Today in Labor History May 14, 1914: Over four thousand longshoremen walked off the job on the docks of Philadelphia, over poor wages and dangerous working conditions. By May 28, they had won a ten-hour workday and time-and-a-half pay for overtime. The strike also launched one of the most successful anti-racist, anti-capitalist unions in the country: IWW Local 8, led by Ben Fletcher, who was one of the Wobbly’s most effective organizers and the most prominent African American in the union. At the time, roughly one-third of the dockers in Philadelphia were black. Another 33% were Irish. And the remaining 33% were mostly Polish or Lithuanian. Prior to the IWW organizing drive, the employers routinely pitted black workers against white, and Polish against Irish. The IWW was one of the only unions of the era that organized workers into the same locals, regardless of race or ethnicity. Roughly 10% of the IWW’s 1 million members were African American. In 1918, the state arrested him, sentencing him to ten years for the crime of organizing workers during wartime. He served three years. As the sentences were announced, Fletcher told Big Bill Haywood: “The Judge has been using very ungrammatical language. His sentences are much too long.'"
You read my full biography of Fletcher here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2021/05/13/ben-fletcher-and-the-iww-dockers/
#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #benfletcher #philadelphia #dockers #longshore #BlackMastodon #racism #antiwar
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