Today in Labor History June 3, 1983: The world was nearly ended when a false alarm brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union within seconds of a nuclear exchange. The Soviet nuclear early warning system had reported the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile from the U.S. However, Stanislav Petrov, an engineer on duty at the command center, decided to wait for corroborating evidence—but none came. He thought the detection had to be a computer error, since a first-strike nuclear attack by the United States would have involved hundreds of simultaneous missile launches in order to disable any Soviet counterattack. His decision prevented a retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States and its NATO allies, which likely would have led to a full-scale nuclear war. This event occurred at a time of already heightened tension between the U.S. & the USSR. The Bulleton of the Atomic Scientists set the Doomsday Clock to 3 minutes before midnight, the closest it had gotten to annihilation of the Earth since the first Hydrogen bomb tests.

In 2010, President Obama and Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev signed the New START treaty, the last nuclear non-proliferation treaty the U.S. has participated in. This treaty prompted the Bulleton of the Atomic Scientists to push the clock back to 6 minutes before midnight, since the treaty significantly reduced the risk of nuclear war. However, the treaty expired in February of 2026. The U.S. currently has no major nuclear nonproliferation treaties with any other nation. The U.S., Russia, China, France, the UK all have fully operational long-range ballistic missile systems. India, North Korea and Israel do, as well. The wars in Ukraine and Russia, Iran and Lebanon, as well as U.S. and Chinese provocations in the Pacific, all increase the risk of larger regional wars and accidental, or intentional, launches of nuclear weapons. Add to this the threat of the Climate Crisis, Artificial Intelligence and, especially, President Trump’s erratic and provocative policies and behavior, and the clock is now at 85 seconds before midnight. This is the closest the world has ever been to complete annihilation according to the Bulleton of the Atomic Scientists.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #ussr #soviets #coldwar #nuclear #bomb #missile #russia #icbm #NATO

Today in Labor History June 3, 1913: IWW Marine Transport Workers Union in New Orleans continued their strike against United Fruit Company (now known as Chiquita) after wages were cut by five dollars per month. The strike, which started on June 2, turned deadly on June 13, when police opened fire on strikers trying to stop scabs from loading a ship, killing two of them. The IWW lost this strike. However, they were highly successful in other longshore strikes up and down the Eastern Seaboard. At this time, the IWW controlled all but 2 of the Philadelphia docks. Their multiracial union was led by Ben Fletcher, an African-American docker. Fletcher was also instrumental in organizing the Baltimore dockers.

You can read my longer article about Ben Fletcher here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2021/05/13/ben-fletcher-and-the-iww-dockers/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #wobblies #union #strike #racism #neworleans #philadelphia #police #policebrutality #acab #policemurder #scab #antiracism #solidarity #BlackMastodon

Today in Labor History June 3, 1910: U.S. anarchists formed the Francisco Ferrer Association in Harlem, one year after the wrongful execution of anarchist educator Francisco Ferrer in Spain. The organization founded libertarian socialist schools throughout the U.S. based on the principles of Ferrer’s Modern Schools. The American Modern Schools were designed to counter the discipline, formality and regimentation of traditional American schools. Regular working-class people ran the schools for the children of workers. They sought to abolish all forms of authority, including educational, with the goal of creating a society based on free association and free thought. They emphasized learning by doing, as well as crafts and reading. They avoided rigid curricula, rote memorization and regimentation, as well as rewards and punishments. They also believed that learning was a life-long process that never ended. Therefore, parents and other adults were encouraged to participate in the operation of the schools and to attend evening and weekend lectures. Some of the speakers at these lectures included Clarence Darrow, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and Man Ray. The schools also served as cultural centers for the promotion of revolutionary unionism, free speech, sexual liberation, and anti-militarism.

Read my full article on the anarchist roots of the Modern School Movement: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2022/04/30/the-modern-school-movement/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #modernschool #franciscoferrer #Revolution #union #school #education #children #liberation #freespeech

The #ILGWU was formed on this day in 1900. Lasting until the 1990s when the union merged with ACTWU to form UNITE.

#LaborHistory #OTD #OTDIH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Ladies_Garment_Workers_Union

Today in Labor History June 3, 1900: The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) was founded. In 1909, they led the Uprising of 20,000, a 14-wk strike of mostly immigrant women, sparked by a walkout at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. It led to a General Strike. Management used thugs to brutally beat the women, while police looked the other way. The women’s success surprised many of the labor leaders of the era, who had believed that neither women, nor immigrants, could be effectively organized. Meetings were often translated into Yiddish and Italian. Clara Lemlich, 23 years old, was one of the main organizers. Her family had immigrated to the U.S. in 1903 to escape antisemitic pogroms in their hometown of Kishinev, Ukraine. During the Uprising of 20,000, she returned to the picket line, even after thugs hired by the bosses had beaten her up and broken several of her ribs. As an organizer, she repeatedly challenged the male leadership of the mostly female union. The strike lasted until February, 1910, with increased wages, better working conditions, and shorter hours, but without universal union recognition. A number of companies, including Triangle, refused to sign the agreement.
Lemlich was blacklisted from the industry for her leadership of the strike. So, she turned her attention to organizing for women’s suffrage, and later organizing with the Communist Party.

In 1910, the ILGWU led an even bigger strike, The Great Revolt, of 60,000 cloak-makers. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire, in 1911, prompted many more women to join the union. In 1919, many members left to join the Communist Party. Many of those who remained were anarchists with dual membership in the radical IWW. They challenged the autocratic leadership of the ILGWU. The 1920s was marred by sectarian battles between left- and right-wing factions, and by violence from hired gangsters. Ironically, it was Arnold Rothstein (the Jewish gangster behind the Chicago Black Sox scandal, and who mentored mobsters Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano) who got the gangsters to withdraw from the union. Over the years, the ILGWU merged with other unions and is currently part of UNITE-HERE.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #ilgwu #IWW #TriangleShirtwaist #mafia #LuckyLuciano #GeneralStrike #communism #anarchism #arnoldrothstein #meyerlansky

#BlueCollarWriter Labor News Update - June 2, 2026:
https://www.bluecollarwriter.com/home/labor-news-update

#1u #UnionStrong #UnionYes #ItsBetterInAUnion #LaborHistory #NLRB #Jobs #Economy

Today in Labor History June 2, 1975: 100 sex workers occupied that Saint-Nizier church in Lyon to protest against police repression. They demanded that all their convictions be reversed. The police evicted them after a week. However, soon after, a judge cancelled their upcoming prison sentences.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #occupation #sexworkers #sexpositive #catholic #church #lyon #sexworkerrights #sexworkiswork #solidarity #directaction

Today in Labor History June 2, 1945: World War II: The segregated, all-Nisei U.S. 522nd Field Artillery Battalion stopped a death march from Dachau to the Austrian border. As a result, they saved several hundred prisoners. Ironically (and criminally), back in the states, most Nisei (Japanese-Americans) were living in concentration camps.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #WorldWarTwo #concentrationcamps #dachau #antisemitism #AntiAsianHate #racism #fascism #nazis #nisei

Today in Labor History June 2, 1919: Anarchist Galleanists carried out a series of 9 coordinated bombings across the Eastern United States. They damaged the homes of U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, as well as then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt. They also targeted a number of judges. None of the targeted men died, although a night watchman, a former editor of the Galleanist publication “Cronaca Sovversiva,” did accidentally get killed. The bombs were delivered in packages that included the following note: “War, Class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.”

The response by Palmer included mass illegal search and seizures, unwarranted arrests and the deportation of several hundred suspected radicals and anarchists. He also carried the nationwide witch hunts known as the Palmer raids in November 1919 and January 1920, arresting 10,000 anarchists, communists, and labor leaders, imprisoning 3,500, and deporting 556, including Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), was founded in response to the raid, by IWW organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Helen Keller, and others.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #bombings #palmerraids #redscare #policebrutality #prison #deportations #fdr #union #communism #EmmaGoldman #alexanderberkman #elizabethgurleyflynn #HelenKeller #IWW #aclu #classwar

Today in Labor History June 2, 1863: Backed by three gunboats, Harriet Tubman and her force of 300 black soldiers, freed 800 enslaved people in the Combahee River Raid, South Carolina. Furthermore, they set fire to the plantations and destroyed millions of dollars-worth of stores, cotton and homes of the wealthy, without losing a single person. Additionally, it was the only military engagement in American history where a woman, black or white, “led the raid and under whose inspiration it was originated and conducted.” Tubman devised her war strategy after repeatedly penetrating across enemy lines and spying on Confederate troop movements. In the aftermath, Confederate Captain John F. Lay said, “The enemy seems to have been well posted as to the character and capacity of our troops and their small chance of encountering opposition, and to have been well guided by persons thoroughly acquainted with the river and country.” Most Americans know of Tubman’s role in the Underground Railroad. However, she was also a spy for the Union Army. And in the late 1850s, she helped John Brown plan his raid on Harper’s Ferry and recruit supporters for the raid.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #civilwar #harriettubman #slavery #Abolition #undergroundrailroad #johnbrown #liberation #espionage #strongwomen #blm #BlackMastodon