Today in Labor History February 10, 1913: Rubber workers belonging to the Industrial Workers of the World went on strike in Akron, Ohio. It was one of the most effective organizing drives to date among the rubber workers of Akron. However, the bosses still crushed the strike with vigilantes and martial law. In 1936, they went on a sit-down strike.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #strike #akron #ohio #IWW #vigilantes #martiallaw #vigilantes #sitdownstrike
S A B O T A B B Y
Applying Pressure
There once was a black tabby
Hair standing up and quite scrappy.
Crossing picket lines
With a smile shine,
To herstory the means
They ain’t no scabby.
#Art #cartoons #illustration #IWW #SaboTabby
u/VysceralART #VysceralART
Today in Labor History February 8, 1919: A General Strike occurred in Butte, Montana against a wage cut. Inspired by the Seattle General Strike, members of the IWW and the Metal and Mine Workers Union, Local 800, organized Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Workers Councils to lead the strike. Streetcar workers joined in, shutting down transportation for 5 days. Soldiers, returning from World War I, joined the pickets. Montana’s governor called in the National Guard. They bayoneted 9 workers. The workers ultimately called off the strike out of fear that there would be fatalities.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #butte #generalstrike #seattle #IWW #nationalguard #wwi #bayonet #montana #mining #worldwarone
Today in Labor History February 7, 1917: A court wrongly convicted labor organizer Tom Mooney for the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing in July 1916. The governor finally granted him an unconditional pardon after 22.5 years of incarceration. 10 people died in the bombing and 40 were injured. A jury convicted two labor leaders, Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings, based on false testimony. Both were pardoned in 1939. Not surprisingly, only anarchists were suspected in the bombing. A few days after the bombing, they searched and seized materials from the offices of “The Blast,” Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman’s local paper. They also threatened to arrest Berkman.
In 1931, while they were still in prison, I. J. Golden persuaded the Provincetown Theater to produce his play, “Precedent,” about the Mooney and Billings case. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times wrote, “By sparing the heroics and confining himself chiefly to a temperate exposition of his case [Golden] has made “Precedent” the most engrossing political drama since the Sacco-Vanzetti play entitled Gods of the Lightening… Friends of Tom Mooney will rejoice to have his case told so crisply and vividly.”
You can read my full bio of Tom Mooney here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/05/19/tom-mooney-and-warren-billings/
#LaborHistory #workingclass #bombing #sanfrancisco #TomMooney #anarchism #prison #IWW #wrongfulconviction #EmmaGoldman #play #playwright #books @bookstadon
Today in Labor History February 6, 1919: The Seattle General Strike began. 65,000 workers participated. Longshoremen, trolley operators and bartenders also participated. The strike began in response to government sanctioned wage cuts. Both the AF of L and the IWW participated. During the strike, the workers formed councils, which took over virtually all major city services, including food distribution and security. They also continued garbage collection. Laundry workers continued to handle hospital laundry. And firefighters remained on duty. They established a system of food distribution, which provided 30,000 meals each day. Any exemption to the work stoppage had to be ok’d by the General Strike Committee. Army veterans created an independent police force to maintain order. The Labor War Veteran's Guard prohibited the use of force and didn’t carry weapons. The regular police made no arrests in any actions related to the strike. Overall, arrests dropped to less than half their normal number.
A pamphlet that was distributed during the strike said, “You are doomed to wage slavery till you die unless you wake up, realize that you and the boss have nothing in common, that the employing class must be overthrown, and that you, the workers, must take over the control of your jobs, and through them, the control over your lives instead of offering yourself up to the masters as a sacrifice six days a week, so that they may coin profits out of your sweat and toil."
The strike ended when they brought in federal troops and the workers were pressured to quit by bureaucrats from the national unions, particularly the AFL.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #generalstrike #seattle #police #union #afl #IWW #wageslavery
Peter Riley
MikeDunnAuthor
Liam O'Mara IV, PhD
Cascadia-PNW