1,500-year-old shipwreck graveyard of 134 vessels is found off the coast of Gibraltar
Today in Labor History April 12, 1935: 150,000 college students protested across the U.S. in the first nationwide student strike against war. Between 1936 and 1939, the movement mobilized at least 500,000 college students (almost 50% of all American college students at the time) in annual one-hour strikes against war.
#antiwar #ww2 #students #strike #workingclass #LaborHistory #studentprotest #peace #worldwartwo #university #college
Today in Labor History April 1, 1946: Over 400,000 UMWA coal miners from 26 states went on strike for safer conditions, health benefits and increased wages. WWII had recently ended and President Truman saw the strike as counterproductive to economic recovery. In May, 1946, he seized the mines, making the miners temporarily federal employees. He ended the strike by offering them a deal that included healthcare and retirement security.
The coal strike was part of the strike wave of 1945-1946, the largest in U.S. history. During WWII, most of the major unions collaborated with the U.S. war effort by enforcing labor “discipline” and preventing strikes. In exchange, the U.S. government supported closed shop policies under which employers at unionized companies agreed to hire only union members. While the closed shop gave unions more power within a particular company, the no-strike policy made that power virtually meaningless.
When the war ended, inflation soared and veterans flooded the labor market. As a result, frustrated workers began a series of wildcat strikes. Many grew into national, union-supported strikes. In November 1945, 225,000 UAW members went on strike. In January 1946, 174,000 electric workers struck. That same month, 750,000 steel workers joined them. Then, in April, the coal strike began. 250,000 railroad workers struck in May. In total, 4.3 million workers went on strike. It was the closest the U.S. came to a national General Strike in the 20th century. And in December 1946, Oakland, California did have a General Strike, the last in U.S. history.
In response to the strike wave, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, which severely restricted the powers and activities of unions. It also banned General Strikes, stripping away the most powerful tool workers had.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #strikewave #generalstrike #wildcat #coal #mining #worldwartwo
You can buy the iconic club Jimi Hendrix, Tom Jones and Elton John rocked for just £475,000
Today in Labor History March 19, 1933: Nazis arrested Jewish antifascist photographer Gerda Taro and interrogated her about a supposed communist plot to overthrow Hitler. She had previously been arrested for distributing anti-fascist literature. The Nazis eventually let her go and she fled to France, and then Yugoslavia. She died at the age of 26, photo-documenting the Spanish Republican war against Franco and the fascists. Some said that she was responsible, along with Robert Capa, for inventing the genre of war photography. Capa was actually the nom de guerre of Taro’s lover, Endre Friedmann, a Hungarian Jew who taught her the art of photography and who later went on to found Magnum Photos, along with French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. “Capa” was Friedmann’s street name, back in Hungary. It meant “shark.”
#workingclass #LaborHistory #worldwartwo #hitler #nazis #holocaust #antisemitism #antifascism #antifa #fascism #photography #photojournalism #journalism #gerdataro #robertcapa
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