I'm with Von Ronk!
Van Ronk, for those unfamiliar with him, was an important figure in the New York folk revival of the 1960s. He was also a big fan of scifi, and politically active in the IWW, the anarchist Libertarian League, the Young Socialist League, and Trotskyist groups.
During his Stonewall arrest, police beat him nearly unconscious.
#anarchism #socialism #IWW #folk #folkmusic #davevonronk #stonewall #lgbtq #police #policebrutality #Riot #transrightsarehumanrights
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
Saturday June 13th at 2pm at Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 D01T6V6.
Pan-African Workers Association (PAWA) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), along with activists from the African Centre #Ireland
https://www.onebigunion.ie/post/dublin-talk-unionising-for-migrant-rights-in-the-workplace
#Dublin #iww #labourmovement #migrantworkers #organize #PAWA #solidarity #unions
Migrant workers are often in some of the most precarious positions in the labour market.While economies depend upon their labour, they are routinely subjected to poverty wages, labour rights abuses and health and safety violations. The rights of migrant workers in Ireland will be front and centre of a discussion taking place on Saturday June 13th at 2pm at the Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 D01T6V6.At this event, key organisers from the Pan-African Workers Association (PAWA) and the
Today in Labor History May 17, 1917: The government stayed the execution of Tom Mooney while he appealed his case. Mooney ultimately spent 22 years in prison for the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade bombing in 1916, a crime he did not commit. Mooney, along with codefendant Warren Billings, were members of the IWW and were railroaded because of their union and anarchist affiliations. The bomb exploded at the foot of Market Street, killing ten and wounding forty. Billings had heard rumors that agents provocateurs might try to blacken the labor movement by disrupting the pro-war parade. He tried to warn his comrades.
Mooney’s father had been in the Knights of Labor, a forerunner of the IWW. He had been beaten so badly during one strike, that his comrades thought he was dead. He ultimately died of silicosis from mining at the age of 36, when Tom was only ten. In San Francisco, Tom Mooney published The Revolt, a socialist newspaper. He was tried and acquitted three times for transporting explosives during the Pacific Gas & Electric strike in 1913.
Mooney filed a writ of habeas corpus in 1937, providing evidence that his conviction was based on perjured testimony and evidence tampering. Among this evidence was a photograph of him in front of a large, ornate clock, on Market Street, clearly showing the time of the bombing and that he could not have been at the bombing site when it occurred. The Alibi Clock was later moved to downtown Vallejo, twenty-five miles to the northeast of San Francisco. A bookstore in Vallejo is named after this clock. He was finally pardoned in 1939. Upon his release, he marched in a huge parade down market street. Cops and leaders of the mainstream unions were all forbidden from participating. An honor guard of longshoremen accompanied him carrying their hooks. His case helped establish that convictions based on false evidence violate people’s right to due process.
The accompanying photo shows Oliver Law, and the Tom Mooney Machine Gun Company, part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, who fought in the Spanish war against fascism (AKA the Spanish Civil War). Oliver Law was a communist, and the first black man known to have commanded white U.S. troops.
Read my complete article on Mooney and Billings here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/05/19/tom-mooney-and-warren-billings/
#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #TomMooney #WarrenBillings #bombing #prison #socialism #execution #union #anarchism #AbrahamLincolnBrigades #fascism #antifascism #oliverlaw #spain #BlackMastodon
Today in Labor History May 16, 2007: Long before the current wave of union organizing at Starbucks, Baristas at the Starbucks in East Grand Rapids announced their membership in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union. Starbucks was and is notorious for their poor treatment of workers. The NLRB slapped them with numerous anti-labor violations and forced them to settle the Grand Rapids dispute in October. In 2024, the Supreme Court heard the case of seven union workers from a Memphis, Tennessee Starbucks who were fired in retaliation for joining the union, in violation of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #IWW #starbucks #nlrb #SCOTUS #unionbusting
Today in Labor History May 16, 1918: Congress passed the Sedition Act against radicals and pacifists, leading to the arrest, imprisonment, execution and deportation of dozens of unionists, anarchists and communists. The law forbade the use of “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive” language about the U.S. government, its flag, or it military. The mainstream press supported the act, despite the significant limitations it imposed on free speech and of press freedom. In June, 1918, the government arrested Eugene Debs for violating the act by undermining the government’s conscription efforts. He served 18 months in prison. Congress repealed the act in 1920, since world War I had ended. However, Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer, lobbied for a peacetime version of it. Additionally, he continued to round up labor activists, communists and anarchist for seditious behavior, particularly Wobblies, or members of the IWW. For example, they convicted Marie Equi for giving a speech at the IWW hall in Portland, Oregon after WWI had ended. Today, President Trump is attempting to bring it back with decrees forbidding criticism of the U.S. government, capitalism, traditional marriage, Israel, and even fascism, while also forbidding speech in support of transgender rights and safety.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #congress #freespeech #witchhunt #anarchism #communism #union #antiwar #prison #trump #censorship #fascism
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