"These victories were made possible because workers united around demands that focused on raising up the pay, dignity, and equality of those stuck in the lowest job tiers (those often categorized as “temps” or “part-time”)—undermining the “divide and rule” strategy of management.
The tiering of work, as it turns out, is NOT unique to academia."
The fallout is growing from Tesla’s continued refusal to sign a collective agreement with its Swedish mechanics.
On top of the solidarity strikes, one of Denmark’s largest pension funds is selling its $58 million stake in Tesla for refusing to respect the Nordic labor model.
Today in Labor History December 6, 1889: The trial of the Chicago Haymarket anarchists began amidst national and international outrage and protest. None of the men on trial had even been at Haymarket Square when the bomb was set off. They were on trial because of their anarchist political affiliations and their labor organizing for the 8-hour work-day. 4 were ultimately executed, including Alber Parsons, husband of future IWW founding member Lucy Parsons. One, Louis Ling, cheated the hangman by committing suicide in his cell. The Haymarket Affairs is considered the origin of International Workers Day, May 1st, celebrated in virtually every country in the world, except for the U.S., where the atrocity occurred. Historically, it was also considered the culmination of the Great Upheaval, which a series of strike waves and labor unrest that began in Martinsburg, West Virginia, 1877, and spread throughout the U.S., including the Saint Louis Commune, when communists took over and controlled the city for several days. Over 100 workers were killed across the U.S. in the weeks of strikes and protests. Communists and anarchists also organized strikes in Chicago, where police killed 20 men and boys. Albert and Lucy Parsons participated and were influenced by these events. I write about this historical period in my Great Upheaval Trilogy. The first book in this series, Anywhere But Schuylkill, came out in September, 2023, from Historium Press. Check it out here: https://www.thehistoricalfictioncompany.com/it/michael-dunn and https://michaeldunnauthor.com/
There was a drug store in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania that plays prominently in my novel, ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL. It was run by a Polish immigrant known as Doc Luks. He was sympathetic to the miners and would often provide medicine and treatment for free during strikes, when the workers had no money to pay him.
His son, George Luks, became a successful artist, of the Ashcan School, a politically rebellious art movement that was influenced by Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” and which portrayed the everyday lives of working class people and immigrants. Luks’s art, in particular, was influenced by the poverty and oppression suffered by the miners he grew up with.
Today in Labor History December 1, 1912: The rustling card system was put into place by the Anaconda Mining and Smelter Company. Rustling cards verified employees’ identities and employment status. The company used spies to identify union agitators and refused them rustling cards and jobs. In 1920, the IWW called a strike at the mines around Butte. They demanded the end of the rustling cards system, and the implementation of the 8-hour day and higher wages. On 4/21/1920, guards opened fire on unarmed picketers, killing one and injuring sixteen. Dashiell Hammett depicted the strike in his first novel, “Red Harvest.”
Today in Labor History November 20, 1896: Rose Pesotta, anarchist labor activist and the only woman on the General Executive Board of the International Ladies' Garment Workers (ILGWU), from 1933-1944, was born on this date, in Ukraine, to a Jewish family. She learned about anarchism by reading books by Bakunin in her father’s library. Her parents set up an arranged marriage for her, which she did not approve. So, she emigrated to the U.S. in 1913, joining the ILGWU the next year. Her local, #25, was filled with militant women veterans of the 1909 Shirtwaist Strike. She wrote regularly for the New York Anarchist press, in both English and in Yiddish. She was friends with Italian-American anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In 1933, she organized immigrant Mexican garment workers, leading to the Los Angeles Garment Workers Strike. She also organized workers in Canada and Puerto Rico. Later in life, she worked briefly for the B’nai B’rith. She also wrote two memoirs, Bread Upon the Waters (1944),[6] and Days of Our Lives (1958).
If you want to help, join an advocacy group, go to your city council meeting, join your #union, go read about #solarpunk, start a #garden in your front yard! Learn to #repair your clothes and appliances instead of buying new ones.
You don't have the time or mental energy to do that? Of course you don't! We all work too much! That's the #neoliberal world we live in. So quit your job! Find a better job!
Die Daten stammen aus einer Statista-Untersuchung von September 2023, die durchschnittliche Downloadraten von speedtest.net ausgewertet hat. Dies sind Medianwerte in Mbit/s für Festnetz-Internetanschlüsse. Habt ihr schon Glasfaser? 🌐
@bsi Dafür kann man sich bei der #Union bedanken, die Jahrzehnte lang wahrscheinlich aufgrund von Lobbyismus Kupfer statt Glasfaser vergraben ließ und so mancher Politiker nun versucht, die schleppende Digitalisierung auf den #Datenschutz zu schieben.
Unsere Straße wurde 2010 neu angelegt - mit Kupfer. Nun soll nachträglich für ordentlich Geld Glasfaser verlegt werden.
2010 wußte man schon längst, daß Glasfaser schneller ist.
Today in Labor History November 5, 1916: The Everett Massacre occurred in Everett, Washington. 300 IWW members arrived by boat in Everett to help support the shingle workers’ strike that had been going on for the past 5 months. Prior attempts to support the strikers were met with vigilante beatings with axe handles. As the boat pulled in, Sheriff McRae called out, “Who’s your leader?” The Wobblies answered, “We’re all leaders!” The sheriff pulled his gun and said, “You can’t land.” A Wobbly yelled back, “Like hell we can’t.” Gunfire erupted, most of it from the 200 vigilantes on the dock. When the smoke cleared, two of the sheriff’s deputies were dead, shot in the back by their own men, along with 5-12 Wobblies on the boat. Dozens more were wounded. The authorities arrested 74 Wobblies. After a trial, all charges were dropped against the IWW members. The event was mentioned in John Dos Passos’s “USA Trilogy.”
“Michael Dunn has created the characters that bring the 19th Century's Mine Wars to life for today's readers. Anywhere but Schuylkill will remind readers of John Sayles and Tillie Olsen and the best in the long tradition of labor literature.”
—James Tracy, co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Interracial Solidarity in 1960s-70s New Left Organizing
The workers at Half Price Books are organizing for a living wage, and you can send a note of support for the workers to the company here: https://p2a.co/ua5jyxr
Today in Labor History October 9, 1936: A lettuce strike had recently ended in Salinas, California. However, when red flags went up throughout town, the authorities feared communist agitators had returned and removed the red flags, only to find out later that they were part of a traffic check being done by the state highway division.
The first effective organizing in the Salinas Valley began in 1933, with the mostly female lettuce trimmers demanding equal pay to the men. The Filipino field workers supported the women’s demands. In 1934, members of the Filipino Labor Union (FLU) struck the lettuce farms. So, the farmers brought in Mexican and Anglo scabs. They used vigilante mobs and the cops to violently attack the strikers and arrested their leaders. When the Filipino Labor Union and the Mexican Labor Union joined forces, a mob of vigilantes burned their labor camp down and drove 800 Filipinos out of the Salinas Valley at gunpoint. The 1934 strike ended soon after, with the growers recognizing the FLU and offering a small raise. This violence inspired John Steinbeck to write “In Dubious Battle” and “Grapes of Wrath,” for which he won both Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes.
Today in Labor History October 9, 1874: Mary Heaton Vorse was born. Vorse was a labor journalist who participated in and wrote eyewitness accounts of many of the significant labor battles of her day. In the 1910s, she was the founding editor of the “Masses,” as well as an activist in the suffrage and women’s peace movements. In 1912, she participated in and wrote about the Lawrence textile strike. She helped organize the Wobblies’ unemployment protest in New York, 1914, and was good friends with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. In 1916, she reported on the IWW Mesabi Range strike. And in 1919, she worked as a publicist for the Great Steel Strike. She also wrote the novel, "Strike!" about the 1929 textile mill strike, in Gastonia, North Carolina, which was made into a film in 2007.
Bayern und Hessen: Wie die Merz-CDU auf die Wahlen schaut
Die Union kann dem Wahlsonntag eigentlich ziemlich gelassen entgegensehen, deuten sich doch gleich zwei Wahlsiege an. Doch die Erfolge in Bayern und Hessen könnten für Parteichef Merz auch Probleme bringen. Von Vera Wolfskämpf.
On Wednesday morning, unionized employees of Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health providers, have begun to walk off the job....
Today in Labor History September 30, 1912: The Lawrence, Massachusetts “Bread and Roses” textile strike was in full swing. On this date, 12,000 textile workers walked out of mills to protest the arrests of two leaders of the strike. Police clubbed strikers and arrested many, while the bosses fired 1,500. IWW co-founder Big Bill Haywood threatened another general strike to get the workers reinstated. Strike leaders Arturo Giovannitti and Joe Ettor were eventually acquitted 58 days later. During the strike, IWW organizers Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn came up with the plan of sending hundreds of the strikers' hungry children to live with sympathetic families in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont, a move that drew widespread sympathy for the strikers. Nearly 300 workers were arrested during the strike; three were killed. After the strike was over, IWW co-founder and socialist candidate for president, Eugene Debs, said "The Victory at Lawrence was the most decisive and far-reaching ever won by organized labor."
Several novels have been written against the backdrop of this famous strike: The Cry of the Street (1913), by Mabel Farnum; Fighting for Bread and Roses (2005), by Lynn A. Coleman; Bread and Roses, Too (2006), by Katherine Paterson
Autoworkers reach a deal with Ford, a breakthrough toward ending strikes against Detroit automakers (apnews.com)
5,000 autoworkers walk out at Texas GM's largest plant, as UAW expands strike for second day in a row (thehill.com)
Kaiser Permanente workers start to walk off the job. It’s set to become the largest health care worker strike in US history (www.cnn.com)
On Wednesday morning, unionized employees of Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health providers, have begun to walk off the job....