On This Day in Working Class History

On this day, 8 September 1941 the Norwegian Melkestreiken (milk strike) took place against the occupying Nazi authorities. Workers arriving for work on Monday found that their already-reduced milk ration had been cut completely. Workers at a shipyard and a steelworks spontaneously walked out after breakfast, and over the next two days the stoppage spread to around 50 workplaces and 20-25,000 workers. The Nazis responded by declaring martial law, executing Workers' National Trade Union (AFL) chairman Rolf Wickstrøm and AFL lawyer Viggo Hansteen, and jailing several others. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10862/norwegian-milk-strike

Our wo...

On this day, 7 September 1977, violent clashes took place between workers and bosses’ thugs at a machine-tool factory in Mohan Nagar, India. Workers protested against unfair deductions to wages outside the plant but were attacked by armed security guards. Local workers and passers-by joined the demonstration and the guards opened fire, triggering violent response from the crowd who burned down the factory, killing the two shooters. Workers in neighbouring factories went on wildcat strike in solidarity and 20,000 people gathered in protest the next day. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10758/mohan-nagar-worker-clashes

Our work is onl...

On this day, 6 September 2008, 27,000 Boeing assembly workers went on strike over pay and outsourcing. The workers, based in Kansas, Oregon, and Washington stayed out for eight weeks, costing the company $100 million per day, until they won a 15% pay increase over 4 years, and more opportunities to challenge the company's use of outside contractors.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10674/boeing-assembly-workers-strike

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.
See a...

On 5 September 2013 it was reported that South African workers employed in the construction of the Saint Helena airport went on strike. Reportedly, workers were unhappy with prefabricated steel huts which were to be their accommodation. It is unclear how the dispute concluded, although the airport was constructed on time and completed in 2016.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7966/saint-helena-airport-strike

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.
See a...

On this day, 4 September 1936, employees walked off the job at Trocadero Grill in Vancouver, demanding a wage increase. Bosses hired scabs to replace the striking workers, but customers supported the strike with a boycott. After one week, management agreed to the strikers' demands, but only four of the strikers were rehired. These four would subsequently organise the other new workers into the union.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10482/trocadero-grill-strike

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and a...

On this day, 3 September 1940, Uruguayan radical author and journalist Eduardo Hughes Galeano was born in Montevideo. He was imprisoned following the military coup in the country in 1973, and forced into exile in Argentina. His book Open Veins of Latin America was banned by governments in Uruguay as well as Chile and Argentina. After the US-backed military coup in Argentina, he was again forced to flee after being singled out for execution by the death squads. He returned to Montevideo after democratisation, and lived there until his death in 2015.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10254/eduardo-hughes-galeano-born<...

On this day, 2 September 1963 workers at Philippines Airlines walked out on strike. Within a few days, major international airlines were forced to boycott Manila airport to avoid disruption from pickets.
The government of Diosdado Macapagal, which was supported by the left-wing Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (Communist Party) and Lapiang Manggagawa (Workers Party), ordered the workers to return to work.
The strikers refused, and blocked roads to the airport, so on September 7 Macapagal sent police with automatic rifles, bayonets and attack dogs to attack the strikers, injuring many.
The strike ended in defeat and work resumed at the...

On this day, 1 September 1974, Puerto Rican attendees at a Labour Day event in Newark, New Jersey rioted against police after years of brutality, as well as poor living and economic standards. An argument between festival goers and police escalated when an officer's horse knocked over a game table. The police department mobilized virtually its entire 1,500‐member force as hostilities and tensions from the fighting spilled into the streets, which further increased tensions, resulting in rocks and bottles being thrown at police over the course of the next three days. At least 16 people were injured in the late‐afternoon fighting and thre...

On this day, 31 August 1972, a meeting of striking building workers in the Chester and North Wales Action Committee was held at the Bull & Stirrup pub in Chester, North West England. During this meeting, it was decided to send six coaches of striking building workers to Shrewsbury the following week to picket construction sites which hadn't yet come out on strike. That day would prove fateful for a number of building worker activists (and the wider trade union movement) as, despite no violence being reported by the dozens of police who followed the pickets all day, 24 workers would be arrested months...

On this day, 30 August, 1908, union officials of the United Mine Workers called off a strike by Black and white coalminers in Birmingham, Alabama, four days after the Governor sent in the army to evict the strikers' tent colony and following a violent campaign of repression. Despite this, workers attempted to continue the stoppage but they were sadly defeated. Armed thugs terrorised the strikers, and lynched one Black miner, while the press generated hysteria about the race mixing workers. The Birmingham Age-Herald denounced a union meeting where "a negro…embrace[d] a white speaker…in the very presence of gentle white wome...

On this day, 29 August 2016, 600 oil refinery workers on the Caribbean island of Curaçao walked out demanding a pay increase. The strike continued for over two weeks, until a general strike broke out in its support. Faced with closed schools, shops, and no electricity, the employers caved in. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10083/cura%C3%A7ao-oil-refinery-strike

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.
See all of...

On this day, 28 August 1968 in Chicago, Black bus drivers in the city went on wildcat strike against their racist union, the Amalgamated Transit Workers. While 80% of drivers were Black, the union leadership was white, and did not heed the concerns of Black workers. White scab drivers kept services running in wealthier areas. In this article about the Democratic National Convention protests the same day is a short history of the strike: https://libcom.org/history/chicago-1968 More info as well in our podcast about the strike wave at the time: https://workingclasshistory.com/2018/07/22/e8-the-vietnam-war-strike-wave/

Our work is...

On this day, 27 August 1889, the great strike of East End Jewish tailors in London began during a dockers' strike. 
8,000 workers, mostly Jewish immigrants from Russia, elected a strike committee and walked out, demanding a maximum 12-hour working day (they were working 14-18 hours). 
Despite the antipathy of the dockers' union leader, predominantly Irish Catholic dockers donated to the strike fund and helped the tailors hold out until October when the employers caved in. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9881/jewish-east-end-tailors-strike-begins

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our lis...

On this day, 26 August 1972, Falkirk FC was due to play against Montrose in a Scottish League Cup football match, but Falkirk players had gone on strike and stated they would refuse to play unless a financial penalty imposed by their manager was rescinded.
Players, led by later Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, walked out during a prior training session, after manager Willie Cunningham withdrew food and travel expense payments from players to penalise them for losing a match, 6-1, against St Johnstone. Ferguson had previously been a union shop steward and taken part in wildcat strikes while working in...

On this day, 25 August 1921, the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest armed rebellion in the US since the civil war, began in West Virginia.
Miners and their supporters had been killed in Welch and Sharples, and other miners were being held in jail under martial law in Mingo County, the last anti-union stronghold in the southern part of the state.
Thousands of striking coal miners, dubbed "rednecks" due to the red bandanas they wore around their necks, were determined to march on Mingo, and armed themselves. Union leaders ordered them to turn back, but thousands of miners ignored...

On this day, 24 August 1922, radical historian, author, World War II bombardier and activist, Howard Zinn, was born to a Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn, New York City. 
Author of the book A People’s History of the United States and many other works, Zinn did perhaps more than anyone else in recent years to popularise the history of ordinary people, our history and our struggles. 
For Zinn, fighting for a better world wasn't just about the concrete outcomes of any particular struggles, but also about the transformative impact of those struggles themselves: "The reward for participating in a move...

On this day, 23 August 1966, 200 Gurindji Aboriginal workers at the Wave Hill pastoral station in Australia walked out on strike for equal pay with white workers. At the time, it was against the law for Aboriginal workers to be paid more than a specific amount.
After walking out, the workers set up a camp, and kept up their strike for nine years. They received support from other workers, who donated supplies and money to a strike fund.
Over time, the demands of the strikers escalated, to include demands for the return of their ancestral lands, from British aristocrat Lord...

On 22 August 2005 at 4:30 AM over 100 workers at Air Vanuatu walked out on strike in a dispute over a collective bargaining agreement, job security and severance pay.
The stoppage, by members of the National Workers' Union, forced the cancellation of all international and domestic flights that day. In order to return to work, workers demanded arbitration of their complaints. Management agreed to this demand, and the workers returned to work.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7863/air-vanuatu-strike

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you a...

On this day, 21 August 1971, number 359 Amhurst Road, London, was raided by police investigating the Angry Brigade urban guerrilla group. Jim Greenfield, Anna Mendelson, John Barker and Hilary Creek were arrested. The four were taken to the 'Bomb Squad' HQ in Albany Street, London, where the two men were subjected to a brutal beating to extract a confession from them. 
Learn more about the group in episodes 83-84 of our podcast, in conversation with John Barker: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e83-4-angry-brigade/

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If yo...

On this day, 20 August 1976, the Grunwick strike began in London when Devshi Bhudia was dismissed from a photo processing plant for working too slowly and three colleagues walked out in his support. 
Three days later they began picketing in what became an iconic dispute and one of the key struggles of the working class, particularly the Asian and female working class in the UK in the late 20th century. 
One worker who became a leader of the strike, Jayaben Desai, walked out as well and spoke to the initial group of workers who had downed tools and were in...

On this day, 19 August 1909, the first edition of the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World union’s Little Red Songbook was published in the US. Spreading faster than many radical texts, these songs were sung by thousands on picket lines across the country in the coming years, including perhaps the most famous, 'Solidarity Forever', written by Ralph Chaplin during a miners' strike in West Virginia in 1912. It also included numerous songs by Joe Hill, the Swedish immigrant IWW activist who was executed by the state of Utah in 1915.
We have made available this book in our online store compiling lo...

On this day, 18 August 1812, food riots broke out in Leeds and Sheffield, England, primarily led by women. In Leeds the local paper described the group of women and boys who were seizing corn and wheat, and assaulting sellers, as being "dignified with the title of Lady Ludd". In Sheffield flour dealers were forced to reduce their prices to 3 shillings per stone. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8955/lady-ludd-food-riots-in-leeds

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive co...

On this day, 17 August 1987, workers in South Korea occupied factories and the shipyard of the Hyundai corporation in the city of Ulsan. 
Meanwhile, upwards of 30,000 workers took to the streets and battled riot police in the city, in one of the biggest confrontations to date between workers and the US-backed dictatorship. 
The strikes spread, and the "Great Workers' Struggle," as the movement would become known, would at its height involve around 1.2 million workers – one third of the regular workforce – with 3,749 strikes taking place by the end of the year.
Learn more about the 1987 rebellion in South Korea in epi...

On this day, 15 August 1911, prison vans containing 90 of those convicted for involvement in the Liverpool transport general strike were attacked as they made their way down Vauxhall Road to Walton Jail. The convoy was being escorted by 32 men from the cavalry unit the 18th Hussars, yet bottles and bricks were thrown at the soldiers and rioters grabbed the reins of the horses. The Hussars opened fire on the crowd and two men were killed. On the corner of Hopwood Street and Vauxhall Road, John Sutcliffe, 20, a carter, was shot twice in the head. A docker, Michael Prendergast, 29, was shot in...

On this day, 14 August 1886 50 women and girls working in the L Candee Rubber Boot Company factory in New Haven, Connecticut, walked out on strike over excessive working temperatures. The New York Times reported that the women: "complained that the heat of the room was unendurable, and insisted that the windows must be opened. The Superintendent refused to open the windows for fear of damage to the stock from a mist which hung over the city. Then the girls picked up their bonnets and left the shop."
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7748/l-candee-rubber-heat-strike

...

On this day, 13 August 1937, striking workers were massacred at the Union Flacq Sugar Estate in Mauritius. Primarily Indian labourers on sugar plantations on the island, then a British colony, had been organising for better pay, and police were being used to intimidate workers and break strikes.
Workers on the Union Flacq estate were unhappy about low pay, poor quality food rations and inadequate hospital treatment. They went on strike, and on August 13, strikers were violently attacked by police, killing four and wounding six.
In response to the killings, protesters set fire to sugarcane fields, and protests continued around...

On this day, 12 August 1887, pioneering Colombian socialist and women's rights advocate María Cano, known as the "Flor del trabajo" ("Labour flower"), was born in Antioquia. At the time, women in Colombia could not hold most jobs, participate in elections, or even spend their own money.
Cano was from a middle-class family, but came into contact with lots of people regularly at her local library, and began to support people living in poor neighbourhoods. At the age of 38 she became a socialist, and a leading activist in the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which made her the first woman political leader i...

On this day, 11 August 1958, civil rights activists in Wichita, Kansas won a key early successful sit-in protest against segregated lunch counters. Black students and young people sat at the counter in the Dockum's Drug Store in rotating shifts of 30 minutes to 2 hours, blocking sales and facing down police and racist harassment for 23 days until they won. After this victory, sit-ins spread rapidly across the Jim Crow states and desegregated many eateries. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8272/dockum's-drug-store-sit-in-wins

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If yo...

On this day, 10 August 2005, the Gate Gourmet dispute began in London. British Airways (BA) had outsourced its airline meal production, primarily by Asian women workers, to Gate Gourmet, who cut wages and conditions. Planning on worsening conditions further, they brought in hundreds of agency workers to do the work of the permanent employees. Seeing agency workers in their usual posts, the workers assembled in their canteen to discuss and protest at what was happening. Gate Gourmet then sacked over 700 of the workers. BA baggage handlers then walked out on a wildcat sympathy strike, shutting Heathrow airport completely for 48 hours. But...

On this day, 9 August 1979, the women workers of the YH wig making company in Seoul, South Korea, occupied the headquarters of the opposition New Democratic Party in protest at the closure of their employer. 
The workers had gone on strike against the proposed closure, but to no avail, so they attempted to escalate their protest. 
However, the US-backed military dictatorship instead sent 2,000 riot police to attack the 187 women and evict the occupation. One woman, Kim Kyung Sook, was killed by police, while the union leaders were arrested and the other workers sent home by bus. 
While unsuccessful, the...

On this day, 8 August 1883, over 3,000 people attended a benefit ball and concert for striking telegraphers in New York's Madison Square Garden. A procession of 800 striking workers, mostly employees of Western Union fighting for equal pay for men and women and an eight-hour day, were led into the ballroom by John Mitchell and Minnie Swan, who had emerged as key organisers of the strike in the city. They were serenaded by local regimental bands who had volunteered to play. The strike was later defeated, although Mitchell and Swan became romantically involved during the dispute and were subsequently married.

Our...

On this day, 7 August 1842, a mass meeting of 18,000 workers took place in the UK, organised by the Chartist movement. 
They decided to call a general strike beginning the following day, demanding universal male suffrage, and opposing pay cuts. 
The strikes began and spread rapidly around the country, to towns including Manchester, Burnley, Preston, Macclesfield, Oldham, Wigan, and many more.
Workers set up “committees of public safety” which coordinated action and gave permission for essential services to operate, such as water pumps which were needed to prevent coalmines from flooding.
By late September, up to half a millio...

On this day, 6 August 1970, up to 300 Yippies — countercultural radical youth — invaded Disneyland, protesting against the Vietnam war and calling for the liberation of Minnie Mouse from patriarchal captivity. Disney brought in extra security, and 150 armed riot police in preparation for the event: a theatrical "convention" called by the Youth International Party, whose members were nicknamed Yippies. 
The youths initiated a few provocations, including commandeering a raft to invade Fort Wilderness, openly smoking pot, snake-dancing down Main Street USA and demonstrating outside the in-park Bank of America branch before they were either arrested or expelled from the park. 
Learn more a...

On this day, 5 August 1981, after just two days on strike, 11,345 federal air traffic controllers were sacked by US president Ronald Reagan for refusing his order to return to work (content note: suicide). 
The workers in the extremely stressful industry had gone on strike demanding a pay increase and a reduction in working hours from 40 per week over five days to 32 per week over four days. Despite the threat of firing, only 1,300 workers crossed picket lines and returned to work. And Reagan, himself a former union leader, then fired all of the remaining strikers.
The workers were then banned f...

On 4 August 1941, shovel operators in the Moengo bauxite mine in the then-Dutch colony of Suriname went on strike. The walkout of mostly Javanese and Creole workers was swiftly followed by mill, shipping and tow boat crews. They were soon all offered substantial pay increases, and the strikes ended. Mill workers also had their working days reduced from 12 to eight hours per day.
Powerhouse workers were then given a pay increase without a strike, and workers in the electric shop threatened to strike and were given pay increases of 30 to 40%.
Workers were demanding pay increases because the cost of...

On this day, 3 August 1945, a group in Melbourne called the Australian Soldiers' Legion (ASL) met up with a family called the Wagglens, which included a homeless, wounded World War II veteran, his wife and children, and squatted a house in Bell Street, Hawthorn. 
As members of the media watched on, ASL members entered the empty home and carried furniture in through the window. The group claimed to have identified 41 other empty houses, suitable for occupation, and to have settled 13 families in some of them in areas including Brighton, Newport, Camberwell and Kew. On the same day, a homeless veteran i...

On this day, 2 August 1917, the general strike in Rio de Janeiro ended as employers agreed to a 10% pay increase and a maximum 56-hour work week. The stoppage began with just one furniture worker the previous month, and the strike spread organically, despite the government declaring martial law and calling in police, the army and navy. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9165/rio-de-janeiro-general-strike-ends

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/wo...

On this day, 1 August 1938, the Hilo massacre took place in Hawaii, when police opened fire at an unarmed group of striking dock workers, injuring 50. Longshoremen in different unions and of many different ethnicities united and staged a series of walkouts for equal pay with dock workers on the West Coast of the US. 200 workers gathered 1 August to protest against the arrival of a steamship, when police attacked and started shooting, injuring a quarter of all those present. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8051/hilo-massacre

Our work is only possible because of support from y...

On this day, 31 July 1945, the newly elected Labour government sent 600 conscript troops into the Surrey docks in London to try to break a go-slow of dockworkers fighting for better pay. 
A Telegraph journalist described the go-slow: "In everything they did the men were unhurried in a way that looked deliberate. There was evidence that their actions were planned. True, the cranes were working and goods were passing from the dockside to the ship, but there was a leisureliness about the proceedings that made everything seem half-hearted. I soon learned the reason. At the moment bags of sugar were going a...

On this day, 30 July 1766, silver miners in Real Del Monte, Mexico, went on strike against a 25% pay cut in the first recorded strike against an employer in North American history. They faced down repression from the Spanish colonial bosses' private army and held out until September, when the employers caved in. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10292/real-del-monte-miners-strike

Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.
See all of...