GWANGJU UPRISING

Today in Labor History May 18, 1980: Koreans rose up in Gwangju against the repressive U.S.-supported government. The uprising lasted from May 18 to May 27. According to official reports, 165 civilians were killed and 3,515 were injured in the uprising. 37 soldiers and 4 cops were killed and 253 were injured. Another 14 soldiers died from “friendly” fire. However, Gwangju’s death records for May of 1980 were 2,300 above normal. Many believe the actual death toll from the uprising is closer to 2,000. In addition to the casualties from the uprising, nearly 1,400 people were arrested and 7 were given death sentences. 12 were sentenced to life in prison.

The background for the uprising is complex. However, the country had been living under the 18-year dictatorship of Park Chun-hee, who was assassinated on October 26, 1979. A series of pro-democracy demonstrations developed in the wake of his death. But on December 12, Chun Doo-hwan led a military coup in order to quell the protests. He did not officially take over as “president” until after the Gwangju Uprising. But he was acting as the de facto ruler and the country was still under martial law from the coup.

In March, protests picked up again. People wanted democratization, human rights, minimum wage increases, freedom of the press, and an end to martial law. On May 15, 100,000 people demonstrated at Seoul Station. Chun Doo-hwan responded by extending martial law to the entire nation, closing the universities, banning all political activities and further curtailing the press. Furthermore, he dispatched troops throughout the country to suppress any potential demonstrations.

On May 18, students demonstrated at Chonnam University in defiance of its closing. At first, there were only 30 paratroopers and hundreds of students. They started to clash. By afternoon, at least 2,000 people had joined the protest. The government sent in hundreds of troops. Soldiers started to club demonstrators and onlookers. They attacked with bayonets and raped people, and they beat a deaf man to death. Outraged, the number of protesters swelled to over 10,000. Street battles continued for days, climaxing on May 21, when soldiers fired into a crowd of protesters. In response, citizens took up arms by robbing local armories and police stations, arming themselves with M1 rifles and carbines. By afternoon, there were bloody gunfights between ad hoc civilian militias and the army. By 5:30, the citizens militias had obtained two machine guns and used them, forcing the army to retreat.

The troops retreated to the suburbs to await reinforcements. However, they also blocked all routes and communications leading into and out of the city. Meanwhile, inside of Liberated Gwangju, the Citizens’ Settlement Committee negotiated with the army, demanding the release of arrested citizens, compensation for the victims, and a prohibition of retaliation in exchange for disarming themselves. The army demanded immediate surrender and some in the committee were willing to give it to them. But those who wanted to resist until their demands were met took control of the committee.

On May 27, at 4 am, troops from five divisions moved on the protesters and defeated the civilian militias within 90 minutes.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #korea #massacre #Gwangju #imperialism #dictatorship #uprising #humanrights #freespeech #demonstration #censorship #police

Today in Labor History May 18, 1979: An Oklahoma jury ruled in favor of the estate of atomic worker Karen Silkwood. Kerr-McGee Nuclear Company was ordered to pay $505,000 in actual damages and $10 million in punitive damages for negligence leading to Silkwood’s plutonium contamination. On appeal, the court reduced the settlement to a pitiful $5,000, the estimated value of her property losses. In 1984, the Supreme Court restored the original verdict, but Kerr-McGee again threatened to appeal. Ultimately, Silkwood’s family settled out of court for $1.38 million and the company never had to admit any wrongdoing.

Silkwood first started working at Kerr-McGee in 1972. She joined the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers union and participated in a strike. After the strike, her comrades elected her to the union’s bargaining committee. She was the first woman to attain that status at Kerr-McGee. In this role, one of her duties was to investigate health and safety issues. Not surprisingly, she discovered numerous violations, including exposure of workers to radioactive contamination. The union accused Kerr-McGee of falsifying inspection records, manufacturing faulty fuel rods and other safety violations. After testifying to the Atomic Energy Commission, Silkwood discovered that her own body and home were contaminated with radiation. Her body contained 400 times the legal limit for plutonium contamination and she was expelling contaminated air from her lungs. Her house was so contaminated they had to destroy much of her personal property.

Later, she decided to go public with documentation proving the company’s negligence. She left a meeting with union officials in order to meet a New York Times journalist. She brought a binder and packet of documents supporting her allegations with her. However, she never made it, dying in a suspicious car crash. The documents were never found. Some journalists believe she was rammed from behind by another vehicle. Investigators noted damage to the rear of her car that would be consistent with this hypothesis. She had also received death threats shortly before her death. However, no one has yet substantiated the claims of foul play.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #silkwood #union #atomic #nuclear #radioactive #contamination #murder #unionbusting #assassination #strike #organizer

Today in Labor History May 18, 1928: Big Bill Haywood died in exile in the Soviet Union. He was a founding member and leader of both the Western Federation of Miners and the IWW (the Wobblies). During the first two decades of the 20th century, he participated in the Colorado Labor Wars and the textiles strikes in Lawrence and Patterson. The Pinkertons tried, but failed, to bust him for the murder of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg. However, in 1918, the feds used the Espionage Act to convict him, and 101 other Wobblies, for their anti-war activity. As a result, they sentenced him to twenty years in prison. But instead of serving the time, he fled to the Soviet Union, damaging his image as a hero among the Wobblies. He ultimately died from a stroke related to his alcoholism and diabetes. Half his ashes were buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. The other half of his ashes were sent to Chicago and buried near the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument.

You can read my full article on union busting by the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #BigBillHaywood #soviet #haymarket #kremlin #sabotage #mining

Today in Labor History May 18, 1895: Augusto Sandino was born. Sandino led the original Sandinista movement for Nicaraguan independence and fought a protracted war against the U.S. occupation. One of their manifestos read, “it is better to be killed as a rebel than to live on as a slave.” While in exile in Mexico during the early 1920s, Sandino participated in strikes led by the IWW. Inspired by the anarcho-syndicalist union, he adopted their red and black logo as the colors for the revolutionary Nicaraguan flag.

The U.S. Marines occupied Nicaragua from August 4, 1912 until January 2, 1933, when Juan Sacasa took over as president. Sacasa put Anastasio Somoza in charge of the hated Guardia Nacional. Sacasa met privately with Sandino and won his support. However, Sandino continued to call for the dismantling of the Guardia Nacional. So, Somoza assassinated him in 1934. After that, the Somoza dynasty ruled Nicaragua until the FSLN (Sandinista Nation Liberation Front), named after Augusto Sandino, overthrew them in 1979.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #Nicaragua #sandino #fsln #dictatorship #independence #occupation #imperialism #sandinista #anarchism #union #IWW

Today in Labor History May 18, 1814: Russian anarchist militant and philosopher Mikhail Bakunin was born. In Paris, in the 1840’s, he met Marx and Proudhon, who were early influences on him. He was later expelled from France for opposing Russia’s occupation of Poland. In 1849, the authorities arrested him in Dresden for participating in the Czech rebellion of 1848. They deported him back to Russia, where the authorities imprisoned him and then exiled him to Siberia in 1857. However, he escaped through Japan and fled to the U.S. and then England.

In 1868, he joined the International Working Men’s Association, leading the rapidly growing anarchist faction. He argued for federations of self-governing workplaces and communes to replace the state. This was in contrast to Marx, who argued for the state to help bring about socialism. In 1872, they expelled Bakunin from the International. Bakunin had an influence on the IWW, Noam Chomsky, Peter Kropotkin, Herbert Marcuse, Emma Goldman, and the Spanish CNT and FAI.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #bakunin #IWW #cnt #chomsky #kropotkin #emmagoldman #marx #rebellion #revolution

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Today in Labor History May 17, 1974: Cops raided the headquarters of the Symbionese Liberation Army in Los Angeles, killing six members. It was one of the largest police shootouts in U.S. history. The cops fired 5,000 rounds and the SLA fired 4,000. Prior to the shootout, the SLA had committed several bank robberies and murders. However, they were most famous for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. One of the conditions they demanded for her release was for the Hearst family to distribute four hundred million dollars’-worth of food to the Bay Area poor. In actuality, over 100,000 bags of groceries were distributed. The SLA was a Maoist organization that saw itself as an American version of urban guerillas, like the Tupamaros, in Uruguay. By most accounts, the SLA was a group of confused wingnuts. Leader and founding member, Cinque, has been accused of being a police informant.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #SymbioneseLiberationArmy #sla #police #policebrutality #terrorism #PattyHearst #communism #maoism #poverty

Today in Labor History May 17, 1954: Brown v. Board of Education went into effect. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" public education was unconstitutional, and a violation of the 14th Amendment. The ruling reversed the 1896 "separate but equal" Plessy vs Ferguson decision. However, researchers at Stanford and USC have recently found that, in spite of this SCOTUS ruling, racial segregation in the nation’s 100 largest school districts has increased by 64% since 1988, while economic segregation increased by 50% since 1991. While residential segregation was a major driving force for school segregation in the past, the primary driving force for today’s segregation is the School Choice movement, which has allowed hundreds of charter schools to open up, many for-profit. During the 2021-2022 school year, 7.4% of all public-school students, 3.7 million kids, attended charter schools. And there tends to be much more segregation within charter schools. Additionally, there has been a decline in court oversight of segregation in schools, resulting from a number of lawsuits in the 1990s against affirmative action policies.

Https://www.vox.com/24156492/school-segregation-increasing-brown-board-of-education

#workingclass #LaborHistory #segregation #racism #schools #education #charterschools #SCOTUS #affirmativeaction #poverty #classwar #schoolchoice #privatization #BlackMastodon

Today in Labor History May 17, 1900: Following the siege of Mafeking, during the Second Boer War, over 27,000 Boer women and children died in some of the world's first concentration camps. The Spanish had actually created similar death camps in Cuba during the Ten Year’s War (1868-1878). However, the death camps in South Africa were the first to be called concentration camps. Additionally, the Boer War concentration camp system was the first time an entire nation had been targeted. During the war, Mahatma Gandhi and 800 Indian slaves started the Ambulance Corps to serve the British. Just a few years later, 1904, the German Empire committed a genocide against the Herero people of southwest Africa, slaughtering 80% of them, and 50% of the Nama people.

#LaborHistory #workingclass #southafrica #gandhi #slavery #ConcentrationCamp #women #children #boerwar