MikeDunnAuthor

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to random

Happy Easter!

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to random

#TransDayOfVisibility
#TransRightsAreHumanRights
#TDOV #TDOV2024 #solidarity

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to random

Wishing a very happy Trans Day of Visibility to all my trans & GNC friends & family, as well as to my family and friends with trans & GNC folks in their lives. Solidarity!

#TransDayOfVisibility
#TransRightsAreHumanRights
#TDOV #TDOV2024 #solidarity

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to workersrights

Today in Labor History March 31, 1883: Cowboys in the Texas panhandle began a 2-and-a-half-month strike for higher wages.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #cowboy #strike #texas #wages #books #nonfiction #author #writer @bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to Russia

Today in Labor History March 31, 1809: Nikolai Gogol, the Russian-Ukrainian novelist, was born. Gogol was one of the first authors to use surrealism and absurdism (see “The Nose,” “The Overcoat,” and “Nevsky Prospekt.”) Many of his works satirized Russian political corruption, like “Dead Souls,” and the “Government Inspector.” He influenced several generations of writers, including Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Nabakov, Kafka and Flannery O’Connor. The gypsy punk band, Gogol Bordello, took their name from him.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #gogol #russia #ukraine #fiction #satire #surrealism #kafka #dostoevsky #literature #books #writer #author #courruption #kafka #punk @bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to random

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MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to IWW

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.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #HarryBridges #IWW #ilwu #generalstrike #sanfrancisco #waterfront #solidarity #TaftHartley #longshore

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to workersrights

Today in Labor History March 30, 1930: Three thousand workers, mostly African-American, began construction on the Hawks Nest Tunnel in West Virginia. The employer cut costs by failing to provide safety equipment. Additionally, bosses forced the men to work 10-15-hour days, often at gunpoint, without breaks and without masks to protect themselves from the silicon dust. Consequently, hundreds of workers died of silicosis. Possibly over 1,000 people, one-third of the entire workforce, died from silicosis, in one of America’s worst cases of mass workplace mortality.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #workplaceinjury #WorkplaceDeaths #HawksNest #racism #silicosis #forcedlabor #slavery #BlackMastadon #PPE #africanamerican

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to afl

Today in Labor History March 30, 1930: Hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers demonstrated in thirty cities. 35,000 marched in New York City and were violently assaulted by the police. At the time, there was virtually no formal aid available for the unemployed or poor. The ruling elite feared that workers would choose the dole over work if given the choice. So, they opposed unemployment insurance. Even the AFL opposed unemployment insurance because it saw itself as the representative of skilled workers only. It didn’t care about unskilled factory workers. The demonstrations were organized by the Communist Party, with the goal of overthrowing capitalism.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #communism #PoliceBrutality #police #unemployment #newyork #afl #Demonstrations #capitalism

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to Russia

Today in Labor History March 30, 1856: The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Crimean War, between Russia and the victorious Ottoman Empire (allied with the UK, France and Sardinia-Piedmont). The flashpoint was a conflict over the rights of Christian minorities in Ottoman-controlled Palestine, and control of its holy sites.

The Crimean War was one of the first to utilize modern armaments, like explosive shells, railways and telegraphs. Much of these armaments came from Alfred Nobel’s family armament factory. It was also a particularly deadly war. Around 670,000 soldiers died in only four years, the majority from preventable infectious diseases (e.g., typhus, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery), not from battle wounds. Mortality rates for soldiers were 23-31%, compared with U.S. troop mortality rates of only 2% during the Vietnam War.

In the aftermath of the Crimean War, Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. out of fear that the UK would simply take it from them in their weakened military state. The last living veteran of the Crimean war was a Greek tortoise, named Timothy, who had served as a ship’s mascot during the war. He died in 2004, nearly 150 years after the war ended. Despite their victory, the Ottomans gained no new territory, and the war nearly bankrupted them, contributing to their decline as a super power. The Crimean War also helped forge the alliances and grievances that would lead to the First World War, and quite likely to the conditions leading up to Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea and its current fight with Ukraine.

Florence Nightengale became famous as a nurse during this war. Tolstoy fought in the 11-month Siege of Sevastopol. His experiences in this war contributed to his pacifism and anarchism. After witnessing a public execution in France, one year after the Crimean War ended, he wrote, “The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens ... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.” The war also influenced his novel, “War and Peace.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #crimea #russia #war #ottoman #palestine #mortality #ukraine #WarAndPeace #pacifism #anarchism #antiwar #tolstoy #florencenightengale #books #fiction #author #writer @bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to climate

International scientists call for greater conservation to reduce risk of future pandemics.

"To effectively prevent pandemics, we must recognize 2 keys points: 1st that pandemics almost always start with a microbe infecting a wild animal in a natural environment and 2nd that human caused land use change often triggers the events- whether through wildlife trade or other distal activities- that facilitate spillover of microbes from wild animals to humans"

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/misc-emerging-topics/pandemic-prevention-plan-stresses-conservation-animal-habitats-and-their-food

#pandemic #climate #spillover #biodiversity #climatecrisis

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MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to Fiat

Today in Labor History March 29, 1973: Workers launched a wildcat strike and occupation of Fiat plants at Mirafiori. This came during a wave of Italian student and worker protests going back to the 1960s.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #fiat #wildcat #strike #union

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to incarcerated

Today in Labor History March 29, 1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. They were executed at Sing Sing in 1953. The Rosenberg’s sons, Michael and Robert Meeropol (adopted by Abel Meeropol, the composer of “Strange Fruit,”), maintained their parents’ innocence. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, decoded Soviet cables showed that their father had, in fact, collaborated, but that their mother was innocent. They continued to fight for the mother’s pardon, but Obama refused to grant it. The Rosenberg’s sons were among the last students to attend the anarchist Modern School, in Lakewood, New Jersey, before it finally shut its doors in 1958.

For more on the Modern School movement, read my article: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2022/04/30/the-modern-school-movement/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #deathpenalty #execution #rosenbergs #espionage #ussr #soviet #communism #prison #SingSing #obama #strangefruit #anarchism #modernschool #abelmeerepol

MikeDunnAuthor, 1 month ago to workersrights

Today in Labor History March 29, 1948: Police attacked striking members of the United Financial Employees’ Union and arrested forty-three in the “Battle of Wall Street.” This was the first and only strike in the history of the New York or American Stock Exchanges.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #policebrutality #wallstreet #stockexchange #police

MikeDunnAuthor, 2 months ago to Philippines

Today in Labor History March 17, 1966: 100 striking Mexican American and Filipino farmworkers marched from Delano, California to Sacramento to pressure the growers and the state government to answer their demands for better working conditions and higher wages, which were, at the time, below the federal minimum wage. By the time the marchers arrived, on Easter Sunday, April 11, the crowd had grown to 10,000 protesters and their supporters. A few months later, the two unions that represented them, the National Farm Workers Association, led by César Chávez, and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, joined to form the United Farm Workers. The strike was launched on September 8, 1965, by Filipino grape pickers. Mexicans were initially hired as scabs. So, Filipino strike leader Larry Itliong approached Cesar Chavez to get the support of the National Farm Workers Association, and on September 16, 1965, the Mexican farm workers joined the strike. During the strike, the growers and their vigilantes would physically assault the workers and drive their cars and trucks into the picket lines. They also sprayed strikers with pesticides. The strikers persevered nonviolently. They went to the Oakland docks and convinced the longshore workers to support them by refusing to load grapes. This resulted in the spoilage of 1,000 ten-ton cases of grapes. The success of this tactic led to the decision to launch a national grape boycott, which would ultimately help them win the struggle against the growers.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #cesarchavez #ufw #delano #grapestrike #mexican #filipino #union #strike #boycott #protest #scab #farmworkers #vigilantes #larryitliong #sacramento