make sure y'all take a look at the thread i posted about #PuertoRico's #SummerOfProtest; the largest #GeneralStrike in the history of the island and the United States. lasted 12-15 days (depending on who is counting) and it ended with the then governor of Puerto Rico, the nepobaby Ricardo (Ricky) Rosselló giving in his resignation and fleeing the island.
“There was a time in the history of France when the poor found themselves oppressed to such an extent that forbearance ceased to be a virtue, and hundreds of heads tumbled into the basket. That time may have arrived with us.”
A cooper said this to a crowd of 10,000 workers in St. Louis, Missouri in July, 1877. He was referring to the Paris Commune, which happened just six years prior. Like the Parisian workers, the Saint Louis strikers openly called for the use of arms, not only to defend themselves against the violence of the militias and police who were sent to crush their strike, but for outright revolutionary aims.
The Great Upheaval was the first major worker uprising in the United States. It began in the fourth year of the Long Depression which, in many ways, was worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. It lasted twenty-three years and included four separate financial panics. In 1873, over 5,000 business failed. Over one million Americans lost their jobs. In the following two years, another 13,000 businesses failed. Railroad workers’ wages dropped 40-50%. And one thousand infants were dying each week in New York City.
By 1877, workers had suffered four years of wage cuts and layoffs. In July, the B&O Railroad slashed wages by 10%, their second wage cut in eight months. On July 16, 1877, the trainmen of Martinsburg, West Virginia, refused to work. They occupied the rail yards and drove out the police. Local townspeople backed the strikers and came to their defense. The militia tried to run the trains, but the strikers derailed them and guarded the switches with guns. They halted all freight movement, but continued moving mail and passengers, to successfully maintain public support.
Today in Labor History March 30, 1990: Harry Bridges died at age 88. He helped found the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) and led the union for 40 years. Bridges was born in Australia in 1901 and moved to the U.S. in 1920. He joined the IWW in 1921 and participated in an unsuccessful nationwide seamen’s strike. In 1922, he moved to San Francisco, to become a longshoreman. His militancy won him considerable support and he was soon elected a leader of the new longshoremen’s union. He helped lead the 1935 San Francisco General Strike. This was one of the last General Strikes to occur in the U.S. because the Taft-Hartley Act banned them in 1947 (in the wake of the 1945-1946 Strike Wave, with over 4.3 million U.S. workers going on strike, including General Strikes in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Stamford, Connecticut; Rochester, New York; and Oakland, California). One of Bridge’s most famous quotes was, “The most important word in the language of the working class is solidarity.
So..It’s time for a change…
Raise your voice to the air
It’s time for a change
Revolution is here
This is our song,
our rights now expressed
There’s power in our voice
There’s strength in our words
When the whole world is silent,
Our voice must be heard.
This is our song #Revolution is set
For the festival of the #oppressed https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=9F_coLFmerg
Today in Labor History March 20, 1985: The Bolivian authorities sent in the army to crush a General Strike. Workers had launched the strike in response to austerity measures by the Siles Zuazo administration. They demanded higher wages, stable food supplies, price controls and the president’s resignation. At the time, inflation was 3,400%. 10,000 miners filled the streets of La Paz each day. The General Strike lasted 16 days and spread to Santa Cruz and Chuquisaca. On March 24, the miners accepted a government offer to quadruple the minimum wage. They eventually forced Zuazo to resign.
Today in Labor History March 14, 1954: Salt of the Earth premiered. The film depicted the 1951 strike of Mexican-American workers at the Empire Zinc mine, in New Mexico. The film was one of the first to portray a feminist political point of view, particularly through Actress Rosaura Revueltas’s role as Esperanza Quintero. When the Company uses the new Taft-Hartley Act (which also bans General Strikes) to impose an injunction preventing the men from picketing, their wives go walk the picket line in their places. LGBTQ and labor activist Will Geer also played in the film. Writer Michael Wilson, director Herbert Biberman and producer Paul Jarrico had all been blacklisted for their alleged communist ties. Only 13 of the 13,000 theaters in the U.S. showed the film.
Today in Labor History March 13, 1920: The Kapp Putsch attempted to overthrow the new German republic. While the government officials fled, workers launched a General Strike and refused to cooperate with the nationalists and royalists behind the coup attempt. The General Strike effectively ended the right-wing assault on the republic. However, it also inspired even more radical actions by the workers, including the Communist Ruhr Uprising, which lasted from March 13 through April 12. The government utilized the right-wing Freikorps to suppress the uprising, killing over 1,000 workers.
An injury to one is an injury to all. When one person faces harm or injustice, it threatens the well-being and freedom of all. We mustn't fight and compete with each other; that is how we stay subjugated. Cooperation and solidarity are the only way we will all be free, the only way we can live our lives to the fullest and bring as much pleasure to ourselves and our neighbors on this planet.
Workers unite! Form unions to gain collective strength against bosses. Recognize that harm to one worker reflects the systemic exploitation affecting all workers. We have a world to win!
Today in Labor History March 9, 1902: Actor Will Geer was born. Best known for his role as Grandpa Walton in the long-running series, “The Waltons,” Geer also appeared in the groundbreaking film, “Salt of the Earth,” which portrayed the struggle of Mexican American workers at the Empire Zinc Mine. Because of his activism on labor and political issues, he was blacklisted in Hollywood for many years. In 1934, he became a member of the Communist Party. He also met LGBTQ activist Harry Hay that year and they became lovers. Together, they supported the 1934 San Francisco General Strike and demonstrated against fascism and for workers’ rights. Hay was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the first major gay rights group in the United States, and the Radical Faeries, an anarcho-pagan queer spiritual-political movement.
Today in Labor History March 6, 1978: President Jimmy Carter invoked the Taft-Hartley law to quash the 1977-78 national contract strike by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The UMWA had been on strike since December 1977, but rejected a tentative contract agreement in early March, 1978. Carter invoked the national emergency provision of Taft-Hartley and ordered strikers back to work. They ignored the order and the government did little to enforce it. By late March, they reached a settlement. Taft-Hartley was enacted in the wake of the strike wave of 1945-1946 and was designed to prevent solidarity strikes and General Strikes. The last General Strike in U.S. history (Lancaster, PA; Stamford, CT; Rochester, NY; and Oakland, CA) occurred just prior to Taft-Hartley.
Today in Labor History February 25, 1941: The outlawed Communist Party of the Netherlands initiated a General Strike in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam in protest of the persecution of Dutch Jews. It started one day after a pogrom in Amsterdam. 300,000 people participated. It was the first public protest against the Nazis in Europe. The Nazis brutally suppressed the strike, ending it after three days.