Today in Labor History June 4, 1943: The Zoot Suit riots began in Los Angeles, with white soldiers attacking and stripping mostly Latino, but also some black, Italian and Filipino youth who wearing zoot suits. During this time, there was also a rise of pachuco culture among Latin youth. Chicano or pachuco jazz had become incredibly popular. Some of the great Pachuco band leaders included Lalo Guerrero, Don Tosti and Don Ramon Martinez.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyBLQg8CGJs

Today in Labor History May 29, 1941: Animators working for Walt Disney begin a five-week strike for recognition of their union, the Screen Cartoonists’ Guild. Disney’s initial response was to fire them. However, the union held fast and ultimately prevailed, winning union recognition. Still, dozens of Disney’s best animators left for good, joining other studios or, as in the case of Hank Ketchum (creator of Dennis the Menace), starting their own studio, United Productions. At the time of the strike, the Disney animators were working on Dumbo. The clowns in the film were a caricature of strikers, when they “hit the big boss for a raise.”

#Trump #BigBeautifulBill is cutting funds to programs that all working class and retired people benefit from, especially to #MedicAid. Also giving big #corporations additional #tax breaks, #deregulation of barriers that reduce #corruption in #finance, #crypto and #health. All while using #immigrants as #scapegoats.

This is what #capitalism always reverts to. A new #GuildedAge.

The #WorkingClass #Proletariat need #Solidarity, #Socialism, a real #democracy.

Today in Writing History May 22, 1859: Author Arthur Conan Doyle was born. He was most famous for his character, Sherlock Holmes. However, he was also a physician and a staunch supporter of compulsory vaccination. He wrote several articles denouncing the views of anti-vaxxers. But he was not particularly successful as a doctor. So, as he sat around waiting for patients to show up, he took to writing stories. Perhaps his most well-known book was The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901). But it was his 1914 Holmes story, The Valley of Fear, that piqued my interest. It is about the Molly Maguires, like my book, Anywhere But Schuylkill, and involves some of the same characters (but with different names). Unfortunately, Doyle relied heavily on the testimony of America’s first celebrity cop, Allan Pinkerton, as his original source and, consequently, makes many of the same historical errors as so many others who’ve written about those events.

You can read my article on Pinkerton, and his war on unions here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

You can read my article on the Molly Maguires here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/13/the-myth-of-the-molly-maguires/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #mollymaguires #Pinkertons #union #strike #irish #immigration #police #unionbusting #writer #author #books #fiction #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History May 22, 1968: New York police broke through the barricades at Columbia University, busting the student occupations there. As a result, 998 were arrested and over 200 injured. Students were demanding a black studies program and an end to military recruitment and ROTC on campus. Sound familiar? However, today’s student protests are bringing back the worst of 1960s-‘70s police brutality and university intolerance for Free Speech along with McCarthy era firing, blacklisting and doxing of academics for the crime of criticizing the Israeli government, under bogus claims of antisemitism.

Today in Labor History May 20, 1949: The U.S. established the National Security Agency. Up until recently it was (and probably still is) the nation’s largest spy agency, in spite of massive cuts and mass firings by the Trump administration. The NSA currently engages in worldwide mass data collection as well as physically bugging targets. They were likely behind the Stuxnet software attack that severely damaged Iran’s nuclear program. The NSA spied on anti-Vietnam War activists and continues to spy on U.S. citizens. Many of their secret surveillance programs were leaked by Edward Snowden, who was forced to flee the country. He is now living in exile in Russia. Private companies, like AT&T and Verizon have collaborated with the NSA to help them spy on U.S. citizens. They supposedly have access to all communications made via Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube, AOL, Skype, Apple and Paltalk.

I’d like to say the good news is that the vast majority of this data is pornographic. Problem is, they’re using people’s porn habits to discredit and embarrass them, particularly Muslim clerics and activists. According to a July 2014 report in the Washington Post, 90% of those being surveilled by the NSA are ordinary Americans, not intended targets. But since they’re surveilling every communication made by nearly everyone in the U.S., they’re surveilling pretty much everyone. So, the obvious question is: Why are 10% of all Americans (a full 33 million people) considered targets? And if there really are 33 million of us who are opposed the U.S. government, how come we keep ending up with such shit politicians? And this particular data was true prior to Trump taking office. One can presume that everyone who has ever said anything critical of the U.S., or Trump, is now in the crosshairs.

Today in Labor History May 20, 1956: In Operation Redwing, the U.S. dropped the first airborne hydrogen bomb over the Bikini Atoll. From May to July, the U.S. detonated 17 nuclear devices in the Bikini and Enewetak atolls. They tested both thermonuclear and fission weapons. They cynically named each of the tests after a different Native American tribe, and then, in the following years, went on to devastate indigenous lands within the U.S. mainland through nuclear mining, testing and waste storage.

Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear devices in the Marshall Islands. According to anthropologist Holly Barker, it was the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima-sized bombs dropped on the islands every day for 12 years. As a result of these tests, the U.S. completely vaporized three of the Bikini Islands and polluted huge swaths of water and land, poisoning countless indigenous people there. Many starved to death because they were relocated to places that couldn’t produce enough food. Each resident now receives a paltry $550 annually from the U.S. government to cover medical treatment related to radiation poisoning.

Today in Labor History May 18, 1979: An Oklahoma jury ruled in favor of the estate of atomic worker Karen Silkwood. Kerr-McGee Nuclear Company was ordered to pay $505,000 in actual damages and $10 million in punitive damages for negligence leading to Silkwood’s plutonium contamination. On appeal, the court reduced the settlement to a pitiful $5,000, the estimated value of her property losses. In 1984, the Supreme Court restored the original verdict, but Kerr-McGee again threatened to appeal. Ultimately, Silkwood’s family settled out of court for $1.38 million and the company never had to admit any wrongdoing.

Silkwood first started working at Kerr-McGee in 1972. She joined the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers union and participated in a strike. After the strike, her comrades elected her to the union’s bargaining committee. She was the first woman to attain that status at Kerr-McGee. In this role, one of her duties was to investigate health and safety issues. Not surprisingly, she discovered numerous violations, including exposure of workers to contamination. The union accused Kerr-McGee of falsifying inspection records, manufacturing faulty fuel rods and other safety violations. After testifying to the Atomic Energy Commission, Silkwood discovered that her own body and home were contaminated with radiation. Her body contained 400 times the legal limit for plutonium contamination and she was expelling contaminated air from her lungs. Her house was so contaminated they had to destroy much of her personal property.

Later, she decided to go public with documentation proving the company’s negligence. She left a meeting with union officials in order to meet a New York Times journalist. She brought a binder and packet of documents supporting her allegations with her. However, she never made it, dying in a suspicious car crash. The documents were never found. Some journalists believe she was rammed from behind by another vehicle. Investigators noted damage to the read of her car that would be consistent with this hypothesis. She had also received death threats shortly before her death. However, no one has yet substantiated the claims of foul play.

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/

Today in Labor History May 17, 1900: Following the siege of Mafeking, during the Second Boer War, over 27,000 Boer women and children died in the world's first concentration camps. The Spanish had actually created similar death camps in Cuba during the Ten Year’s War (1868-1878). However, the death camps in South Africa were the first to be called concentration camps. Additionally, the Boer War concentration camp system was the first time an entire nation had been targeted. During the war, Mahatma Gandhi and 800 Indian slaves started the Ambulance Corps to serve the British.

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/

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 in Labor History May 15, 1919: Workers in Winnipeg, Canada, initiated a huge general strike involving 30,000 workers. The strike lasted until June 26th, when the Winnipeg Labor Council declared the strike over. During the strike, the Mounted Police tried repeatedly to violently suppress the workers. The workers called for a six-hour workday and a five-day work week. During the strike, virtually the entire workforce halted work. Even the local cops voted for the strike. However, the strike committee asked the cops and utility workers to stay on the job to help keep basic services functioning. They set up a huge public kitchen which served food to hundreds of people each day. The Winnipeg “Free Press” called the strikers bohunks, aliens and anarchists. The called in the Royal Mounted Police and arrested dozens of people, charging some with seditious conspiracy. On Bloody Saturday, June 21, the Mounties fired into the crowd, killing one and wounding thirty others. In May and June, General Strikes broke out in 30 other Canadian cities.

743 out now!

https://workersliberty.org/publications/solidarity/solidarity-743-14-may-2025

Today in Labor History May 13, 1985: The city of Philadelphia bombed the house of the radical black activist group MOVE. The police dropped a bomb made with C-4 explosives from a helicopter over the African American residential neighborhood. When survivors tried to flee, the cops shot at them. As a result, eleven MOVE members died, including five children. Furthermore, the bomb and fires destroyed sixty-two others homes in the neighborhood. Consequently, 250 Philadelphians became homeless. Adding insult to injury, the bones of some of the victims were transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where professors used them to teach courses on forensic evidence.

MOVE was a black liberation environmental movement. Many surviving MOVE members were still in prison as late as 2020. Mumia Abu Jamal, who was an associate of MOVE, is still in prison on trumped up charges of killing a cop. He is currently severely ill with diabetes and heart disease. The government has bombed civilians from the air several other times in history. The first was during the Tulsa anti-black pogrom of 1921. They also aerially bombed striking Appalachian miners that same year.

Today in Labor History May 11, 1963: The Birmingham riot began when racists set off several bombs targeting the African-American leaders of the Birmingham Campaign. The Campaign was a mass protest for racial justice. In response to the bombings, African American protesters burned down businesses and fought police in downtown Birmingham. They were frustrated both by the cops’ complicity in racist attacks against them, and the ineffectiveness of nonviolent protest. Governor Wallace deployed the state militia against the protesters. Many believe this event proved pivotal in Kennedy’s decision to propose a major civil rights bill.

If you're annoyed/worried about the lack of working class voices in the UK's media landscape (as I am) then you might want to check out The Bee, a self-avowedly working class focussed e-zine.

I've already boosted one story from the Bee & will be boosting more in the coming weeks as & when... but if you have a more general interest, please have a look

#WorkingClass #media #culture #books

https://thebeemagazine.com/a-class-of-our-own/

We’re all struggling—but who’s really to blame?

This Friday, May 9th, we’re meeting at the Buckeye Clubhouse (11713 Buckeye Rd, Cleveland) for a community forum on the real causes of the cost-of-living crisis — and how we can organize to win a dignified future.

FRIDAY, MAY 9
6:30PM
11713 BUCKEYE RD. Cleveland, Oh

Credit: @pslcleveland on Instagram

ICE has targeted union leaders for deportation.

One of the first things Hitler did was abolish independent unions and start arresting union leaders. Looks like Trump is starting to do the same, at least the arresting part.

https://theintercept.com/2025/05/05/ice-raid-farm-labor-union-new-york-ufw/