Today in Labor History April 24, 1916: The Easter rising began in Dublin. Irish rebels, led by James Connolly and Patrick Pearce, attempted to end British rule and create an independent Ireland. The armed uprising lasted six days. Men and women participated. 485 people died in the fighting, including 143 British soldiers and cops. The rest were mostly Irish civilians. The British ultimately prevailed. They took 3,500 prisoners and sent 1,800 to internment camps. They also executed sixteen of the Rising’s leaders, sparking outrage among the Irish public.

James Connolly was an Irish republican, socialist and union leader. Prior to the Easter Rising, he lived in Scotland and participated in Scottish socialist organizations. After that, he emigrated to the U.S., where he joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and founded the Irish Socialist Federation in New York. In Ireland, he was a leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union and participated in the Dublin lock-out, one of the largest and most severe labor disputes in Irish history.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #easterrising #dublin #ireland #colonialism #independence #IWW #jamesconnolly #PatrickPearce #union #socialism #Revolution

#OnThisDay 29th March 1975, The Non-Stop Connolly Show, a 24-hour play dramatising the life of James Connolly by Margaretta D’Arcy and John Arden, was first performed.

https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/3817/

#Ireland #Politics #History #JamesConnolly #OTD

Today in Labor History January 4, 1909: James Larkin founded the ITGWU (Irish Transport and General Workers Union) on this date in Dublin. Many of the original members of the ITGWU came from the socialist movement or from the IWW. Their logo was the Red Hand of Ulster. They were at the center of the syndicalist-led Dublin Lockout in 1913, in which 2 people died and hundreds were injured (mostly police). “September 1913,” one of the most famous of W. B. Yeats' poems, was published during the lock-out. After Larkin left for the U.S. in 1914, James Connolly led the ITGWU until his execution in 1916 for his leadership role in the Easter Rising. Connolly was a founding member of the IWW in the U.S. in 1905.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #jameslarkin #jamesconnolly #itgwu #IWW #ireland #independance #ulster #easterrising #yeats #poetry #dublin #writer #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History January 2, 1905: A conference of 23 industrial unionists met in Chicago and issued a manifesto calling for an industrial Union Congress to be held in Chicago on June 27—a meeting that would lead to the formation of the Industrial Workers of the World (AKA: IWW or "Wobblies"). The IWW founding members were a veritable who’s who of radical labor leaders: Mother Jones, Lucy Parsons, Eugene Debs, Big Bill Haywood, James Connolly, Daniel DeLeon, Vincent St. John, Ralph Chaplin.

The IWW was, and continues to be, a revolutionary union fighting for the abolition of bosses, an end to wage slavery, as well as worker control of the means of production, through organization and education, sabotage, direct action, mutual aid, and the General Strike. Their motto: An Injury to One is an Injury to All. At its height, in the 1910s, the IWW had well over 150,000 members in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. They have always had strong ties to anarchist and socialist movements and been staunchly opposed to imperialist and capitalist wars (No War but Class War). Over the years, dozens of IWW members were murdered by cops, goons and vigilantes. Hundreds were imprisoned and deported. Their offices were burned to the ground. Members were forced to run gauntlets. Some were lynched.

Despite the devastation to the union caused by the Palmer Raids (the first red scare) in the late 1910s, the IWW persisted. In the 1990s and 2000s, they spear-headed the original Starbucks Union Drive. They organized bike messengers, exotic dancers, janitors at queer night clubs, indie publishers, recyclers, food coops and Whole Foods. They were also involved in the 2016 prisoner strike at 20 prisons in the U.S., and in organizing a General Strike in Wisconsin, in 2011, in response to that state’s anti-union legislation and the subsequent occupation of the State House.

You can read more IWW history in the following articles:
https://michaeldunnauthor.com/?s=lucy+parsons
https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/
https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2021/05/13/ben-fletcher-and-the-iww-dockers/
https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/05/19/tom-mooney-and-warren-billings/
https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #wobblies #union #strike #GeneralStrike #sabotage #directaction #lucyparsons #bigbillhaywood #eugenedebs #jamesconnolly #police #prison #palmerraids #antiwar #classwar #revolution #mutualaid #motherjones

Today in Labor History August 26, 1913: The Dublin lock-out began, a 5- month strike over terrible living and working conditions, and for union recognition. At the time, some Irish workers were living with 55 people per house. The Infant mortality rate among the poor was 142 per 1,000 births. TB-related deaths were 50% higher than in England or Scotland. The main organizers of the strike were 2 syndicalists, James Larkin and IWW cofounder, James Connolly. Several workers were killed by police and by strikebreakers. Hundreds were injured. WB Yeats’ poem, September 1913, is often viewed as a commentary on the brutality of the strike. Connolly was later executed as a leader of the Easter Rising, in 1916.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #dublin #lockout #union #strike #ireland #socialism #jameslarkin #jamesconnolly #IWW #police #policebrutality

New document:

Yellow Unions in Ireland and Other Articles, by James Connolly.

Published in 1968 by the Irish Communist Organisation as part of their series, "Connolly's Suppressed Articles"

https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/7343/

#Ireland #History #Politics #JamesConnolly #IrishCommunistOrganisation

Today in Labor History July 10, 1894: The Pullman Rail Car strike was put down by 14,000 federal and state troops. Over the course of the strike, soldiers killed 70 American Railway Union (ARU) members. Eugene Debs and many others were imprisoned during the strike for violating injunctions. Debs founded the ARU in 1893. The strike began, in May, as a wildcat strike, when George Pullman laid off employees and slashed wages, while maintaining the same high rents for his company housing in the town of Pullman, as well as the excessive rates he charged for gas and water. During the strike, Debs called for a massive boycott against all trains that carried Pullman cars. While many adjacent unions opposed the boycott, including the conservative American Federation of Labor, the boycott nonetheless affected virtually all train transport west of Detroit. Debs also called for a General Strike, which Samuel Gompers and the AFL blocked. At its height, over 200,000 railway workers walked off the job, halting dozens of lines, and workers set fire to buildings, boxcars and coal cars, and derailed locomotives. Clarence Darrow successfully defended Debs in court against conspiracy charges, arguing that it was the railways who met in secret and conspired against their opponents. However, they lost in their Supreme Court trial for violating a federal injunction.

By the 1950s, the town of Pullman had been incorporated into the city of Chicago. Debs became a socialist after the strike, running for president of the U.S. five times on the Socialist Party ticket, twice from prison. In 1905, he cofounded the radical IWW, along with Lucy Parsons, Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood and Irish revolutionary James Connolly. In 1894, President Cleveland designated Labor Day a federal holiday, in order to detract from the more radical May 1st, which honored the Haymarket martyrs and the struggle for the 8-hour day. Legislation for the holiday was pushed through Congress six days after the Pullman strike ended, with the enthusiastic support of Gompers and the AFL.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #eugenedebs #IWW #pullman #chicago #haymarket #EightHourDay #socialism #lucyparsons #motherjones #BigBillHaywood #revolutionary #jamesconnolly #generalstrike #boycott

Today in Labor History July 9, 1935: The Squeegee Strike began in New York, in protest of the dismissals of six subway car cleaners who refused a work speed-up. All were reinstated and most of the union’s grievances were resolved. It was the first successful strike by the new Transport Workers Union (TWU), created in 1934 by 7 NYC subway workers who belonged to the Irish nationalist organization Clan na Gael. They were inspired by the socialism and trade union work of James Connolly, one of the founding members of the IWW . The TWU was a militant industrial union, organizing all workers in the industry, regardless of skill or job title. The union quickly expanded to include workers in all transport industries, throughout the U.S.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #socialism #jamesconnolly #IWW #ireland #newyork