Mural on sculpture at corner of Spear and Mission, San Francisco's Rincon Hill district (now known as South Beach) and site of the 1934 General Strike, in which 9 workers were killed by the police.
Mural contains the IWW slogan an Injury to One is An Injury to All. ILWU leader Harry Bridges had been a member of the IWW, which had tried to organize the Pacific ports in the 1920s, including the San Pedro Maritime Strike, 1923.
There is an accompanying brass plaque, which describes the strike, and pays homage to Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise, killed on Bloody Thursday, July 5, 1934.
The artists of the mural were: Miranda Bergman, Tem Drescher, Nicole Emmanuel, Lari Kiholani, James Morgan, Raymond M Patlan, Eduardo Pineda, James Prigoff, O'Brian Theile, & Horace Washington.
The site manager didn't come to work today so it's just us workers. I took the opportunity to recruit the rest of my coworkers for our next organizing meeting. People I'd never talked to about this stuff before. They all thanked me for caring enough to try to unionize this place. We deserve better than this, and so does the community we serve. #IWW
Today in Labor History October 26, 1926: Augusto Sandino took up arms against the Nicaraguan state. Sandino had been living in exile in México during the early 1920s, where he participated in strikes led by the IWW. Inspired by the IWW, he adopted the IWW's black & red colors for the Sandinista flag.
... it is often legal, in the USA, to secretly record conversations with your boss, even if it violates state law?
(see 372 NLRB No. 50, page 5-6)
"...their recording activity sought to document their conversations with management about terms and conditions of employment, including potential discipline, and to preserve evidence for any future employment-related actions that may arise."
If you're interested in joining the #IWW and organizing in Upstate NY, reach out to us at our website, email (bundnik@riseup.net), or snail mail. https://upstatenyiww.wordpress.com/
PO Box 77 Altamont NY 12009
Today in Labor History October 10, 1912: The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) struck in Little Falls, New York. The strike lasted into January and involved primarily immigrant workers. It started at the Phoenix Knitting Mill, but spread to the Gilbert Knitting Mill, also in the Mohawk Valley. In November, the Little Falls Council voted to authorize a contingent of special police, which escalated tensions. Later that month, the AFL created United Textile Workers local #206 to compete with the Wobblies for members and press attention. But when the AFL announced it had reached a settlement between with mill owners, later that month, the workers refused it, siding with the Wobblies and demanding greater concessions.
Today in Labor History October 9, 1874: Mary Heaton Vorse was born. Vorse was a labor journalist who participated in and wrote eyewitness accounts of many of the significant labor battles of her day. In the 1910s, she was the founding editor of the “Masses,” as well as an activist in the suffrage and women’s peace movements. In 1912, she participated in and wrote about the Lawrence textile strike. She helped organize the Wobblies’ unemployment protest in New York, 1914, and was good friends with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. In 1916, she reported on the IWW Mesabi Range strike. And in 1919, she worked as a publicist for the Great Steel Strike. She also wrote the novel, "Strike!" about the 1929 textile mill strike, in Gastonia, North Carolina, which was made into a film in 2007.
Today in Labor History October 7, 1879: Radical labor organizer and song writer Joe Hill was born in Gavle, Sweden. Hill was an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or Wobblies). He was arrested and convicted on trumped up murder charges in Utah. He claimed innocence and the evidence against him was flimsy. However, because of his radical associations, they still convicted and executed him. President Wilson, Hellen Keller (also an IWW member) and the Swedish ambassador all asked for clemency. His famous last words to IWW co-founder Big Bill Haywood were “Don’t mourn. Organize.” Some of Hill’s most famous songs were Rebel Girl, There is Power in the Union, Mr. Block, and Casey Jones-Union Scab. Joe Hill's song "The Preacher & the Slave" first appeared in the IWW’s Little Red Song Book. The song is a parody of the hymn, “Sweet By and By,” often song by the Salvation Army (who the IWW called the Starvation Army), which would try to drown out the union’s street-corner labor organizing with their hymns. The Wobbly bard, Haywire Mac, is believed to be the first person to sing this song in public. Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Utah Phillips also covered the song. Joe Hill’s ashes were supposedly sprinkled in every state of the union, except Utah, because he had said, "I don't want to be found dead in Utah." However, it is said that the IWW still keeps a small vial of some of his remaining ashes.
Watch Paul Robeson singing “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night,” to striking Scottish miners, 1949.
#LaborHistory October 2, 2007: The Industrial Workers of the World (#IWW) Starbucks Workers Union won their grievances against the Starbucks in #EastGrandRapids, Michigan. #Starbucks chose to settle after the #NLRB busted them for anti-labor violations.
Today in Labor History October 2, 2007: The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Starbucks Workers Union won their grievances against the Starbucks in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. Starbucks chose to settle after the NLRB busted them for anti-labor violations.
Today in Labor History September 30, 1912: The Lawrence, Massachusetts “Bread and Roses” textile strike was in full swing. On this date, 12,000 textile workers walked out of mills to protest the arrests of two leaders of the strike. Police clubbed strikers and arrested many, while the bosses fired 1,500. IWW co-founder Big Bill Haywood threatened another general strike to get the workers reinstated. Strike leaders Arturo Giovannitti and Joe Ettor were eventually acquitted 58 days later. During the strike, IWW organizers Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn came up with the plan of sending hundreds of the strikers' hungry children to live with sympathetic families in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont, a move that drew widespread sympathy for the strikers. Nearly 300 workers were arrested during the strike; three were killed. After the strike was over, IWW co-founder and socialist candidate for president, Eugene Debs, said "The Victory at Lawrence was the most decisive and far-reaching ever won by organized labor."
Several novels have been written against the backdrop of this famous strike: The Cry of the Street (1913), by Mabel Farnum; Fighting for Bread and Roses (2005), by Lynn A. Coleman; Bread and Roses, Too (2006), by Katherine Paterson
Today In Labor History September 29, 1921: Lithuanian anarchist revolutionary Fanya Baron was executed by the Cheka on the personal order of Lenin. Baron spent her early life participating in the Chicago workers' movement and IWW. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, she moved to Ukraine and joined the Makhnovist movement. She was arrested and imprisoned by the Cheka. On July 1, 1921, she broke out of prison with the help of the Underground Anarchists and went to Moscow, where she was discovered and aided by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. However, on August 17, 1921, she was discovered and arrested again by the Cheka, and ultimately executed.
@MikeDunnAuthor can you share a source for that. I’m mildly interested in #IWW history and am well aware of its existence and open operation in Canada long after 1918.
*minor edit for clarity and a couple tags, as I’m indeed interested in the answer
@MikeDunnAuthor alright, the only thing I could find was a mention that the War Measures Act was used to outlaw “…many radical political and labour groups. The ban included the IWW…” due to their opposition to conscription.
I’d love to know more as #IWW continued to operate in Canada long after. And it appears that this ban crystallized support for #OneBigUnion syndicalism.
Today in Labor History September 22, 1919: After union suppression 400,000 steelworkers in 50 cities struck to protest intolerable working conditions. Union leaders believed that if they could organizer the steel workers, it would lead to a massive wave of unionization across the country. Thus began the Great Steel Strike of 1919. The bosses, however, were able to turn public opinion against the workers by calling them Communists and immigrants. They attacked strike organizer William Z. Foster as a revolutionary syndicalist and Wobbly (IWW). And they called upon federal troops, which helped crush the strike after 3½ months, killing several workers.
Today in Labor History September 14, 1918: Labor leader and Socialist Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for opposing World War I. During his sentencing he said “. . . while there is a lower-class I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free . . .” While in prison, Debs became the first person to run for U.S. president while behind bars, winning nearly 1 million votes.
Today in Labor History September 14, 1879: Margaret Sanger, American nurse and activist, was born. Sanger was famous for popularizing the term "birth control." She also opened the first birth control clinic in the United States and established the organizations that evolved into Planned Parenthood. Her protests and civil disobedience efforts contributed to court cases that helped legalize contraception in the U.S. Many on the Christian right have targeted her for her role in supporting women’s reproductive rights, yet Sanger was opposed to abortions and, as a nurse, she refused to participate in them.
In the early 1910s, Sanger joined the Women's Committee of the New York Socialist party. She also participated in labor actions by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), including the notable 1912 Lawrence textile strike and the 1913 Paterson silk strike. She also became close with many left-wing writers and activists, like John Reed, Upton Sinclair, Mabel Dodge and Emma Goldman. During this period, she saw the toll unwanted pregnancies and back-alley abortions took on poor, working class and immigrant women. And it was at this point that she shifted the focus of her activism toward promoting birth control as a way to prevent abortions and the economic strain of having unwanted pregnancies.
In 1914, she launched “The Woman Rebel,” a monthly newsletter with the anarchist slogan, “No Gods, No Masters.” It promoted contraception, with the goal of challenging the federal anti-obscenity laws. In 1916, she opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S., leading to her arrest. In 1921, she founded the American Birth Control League, which later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She argued that women who are educated about birth control are the best judge of the time and conditions under which they should have children, and that it is their right to determine whether or not to bear children.
After World War I, Sanger increasingly appealed to the social necessity of limiting births among the poor. She was a eugenicist and believed that it was necessary to reduce reproduction of those who were “unfit.” While she defined “fitness” in terms of individual fitness, and not race, she supported restricting immigration, and she was known to “look the other way” when racists spoke in favor of eugenics. She even gave a presentation to the women’s auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan. She also supported compulsory sterilization for the "profoundly retarded."
In the last 72 hours I've had two fellow Wobblies respond to my suggestion that our IWW branch have a Mastodon account by announcing that they have Bluesky invites. The Fediverse is as close to anarchism as you can get; Bluesky, meanwhile, is the next Twitter. So what the fuck is going on? Is this a cult or something? "Mastodon? No! Come and drink the Cool-Aid! We can get you in!" Thanks but I'd rather use a forum, on dial-up, than sign up for and use that shit. #IWW#anarchism#Fediverse