Today in Labor History April 22, 2011: Songwriter, musician and activist Hazel Dickens died at age 75. Dickens was well known, not only for her protest songs, but for her activism, too. According to blogger John Pietaro, "Dickens didn’t just sing the anthems of labor, she lived them and her place on many a picket line, staring down gunfire and goon squads, embedded her into the cause." She was born in West Virginia in 1925. After her family moved to Baltimore in the 1940s, she met Mike Seeger. Together, the two became active in the Baltimore folk music and protest scenes. She composed “They’ll Never Keep Us Down,” and “Working Girl Blues.” She made appearances in the Oscar-winning documentary Harlan County, USA, about the struggle of coal miners and contributed four songs to the film's soundtrack. She was also in the films Matewan and Songcatcher. And she recorded an album called, Don’t Mourn, Organize! covering the songs of IWW singer and organizer, Joe Hill. In the accompanying Youtube video, she performs Fire in the Hole, from Matewan. https://youtu.be/1pb2bDA7Kd0
Today in Labor History April 19, 1913: Modestino Valentino, a bystander, was shot and killed by company detectives during a conflict between IWW strikers and scabs in Patterson, N.J., during the infamous Silk Strike, which the workers ultimately lost on July 28, 1913. During the strike, 1,850 workers were arrested, including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Big Bill Haywood.
Today in Labor History April 18, 1914: IWW workers in Taft, California, continued their strike against Standard Oil. It was the first strike ever against the company. The workers demanded an eight-hour day and a 50-cents raise.
Today in Labor History April 14, 1917: IWW sailors went on strike in Philadelphia and won a ten dollar per month raise. Ben Fletcher, an African-American IWW organizer, was instrumental in organizing the Philadelphia waterfront. Fletcher was born in Philly in 1890. He joined the Wobblies (IWW) in 1912, became secretary of the IWW District Council in 1913. He also co-founded the interracial Local 8 in 1913.
In 1913, Fletcher led 10,000 IWW Philly dockworkers on a strike. Within two weeks, they won 10-hr day, overtime pay, & created one of the most successful antiracist, anticapitalist union locals in the U.S. At the time, roughly one-third of the dockers on the Philadelphia waterfront were black. Another 33% were Irish. And about 33% were Polish and Lithuanian. Prior to the IWW organizing drive, the employers routinely pitted black workers against white, and Polish against Irish. The IWW was one of the only unions of the era that organized workers into the same locals, regardless of race or ethnicity. And its main leader in Philadelphia was an African American, Ben Fletcher.
By 1916, thanks in large part to Fletcher’s organizing skill, all but two of Philadelphia’s docks were controlled by the IWW. And the union maintained control of the Philly waterfront for about a decade. At that time, roughly 10% of the IWW’s 1 million members were African American. Most had been rejected from other unions because of their skin color.
Fletcher also traveled up and down the east coast organizing dockers. However, he was nearly lynched in Norfolk, Virginia in 1917. And in 1918, the state arrested him, sentencing him to ten years for the crime of organizing workers during wartime. He served three years.
Today In Labor History April 9, 1930: The IWW organized the 1700-member crew of the Leviathan, the world’s largest ship. Originally a German passenger ship, the U.S. seized it in 1917, during World War I, when it was docked in New York harbor. The U.S. subsequently used it to transport its troops to Europe. In September, 1918, the Leviathan left New Jersey, filled with men dying from Influenza. Dozens perished from the flu on the passage over.
Frank Little was a Cherokee miner and IWW union organizer. He helped organize oil workers, timber workers, and migrant farm workers in California. Frank Little also participated in free speech fights in Missoula, Spokane and Fresno, and helped pioneer many of the passive resistance techniques later used by the Civil Rights movement. He was also an anti-war activist, calling U.S. soldiers “Uncle Sam’s scabs in uniforms.” He also referred to World War I as a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”
In 1916, he was active in the Mesabi Range strike, in Minnesota, along with Carlo Tresca, Joe Ettor and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. And in 1917, he went to help organize the Speculator Mine strike in Butte, Montana, where 168 men had died. However, on August 1, Vigilantes broke into his boarding house, dragged him through the streets while tied to the back of a car, and then lynched him from a railroad trestle.
Today In Labor History April 3, 1913: Pietro Botto, socialist mayor of Haledon, N.J., invited the Paterson silk mill strikers to assemble in front of his house. 20,000 showed up to hear speakers from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Upton Sinclair, John Reed and others, who urged them to remain strong in their fight. The Patterson strike lasted from Feb. 1 until July 28, 1913. Workers were fighting for the eight-hour workday and better working conditions. Over 1800 workers were arrested during the strike, including IWW leaders Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Five were killed. Overall, the strike was poorly organized and confined to Paterson. The IWW, the main organizer of the strike, eventually gave up.
Today In Labor History April 3, 1917: After the U.S. declared war, sailors, escorted by police, destroyed the IWW building in Kansas City. The action inspired similar attacks in Detroit, Duluth and other towns that had a large IWW presence.
Today in Labor History April 1, 1929: Textile workers struck at the Loray Mill, in Gastonia, N.C. Textile mills started moving from New England, to the South, in the 1890s, to avoid the unions. This escalated after the 1909 Shirtwaist strike (which preceded the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist fire), the IWW-led Lawrence (1912) and (1913) Patterson strikes, which were led by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Big Bill Haywood and Carlo Tresca. The Gastonia strike was violent and bloody. Dozens of strikers were imprisoned. A pregnant white woman, Ella Mae Wiggins, wrote and performed songs during the strike. She also lived with and organized African American workers, one of the worst crimes a poor white woman could commit in the South. The strike ended soon after goons murdered her. Woody Guthrie called Wiggins the pioneer of the protest ballad and one of the great folk song writers.
Wiley Cash wrote a wonderful novel about Ella Mae Wiggins and the Gastonia strike, “The Last Ballad.” Jess Walter wrote a really great novel about the Spokane free speech fight, featuring Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, called “The Cold Millions.” Other novels about the Gastonia strike include Sherwood Anderson’s, “Beyond Desire,” and Mary Heaton Vorse’s, “Strike!”
Today in Labor History April 1, 1920: T-Bone Slim's “The Popular Wobbly” was published in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) "One Big Union Monthly." T-Bone Slim (Matti Valentin Huhta) was a Finnish-American poet, songwriter, journalist, hobo and IWW labor activist. He was a regular columnist for the Industrial Worker, Industrial Solidarity, and Industrialisti. Some of his most well-known labor songs include: The Popular Wobbly, Mysteries Of A Hobo's Life, and The Lumberjack's Prayer. His songs were sung during the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s and Noam Chomsky was a big fan. https://youtu.be/Rn_Wfydg61c
Today in Labor History March 30, 1990: Harry Bridges died at age 88. He helped found the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) and led the union for 40 years. Bridges was born in Australia in 1901 and moved to the U.S. in 1920. He joined the IWW in 1921 and participated in an unsuccessful nationwide seamen’s strike. In 1922, he moved to San Francisco, to become a longshoreman. His militancy won him considerable support and he was soon elected a leader of the new longshoremen’s union. He helped lead the 1935 San Francisco General Strike. This was one of the last General Strikes to occur in the U.S. because the Taft-Hartley Act banned them in 1947 (in the wake of the 1945-1946 Strike Wave, with over 4.3 million U.S. workers going on strike, including General Strikes in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Stamford, Connecticut; Rochester, New York; and Oakland, California). One of Bridge’s most famous quotes was, “The most important word in the language of the working class is solidarity.
Today In Labor History March 27, 1912: Start of the 8-month Northern railway strike in Canada by the IWW. Over 8,000 construction workers, led by the IWW, walked off the job at Northern Railway workcamps Wobblies picketed employment offices in Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Tacoma and Minneapolis in order to block the hiring of scabs.
Fellow workers pay attention to what I'm going to mention,
For it is the fixed intention of the Workers of the World.
And I hope you'll all be ready, true-hearted, brave and steady,
To gather 'round our standard when the red flag is unfurled.
CHORUS:
Where the Fraser River flows, each fellow worker knows,
They have bullied and oppressed us, but still our union grows.
And we're going to find a way, boys, for shorter hours and better pay, boys
And we're going to win the day, boys, where the river Fraser flows.
For these gunny-sack contractors have all been dirty actors,
And they're not our benefactors, each fellow worker knows.
So we've got to stick together in fine or dirty weather,
And we will show no white feather, where the Fraser river flows.
Now the boss the law is stretching, bulls and pimps he's fetching,
And they are a fine collection, as Jesus only knows.
But why their mothers reared them, and why the devil spared them,
Are questions we can't answer, where the Fraser River flows.
(Lyrics by Joe Hill, 1912, to the tune of “Where the River Shannon Flows.”)
No, people want to do meaningful work, earn enough to live securely, and be treated respectfully.
I'm a public school teacher. Yesterday, my coworkers were complaining about how the boss is always trying to "encourage" us to work harder and do more for the kids, yet never compliments the hard work we already do. Then one of 'em said, "Yeh, I used stay late and work until 6 every day. Never again!"
What has management gotten for their efforts: Alienation, resentment, and resistance.
Today in Labor History March 23, 1918: 101 IWW members went on trial in Chicago for opposing World War I and for violating the Espionage Act. In September, 1917, 165 IWW leaders were arrested for conspiring to subvert the draft and encourage desertion. Their trial lasted five months, the longest criminal trial in American history up to that time. The jury found them all guilty. The judge sentenced Big Bill Haywood and 14 others to 20 years in prison. 33 others were given 10 years each. They were also fined a total of $2,500,000. The trial virtually destroyed the IWW. Haywood jumped bail and fled to the USSR, where he remained until his death 10 years later.
Today in Labor History March 15, 1917: The U.S. Supreme Court approved the 8-hour workday under the threat of a rail strike. Philadelphia carpenters struck for the 10-hour day in 1791 and by the 1830s, it had become a general demand of workers. In 1835, Philadelphia workers organized the first general strike in North America, led by Irish coal heavers, in the struggle for a 10-hour day. However, by 1836, labor movement publications were calling for an 8-hour day. In 1864, the 8-hour day became a central demand of the Chicago labor movement. In 1867, a citywide strike for the 8-hour day shut down the city's economy for a week before falling apart. During the 1870s, eight hours became a central demand of the U.S. labor movement, with a network of 8-Hour Leagues forming across the nation.
In 1872, 100,000 workers in New York City struck and won the eight-hour day. On May 1, 1886 Albert Parsons, head of the Chicago Knights of Labor, led 80,000 people down Michigan Avenue in the first modern May Day Parade, with workers chanting, "Eight-hour day with no cut in pay." Within days, 350,000 workers went on strike nationwide for the 8-hour day. On 3 May 1886, anarchist August Spies, editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Workers Newspaper), spoke to 6,000 workers. Afterwards, they marched to the McCormick plant in Chicago to harass scab workers. The police arrived and opened fire, killing four and wounding many more. On May 4, workers protested this police violence at a meeting in Haymarket Square. An unknown assailant hurled a bomb at the police. The authorities rounded up hundreds of labor activists and anarchists. They convicted 8 in a kangaroo court and executed four of them, including Parsons and Spies.
In 1916, Congress passed the Adamson Act, establishing the 8-hour day for railroad workers. As with prior 8-hour laws, the bosses routinely violated the law until forced by the Supreme Court, 1917, to honor the rule. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American works 8.8 hours every day.
Today in Labor History March 15, 1877: Ben Fletcher, African-American IWW organizer was born on this date. Fletcher organized longshoremen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He joined the Wobblies (IWW) in 1912, became secretary of the IWW District Council in 1913. He also co-founded the interracial Local 8 in 1913. By 1916, thanks in large part to Fletcher’s organizing skill, all but two of Philadelphia’s docks were controlled by the IWW. And the union maintained control of the Philly waterfront for about a decade. After the 1913 strike, Fletcher traveled up and down the east coast organizing dockers. However, he was nearly lynched in Norfolk, Virginia in 1917. At that time, roughly 10% of the IWW’s 1 million members were African American. Most had been rejected from other unions because of their skin color. In 1918, the state arrested him, sentencing him to ten years for the crime of organizing workers during wartime. He served three years.
Today in Labor History March 12, 1912: The IWW won their Bread and Roses textile strike in Lawrence, MA. This was the first strike to use the moving picket line, implemented to avoid arrest for loitering. The workers came from 51 different nationalities and spoke 22 different languages. The mainstream unions, including the American Federation of Labor, all believed it was impossible to organize such a diverse workforce. However, the IWW organized workers by linguistic group and trained organizers who could speak each of the languages. Each language group got a delegate on the strike committee and had complete autonomy. Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn masterminded the strategy of sending hundreds of the strikers' hungry children to sympathetic families in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont, drawing widespread sympathy, especially after police violently stopped a further exodus. 3 workers were killed by police during the strike. Nearly 300 were arrested.
The 1911 verse, by Poet James Oppenheim, has been associated with the strike, particularly after Upton Sinclair made the connection in his 1915 labor anthology, “The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest”
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
Today in Labor History March 9, 1911: Frank Little and other free-speech fighters were released from jail in Fresno, California, where they had been fighting for the right to speak to and organize workers on public streets. Little was a Cherokee miner and IWW union organizer. He helped organize oil workers, timber workers and migrant farm workers in California. He participated in free speech fights in Missoula, Spokane and Fresno, and helped pioneer many of the passive resistance techniques later used by the Civil Rights movement. He was also an anti-war activist, calling U.S. soldiers “Uncle Sam’s scabs in uniforms.” 1917, he helped organize the Speculator Mine strike in Butte, Montana. Vigilantes broke into his boarding house, dragged him through the streets while tied to the back of a car, and then lynched him from a railroad trestle. Prior to Little’s assassination, Author Dashiell Hammett had been asked by the Pinkerton Detective Agency to murder him. Hammett declined.
Today in Labor History March 9, 1879: Anarchist militant and IWW organizer, Carlo Tresca, was born. Tresca was an outspoken opponent of fascism in Germany and Italy, and of Soviet Communism. He was one of the main organizers of the Patterson Silk Strike. He was assassinated in 1943 by an unknown assailant, presumably a fascist or the Mafia. Some believe the Soviets killed him in retaliation for his criticism of Stalin. The most recent research suggests it was the Bonanno crime family, in response to his criticism of the mafia and Mussolini.
Today in Labor History March 8, 1911: The first modern International Women’s Day was celebrated in Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and the U.S. IWD has its roots in the suffrage movement of New Zealand, and leftist labor organizing in the U.S. and Europe. The earliest Women’s Days were organized by the Socialist Party of America, in New York, in 1909, and by German socialists in 1910. They chose the date of March 8 in honor of the garment workers strikes in New York that occurred on March 8, in 1857 and 1908. However, the first IWD celebrated on March 8, the current date, was in 1911. The holiday was associated primarily with far-left movements until the feminist movement adopted it in the 1960s, when it became a more mainstream celebration.
Today in Labor History March 8, 1908: Thousands of workers in the New York needle trades (mostly women) launched a strike for higher wages, shorter hours and an end to child labor. They chose this date in commemoration of the 1857 strike. In 1910, German socialist Clara Zetkin proposed to the Second International, that March 8 be celebrated as International Women’s Day to commemorate this strike and the one in 1857.
Today in Labor History March 8, 1857: Women garment workers picketed in New York City, demanding a 10-hour workday, better working conditions, and equal rights for women. In 1910, German socialist Clara Zetkin proposed to the Second International, that March 8 be celebrated as International Women’s Day to commemorate this strike.