raided the Lick Creek tent colony. 47 strikers were arrested. Within a few months, much of Southwester West Virginia would be engaged in the largest civil uprising in U.S. history, as 10,000-15,000 coal miners battled cops and scabs. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 14, 1924 – The IWW labor hall was raided in San Pedro, California. Children were scalded in the process and the hall was demolished. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 14, 1928 – Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was born (1928-1967).

June 14, 1964 - Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison in South Africa on this date. (From Workday Minnesota)

Dr. Benjamin Spock (MDC Archives)

 June 14, 1968 – Radical pediatrician and child-care expert Dr. Benjamin Spock was convicted of conspiring to counsel draft evasion. Spock, who was the target of political attacks and repression by the Nixon administration, refused to support the liberal McGovern and instead ran as the candidate of the People's Party. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 14, 2006 – State police attacked 50,000 striking teachers occupying streets Zocalo of Oaxaca. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 11

Richard II meets the rebels (from Froissart's Chronicles)

June 11, 1381 – A Peasant revolt broke out in England, calling for property to be held in common and equality for all. Also known as Wat Tyler's rebellion and marked the beginning of the end of serfdom. (From the Daily Bleed)

Wat Tyler's execution by Walworth, while Richard II watches

June 11, 1848 – The wave of European revolutions continued with the uprising in Prague. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 11, 1872 - Labor unions were legalized in Canada, following a Toronto printers' strike. (From Workday Minnesota)

Blockade of engines in W. Virginia (from Harpers)

 June 11, 1877 –The Great U.S. Railroad Strike began. (From the Daily Bleed)

Maryland national guard battling striking rail workers

 June 11, 1913 – Cops shot Black & White IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) members and AFL maritime workers who were striking against United Fruit company in New Orleans, killing one and wounding two. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 11, 1925 – During a mine workers strike against the British Empire Steel Corporation (BESCO) in Cape Breton, drunken company police attacked on horseback, beating all in their way. They then rode through the school yards, knocking down innocent children, cracking jokes that the miners were at home hiding under their beds. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 11, 1926 – The first 40-hour work week in the U.S. was won by New York fur workers. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 11, 1929 – Student strikers occupied buildings at the Universidad Nacional de Mexico. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 11, 1957 – Chinese students fought that cops and attacked the Communist Party HQ in Hang Yang. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 11, 1968 –May Days continued into June in France with ongoing strikes and protests. In the factories of Peugeot-Sochaux, two workers were killed by the hated CRS. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 11, 1973 – General Strike against General Franco was launched in Pamplona, Spain. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 11, 1974 – A labor dispute at the Chrysler Truck Facility erupted into a spontaneous wildcat strike lasting from June 11 through June 14. Two Dodge Truck strikers wrote, "[we wanted] to free ourselves from the tyranny of the workplace; stop being forced to sell our labor to others; stop others from having control over our lives." (From the Daily Bleed)

June 11, 1981 – The first baseball player's strike in major-league history began midseason. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 11, 2002 – Earth First! and IWW activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney won $4.4 million in a false-arrest lawsuit against Oakland police and the FBI. They had been arrested for blowing up their own car while they were in it. The jury unanimously found that six of the seven FBI and OPD defendants had deliberately framed Bari and Cherney in an effort to crush Earth First! and chill participation in Redwood Summer.

Today in Labor History—June 9

Women's Trade Union League Float, New York Labor Day Parade, 1908

June 9, 1865 - Labor activist Helen Marot was born. Marot was a librarian from a wealthy family in Philadelphia, who investigated working conditions among children and women. During her life she participated in numerous labor organizations, particularly those dedicated to the interests of women, such as the Women's Trade Union League and the Bookkeepers, Stenographers and Accountants Union in New York. She also organized and led the 1909-1910 Shirtwaist Strike in New York and was part of a commission that investigated the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire in 1912. (From Workday Minnesota)

June 9, 1902 – The US past anti-anarchist legislation designed to quell the rising power of anarchists in the labor movement. (From the Daily Bleed)

Crowd outside City Wall, Winnipeg, 1919, during General Strike

June 9, 1919 – The Winnipeg city council dismissed the police force during the General Strike. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 9, 1989 – Leaders of the student protests at Tiananmen Square were tried. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 6

A Rake's Progress, by William Hogarth, depicting a man's downfall to debtor's prison

June 6, 1778 – Debtors prisons were abolished in the U.S., though debtors continued to flourish and creditors came up with numerous other ways to punish them. (From the Daily Bleed)

U.S. Amphibious transport landing on Omaha Beach

 June 6, 1944 - British, U.S. and Canadian troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, for the suicidal assault known as D-Day. Over 150,000 men and 5,000 ships took part in the operation, with an estimated 10,000 allied troops dying. (From Workday Minnesota)

June 6, 1961 – A Military junta took over in South Korea. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 6, 1978 – Proposition 13 passed in California, allowing commercial property owners to maintain phenomenally low property tax rates and bleed the state of revenues for education and public services. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 6, 1982 – Israel invaded Lebanon, remaining until June 6, 1985. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 6, 1982 – An antinuclear rally at the Rose Bowl, in Pasadena, California, drew 85,000 people who heard Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Wonder and Tom Petty. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 6, 1988 – 2 million people participated in a 3-day General Strike in South Africa. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 6, 1989 – Citizens voted to shut down the Rancho Seco nuclear plant in Sacramento, California. There had been a near melt-down in 1985 that had been covered-up until after the Chernobyl disaster. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 6, 2000 – Brazilian Rancher Jeronimo Alves Amorim was sentenced to 19 years for ordering the murder of union leader Expedito Ribeiro de Souza. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 4

1850 – During June of 1850,  Mikhail Bakunin's death sentence in Germany was commuted to life imprisonment. (From the Daily Bleed)

1861 – During June of 1861 Mikhail Bakunin escaped from Siberia via the Amur River, and arrived in Nikolavsk in July, where he boarded an American merchant ship, Vickery, to Hakodate, Japan. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 4, 1904 – Members of the International Brotherhood of Paper Makers struck Wisconsin paper mills in. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 4, 1906—Francisco Ferrer (founder of the first Modern Schools) was arrested and imprisoned for participating in Mateo Morral’s assassination attempt against Spanish monarch Alfonso XIII. Ferrer was later released due to lack of evidence. Morral worked in Modern School’s publishing house and was a friend of Ferrer’s.

Nestor Makhno during the Ukranian Free Territory, 1919-1921

June 4, 1919 – The 4th (Ukrainian) Congress of Free Soviets, was banned by Leon Trotsky, Bolshevist troops were sent to destroy the Rosa Luxemburg Commune near Provkovski, and the Ukrainian anarchist insurgent Nestor Makhno was declared an outlaw. (From the Daily Bleed)

March in support of the Chilean socialist republic, 1932

June 4, 1932 -- Chilean politicians and the military carried out a coup d'etat, installing Marmaduke Grove, who declared Chile a "socialist republic." However, workers and were given no means to participate. Twelve days later, the military ended the "workers republic." (From the Daily Bleed)

Zoot Suits, 1942 (Library of Congress)

June 4, 1943 – The Zoot Suit riots began on this date in Los Angeles, with white soldiers attacking blacks & Hispanics. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 4, 1963 – Jimmy Hoffa and seven other members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, were indicted on charges of fraudulently obtaining $20 million in loans from a Teamsters Union Pension Fund. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 4, 1979 – The Sandinistas called for an "insurrectional general strike." (From the Daily Bleed)

June 4, 1989 – The Chinese army massacred at least 2,000 peacefully protesting students and workers in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 1

June 1 is the day that U.S. labor law officially allows children under the age of 16 to work up to 8 hours per day between the hours of 7:00 am and 9:00 pm. (From Workday Minnesota) Time is ticking away, Bosses. Have you signed up sufficient numbers of low-wage tykes to maintain production rates with your downsized adult staffs?

 

Tupac Amaru

June 1, 1572 – The Battle of Coyaochaca between Hurtado de Arbieto and the rebel army of Tupac Amaru was fought in Peru. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 1, 1771 – A crowd of women was arrested while destroying the fences around Rewhay Common, England, in attempt to resist the enclosures of the commons that was occurring throughout the coutnry. Another group of women marched to Burton-on-Trent where they freed their comrades. (From the Daily Bleed)

 

Arggghh, Matey, Nicaragua is My Personal Slave State!

June 1, 1855 – American pirate William Walker conquered Nicaragua, ceded it to the U.S. south, and reintroduced slavery. Walker was later captured and executed in Trujillo, Honduras. (From the Daily Bleed)

 

Captain Jack, Modoc Warrier

June 1, 1873 – Captain Jack, who led a band of 52 warriors against the U.S. army near Tule Lake, California, finally surrendered to U.S. troops. The fight was part of the Modoc Wars, in which the Modoc tribe (southern Oregon and Northern California) resisted domination by the U.S. Many of his own people had joined with the U.S. forces to help capture him. Captain Jack had led the most expensive Indian War in US history. (From the Daily Bleed, Wikipedia)

 

Cananea Riot, 1906

June 1, 1906 – The bloody Cananea copper miners' strike began in Sonora, Mexico. The miners were demanding 5 pesos a day and an 8-hour workday, commensurate with the U.S. citizens who were working with them side-by-side. As many as 100 miners were killed. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 1, 1909 – W. E. DuBois founded the NAACP. (From the Daily Bleed)

 

Raising of U.S. Flag as U.S. Occupied Veracruz

June 1, 1914 – 80 militia men refused to board a train as reinforcements for the U.S. invasion of Veracruz, Mexico. The U.S. ultimately occupied the region for six months because President Huerta refused to provide the U.S. with a 21-gun salute as an apology for arresting nine U.S. sailors. More significantly, Veracruz was an important oil port. Germany and Britain had been battling for its control. The occupation gave the U.S. greater influence on the still unfolding Mexican revolution, as well as the growing tensions in Europe. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 1, 1914 – U.S. troops arrived in Colorado to reclaim coal mines from striking miners, after the Colorado National Guard massacred 19 in the miners’ camp. 2 women and 11 children were among those killed. (From the Daily Bleed, and here and here)

June 1, 1916 – Pacific Coast longshoremen (ILA) struck up and down the Pacific coast. (From the Daily Bleed)

 

Propaganda Poster for the May 30th Movement

June 1, 1925 – The Shanghai General Strike began, as part of an ongoing labor insurgency occurring throughout China's industrial cities. The day prior, police opened fire on protesters. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 1, 1929 --A meeting of the Korean Anarchist Federation (KAF) was held in Peking in which it was decided to divert all resources outside Korea itself to Manchuria. Over 2 million Koreans were living in Manchuria at the time, and the KAF was a significant force. Their significance was short-lived, however, as the Japanese attacked from the south, while Stalinists attacked from the north. By 1931, many of the anarchist leaders were dead and the region was devastated. (From the Daily Bleed and The Korean Anarchist Movement)

June 1, 1942 - The Polish Socialist newspaper, Liberty Brigade, made the first public report that that the Nazis were gassing Jews by the thousands. In the article, they published an interview with a young Jew, Emanuel Ringelblum, who had escaped the Chelmno death camp. (From Workday Minnesota)

June 1, 1963 – The U.S. Supreme Court banned formal prayers and religious exercises from public schools. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 1, 1968 – Libertarian Socialist Helen Keller died in Westport, Connecticut. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 1, 1981 – Two Filipino longshore labor organizers, Domingo & Viernes, were assassinated in Seattle, Washington on orders of U.S.-backed dictator Ferdinand Marcos. (From the Daily Bleed)