Today in Labor History May 11, 1894: The Pullman Railroad Strike began in Chicago, Illinois, when 4,000 workers walked off the job. It began as a wildcat strike and quickly escalated into the largest industrial strike to date in the U.S. Nearly 260,000 railroad workers participated. The strike and boycott halted nearly all rail traffic west of Detroit. The strike began during a severe depression. George Pullman lowered wages and began laying off workers, without reducing rent in his company town of Pullman, Illinois, where most of the workers lived. Eugene Debs rose to prominence as a labor leader during this strike. The American Federation of Labor refused solidarity because they thought Debs was stealing their members, as the American Railway Union was not an AFofL member. The government sent in federal troops to suppress the strike. 30 workers were killed in Chicago, alone. Over 40 more were killed in other parts of the country. Property damage exceeded $80 million. Debs would go on to run for president four times, as a socialist, running some of his campaigns from prison. He was also a founding member of the radical IWW, along with Lucy Parsons, Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, and Easter Rising martyr, James Connolly.

#LaborHistory #workingclass #eugenedebs #pullman #strike #union #railroad #massacre #wildcat #socialism #boycott #IWW #motherjones #lucyparsons #jamesconnolly #bigbillhaywood #chicago

my cat was crashing around the house this morning after finishing breakfast, snorting and jumping off the wall and running into things. for some reason I thought of this term from Indonesian class 15 years ago but sadly my preferred dictionary SEAlang has a very limited definition

#Indonesian #BabiButa #MembabiButa #WildCat #InsaneKitty #kitty

Today in Labor History May 2, 1968: Workers walked out of the Hamtramck Dodge auto plant, in Detroit, in protest of management-mandated speed-ups there. Several of the black workers met across the street to form the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM). At the time, over 70% of the workers at the Hamtramck plant were African American, yet leadership of their UAW local was dominated by older Polish Americans. Walter Reuther, head of the UAW at the time, had been an early supporter of the Civil Rights movement, but was pretty much asleep at the wheel in terms of prejudice against black workers by their own union. One of DRUM’s first demands was that Reuther be replaced by a black leader. They also demanded that the UAW end its collaborations with the FBI and the CIA. And they called on the UAW to organize a General Strike to end the war in Vietnam. In July, DRUM led a 2-day wildcat strike against the Hamtramck plant in which 4,000 workers walked out. DRUM’s militancy, and their willingness to stand up to the old guard at the UAW, inspired similar movements in the auto industry, including FRUM (Ford Revolutionary Union Movement) at the Ford River Rouge Plant, and ELRUM (Eldon Avenue Revolutionary Union Movement) at the Chrysler Eldon Avenue plant. In 1969, these groups united to form the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW).

DRUM was created by veteran organizers who were also communists, internationalists, and revolutionaries who had been organizing as early as 1963, when they formed the UHURU student group at Wayne State. One of the organizers was General Baker, who wrote the following: “When the Detroit rebellion took place (1967), and the National Guard and 101st Airborne was sent in, and they imposed curfew, if you got sick, you couldn’t go to the doctor. If you got hungry, you couldn’t get no food. But if you had a badge from Chrysler, Ford or General Motors, you could get through the police line, the National Guard line, the army line, all of them to take your butt to work. The conclusion we draw from that was that the only place in this society that Black people had any value was at a point of production. That’s why, after the rebellion, we turned all our efforts into organizing inside the plants. Believe it or not, like an accident of history in one year from that time, DRUM was born."

You can read more about this movement in “Motown and the Making of Black Revolutionaries,” by Walda Katz-Fishman and Jerome Scott; and Read @JamesTracy excellent review of this book here: https://convergencemag.com/articles/book-review-motown-and-the-making-of-black-revolutionaries/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #drum #frum #elrum #racism #union #strike #wildcat #uaw #Revolutionary #fbi #cia #generalstrike #rebellion #detroit #BlackMastodon

Workers across 82 factories #strike without coordinated action or direct #union involvement, protesting 12 hour day, 7 day work week

https://frontline.thehindu.com/economy/ncr-worker-protests/article70896588.ece/amp/

#strikes #wildcat #unions #Noida #India #UttarPradesh #MinimumWage #NCR #Gurugram #CITU #CPIM #capitalism #exploitation #ClassWar

Following a bobcat. #bobcat #wildlife #wildcat #nature #California

https://youtube.com/shorts/HvshqH2mMm8?si=0uH2ErfVpVUl14QN

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

Today in Labor History April 5, 1989: The United Mine Workers launched their strike against Pittston Coal Co., eventually winning concessions by Pittston on February 20, 1990. The strike started in response to Pittston’s termination of health care for widows, retirees and disabled veteran miners. During the strike, there were 2,000 miners camped out daily at Camp Solidarity, and up to 40,000 total engaging in wild cat strikes, civil disobedience, picketing, occupations and sabotage. The strike reduced Pittston’s production by two-thirds, while over 4,000 strikers were arrested during the strike.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #pittston #coal #mining #strike #wildcat #disability #CivilDisobedience #sabotage #solidarity #police #healthcare #ableism