DirectAction 67 April 20026 https://www.onebigunion.ie/post/direct-action-67-newsletter-of-the-iww-ireland-branch

Wildcat 66 April 2026
https://www.onebigunion.ie/post/latest-issue-of-wildcat-66-out-now

#DirectAction #Ireland #IWW #Wildcat

On the streets: You can join the IWW today wherever you work or live

https://www.onebigunion.ie/join-us

#MigrantRightsAreWorkersRights #IWW #mastodaoine #WorkersRights #union #unionise #immigrants #WorkersUnite

Today In Labor History April 3, 1917: After the U.S. declared war, sailors, escorted by police, destroyed the IWW building in Kansas City. The action inspired similar attacks in Detroit, Duluth and other towns that had a large IWW presence.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #PoliceBrutality #antiwar #police #wwi #kansascity #redscare #palmer

Today In Labor History April 3, 1913: Pietro Botto, socialist mayor of Haledon, N.J., invited the Paterson silk mill strikers to assemble in front of his house. 20,000 showed up to hear speakers from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Upton Sinclair, John Reed and others, who urged them to remain strong in their fight. The Patterson strike lasted from Feb. 1 until July 28, 1913. Workers were fighting for the eight-hour workday and better working conditions. Over 1800 workers were arrested during the strike, including IWW leaders Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Five were killed. Overall, the strike was poorly organized and confined to Paterson. The IWW, the main organizer of the strike, eventually gave up.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #Patterson #strike #IWW #union #anarchism #PoliceBrutality #socialism #UptonSinclair #JohnReed #BigBillHaywood #ElizabethGurleyFlynn

Today in Labor History April 1, 1929: Textile workers struck at the Loray Mill, in Gastonia, N.C. Textile mills started moving from New England, to the South, in the 1890s, to avoid the unions. This escalated after the 1909 Shirtwaist strike (which preceded the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist fire), the IWW-led Lawrence (1912) and (1913) Patterson strikes, which were led by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Big Bill Haywood and Carlo Tresca. The Gastonia strike was violent and bloody. Dozens of strikers were imprisoned. A pregnant white woman, Ella Mae Wiggins, wrote and performed songs during the strike. She also lived with and organized African American workers, one of the worst crimes a poor white woman could commit in the South. The strike ended soon after goons murdered her. Woody Guthrie called Wiggins the pioneer of the protest ballad and one of the great folk song writers.

Wiley Cash wrote a wonderful novel about Ella Mae Wiggins and the Gastonia strike, “The Last Ballad.” Jess Walter wrote a really great novel about the Spokane free speech fight, featuring Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, called “The Cold Millions.” Other novels about the Gastonia strike include Sherwood Anderson’s, “Beyond Desire,” and Mary Heaton Vorse’s, “Strike!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJj65ZmjnS8

#workingclass #LaborHistory #gastonia #loray #strike #union #EllaMayWiggins #WoodyGuthrie #novel #fiction #HisFic #IWW #TriangleShirtwaist #books #author #writer #historicalfiction #folkmusic #racism #communism #woodyguthrie @bookstadon