Today in Labor History June 8, 1904: A battle between the Colorado state militia and striking miners occurred in Dunnville, Colorado. As a result, six union members died and 15 were taken prisoner. The authorities deported 79 of the strikers to Kansas. Most of this was done under the auspices of Rockefeller, who effectively owned the state government and militia.

This incident occurred during the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903-1904. Big Bill Haywood and the Western Federation of Labor (WFM) led the strikes. However, they were violently suppressed by Pinkerton and Baldwin-Felts detectives, local cops and militias. Scholars have said “There is no episode in American labor history in which violence was as systematically used by employers as in the Colorado labor war of 1903 and 1904.”
James McParland ran the Pinkerton agency in Denver. He had served as an agent provocateur in the Pennsylvania miners’ union in the 1870s. The state convicted and executed 20 innocent Irish coal miners because of his false testimony. (I depict that story in my novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill.”) McParland also tried to sabotage the WFM, in Colorado, by placing spies and agents provocateur within the union. And he unsuccessfully tried to get Big Bill Haywood convicted for murdering former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg. Haywood was innocent.

You can read more on the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

You can pick up my novel here:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/
https://christophersbooks.com/
https://boundtogether.org//
https://www.historiumpress.com/michael-dunn

Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy!

#workingclass #LaborHistory #colorado #laborwars #bigbillhaywood #wfm #union #strike #Pinkertons
#scab #solidarity #jamesmcparland #books #novel #historicalfiction #author #writer #AnywhereButSchuylkill @bookstadon

Today in Labor History June 8, 1852: The earliest recorded strike by Chinese immigrants to the U.S. occurred when Chinese stonemasons, who were brought to San Francisco to build the three-story Parrott granite building, went on strike for higher pay. Thousands of workers who labored in the hills during the gold rush, would come to San Francisco each winter to find work away from the icy blizzards, creating even greater competition for the limited jobs and housing that was available. On top of this, prices in San Francisco for housing, food, and other goods, were often 10-20 times more expensive than the rest of the country due to the inflation caused by the Gold Rush. It was actually cheaper to ship one’s clothes to Hawaii to be laundered than to have it done locally.

Today in Labor History June 7, 1971: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that clothing with the words "Fuck the Draft" was protected by the First amendment. The Court overturned the conviction of Paul Cohen for disturbing the peace, setting the precedent that vulgar writing is protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. This, of course, could quickly change under the current far rightwing court.

In 1968, Kiyoshi Kuromiya designed this poster and sent orders by mail. He was arrested by the FBI and charged with sending indecent material through the Post Office. Later that year, after beating the charges, Kuromiya defied the authorities by handing out 2000 of the posters at the Chicago Democratic Convention. The photo is of Detroiter Bill Greenshields was taken at random during a 1967 March on the Pentagon and used by Kuromiya.

There has been no draft in the U.S. since 1973. Ending conscription was one of President Nixon’s campaign promises (not because he opposed conscription or imperialistic wars, but because he wanted to undermine the antiwar protest movement). However, if NATO continues its reckless escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, and their threat to station hundreds of thousands of troops along Russia’s entire western border, from Finland to the Balkans; or the U.S. attempts to fight Iran with boots on the ground; or the U.S. goes to war with China the mass slaughter could rise to the scale of World War II. And this could force the U.S. and Europe to reimpose the draft, so that they are not forced to replicate Ukraine’s desperate move of sending people over the age of 50 to the front. Indeed, Germany is already considering reimposing conscription because they can’t find enough willing volunteers. https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/06/06/germany-is-thinking-about-bringing-back-conscription

Today in Labor History June 7, 1929: Striking textile workers battled police in Gastonia, North Carolina, during the Loray Mill Strike. Police Chief O.F. Aderholt was accidentally killed by one of his own officers during a protest march by striking workers. Nevertheless, the authorities arrested six strike leaders. They were all convicted of “conspiracy to murder.”

The strike lasted from April 1 to September 14. It started in response to the “stretch-out” system, where bosses doubled the spinners’ and weavers’ work, while simultaneously lowering their wages. When the women went on strike, the bosses evicted them from their company homes. Masked vigilantes destroyed the union’s headquarters. The NTWU set up a tent city for the workers, with armed guards to protect them from the vigilantes.

One of the main organizers was a poor white woman named Ella May Wiggans. She was a single mother, with nine kids. Rather than living in the tent city, she chose to live in the African American hamlet known as Stumptown. She was instrumental in creating solidarity between black and white workers and rallying them with her music. Some of her songs from the strike were “Mill Mother’s Lament,” and “Big Fat Boss and the Workers.” Her music was later covered by Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie, who called her the “pioneer of the protest ballad.” During the strike, vigilantes shot her in the chest. She survived, but later died of whooping cough due to poverty and inadequate medical care.

For really wonderful fictionalized accounts of this strike, read “The Last Ballad,” by Wiley Cash (2017) and “Strike!” by Mary Heaton Vorse (1930).

https://youtu.be/Ud-xt7SVTQw?t=31

#workingclass #LaborHistory #EllaMayWiggans #textile #women #feminism #union #communism #vigilante #policebrutality #police #acab #solidarity #folkmusic #laborsongs #racism #poverty #northcarolina #fiction #HistoricalFiction #author #writer #books #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History June 7, 1913: The radical labor union, IWW, held a fundraising pageant at Madison Square Gardens. The production featured songs and a reenactment of events from the ongoing Paterson strike. It was created and performed by 1,000 mill workers from the silk industry strike. John Reed organized a march of strikers into Manhattan for the pageant.

Today in Labor History June 7, 1896: Anarchists supposedly set off a bomb during a Corpus Christi parade in Barcelona, Spain. As a result, a dozen people died and thirty were wounded. No one knows who actually set off the bomb, but the government blamed anarchists, who had set off numerous bombs over the previous four years. Consequently, the government went on a witch-hunt, arresting and torturing dozens of anarchists in the infamous Montjuich Prison. However, many leading anarchists denied the accusations and said they would never have set off a deadly bomb in a working-class community like this. They reserved their attacks for members of the ruling class. Nevertheless, the government tried and executed five anarchists, all of whom proclaimed their innocence. They sentenced 67 others to life in prison. Worldwide protests erupted in response. Montjuich Prison was graphically depicted in the opening scene Victor Serge’s epic novel, Birth of Our Power, which he wrote while imprisoned in the Soviet Union for his opposition to Stalin.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #spain #barcelona #bombing #prison #torture #VictorSerge #soviet #russia #stalin #writer #author #books #fiction #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History June 7, 1892: The authorities arrested Homer Plessy for refusing to leave his seat in the "whites-only" car of a train. He lost the resulting court case, the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision, which codified segregation and paved the way for Jim Crow. The ruling is commonly known as “separate, but equal,” and was later ruled “unequal” in actuality, in 1954, in Brown v Board of Education.

On the one-year anniversary of Plessy’s act of civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi was forcibly ejected from a train in Pietermaritzberg, South Africa for refusing to vacate a 1st class carriage for a white man, in a similar act of civil disobedience.

youtu.be/5BRHuiRyVEE?si=Je5zqV…

youtube.com/watch?v=5BRHuiRyVE…

#youtbe #Music #dropkickmurphys #uspol #freedom #workingclass
- YouTube

Today in Labor History June 6, 1982: Israel invaded Lebanon, remaining until June 6, 1985. The war was led by Ariel Sharon, who later became prime minister, despite the Kahan Commission later finding him culpable for the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which killed up to 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese Shiites. By the end of the war, Israel had lost over 650 soldiers. However, up to 2,400 PLO militants and 1,200 Syria soldiers were killed. And as many as 20,000 civilians were killed during the war.

Today in Labor History June 6, 1937: A general strike by 12,000 autoworkers and others in Lansing, MI shut down the city for a month in what was to become known as the city’s “Labor Holiday.” A judge had recently imposed an injunction on workers, making it illegal for them to picket, blockade or interfere in the operations of Capital city Wrecking Company. The workers ignored the injunction were arrested, including the wife of the auto workers local union president, leaving their three children at home unattended. In response, they called a General Strike. Flying squadrons of out-town workers came in solidarity to support the General Strike. They were successful in forcing negotiations that got all the prisoners released. However, the strike continued in East Lansing, where anti-labor university students battled with workers, dumping some of their cars into the river.

Today in Labor History June 5, 1967: Israel attacked Egypt and Syria, during the Six-Day War, resulting in its illegal occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, West Bank, Gaza Strip & Golan Heights, and the displacement of 400,000 Palestinians. During the war, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait all supported the Arab coalition. Over 700 Israeli soldiers died in the war. 10,000-16,000 died on the Arab side. Additionally, 15 UN peacekeepers died, as well as 34 U.S. marines, navy and National Security Agents, who died when Israel torpedoed the USS Liberty, a U.S. spy ship that was in international waters. Israel claimed it was an accident and the U.S. government officially accepted this explanation. However, many believed it was a deliberate attack, including Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, and many of the survivors of the attack.

Today in Labor History June 5, 1925: Mine owners in La Coruna, Chile, launched an attack on rebel workers in a nitrate mine encampment, killing over 2,000 workers. Over 500 workers were tortured in Iqueque. This came in the wake of an earlier massacre in March, in which 500 were slaughtered by the government.

Trump’s tariffs penalize the working class for the sins of the rich and corporate America

When we shipped jobs overseas, the working class paid. Trump now uses tariffs to pay for his tax cuts for the rich and to bring back manufacturing.

#tariffs #workingClass

https://wp.me/p1OjMZ-nzf

Yeh, who could've predicted? Anyone who thought that attacks on trans women were protecting cis women, or that attacks on trans women weren't part of the right's attack on all women was, indeed, delusional.

Remember, no one is free unless we're all free.
An Injury to One, Is An Injury to All!

https://fortune.com/2025/05/28/education-department-targets-pregnant-lgbtq-staff-protections/

Today in Labor History June 4, 1947: The House of Representatives approved the Taft-Hartley Act. The legislation allows the president of the United States to intervene in labor disputes. Even worse, it banned wildcat strikes, solidarity or secondary strikes, and political strikes, effectively eliminating the General Strike from workers’ arsenal. The law was a direct response to the strike wave of 1945-1946, the largest wave of strikes in U.S. history. It was particularly a response to the Oakland General Strike of 1946, the last General Strike that has occurred in the U.S. And it is one of most effective anti-labor laws ever enacted in the U.S.

Today in Labor History June 4, 1939: The U.S. blocked the MS St. Louis from landing in Florida. The ship carried 963 Jewish refugees who were fleeing the Nazis. Canada also refused. As a result, the ship was forced back to Europe. Over 200 of its passengers ultimately died in Nazi concentration camps. The ordeal is also known as the Voyage of the Damned. This event has been depicted in numerous books, including Julian Barnes’s novel, A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters (1989); Bodie and Brock Thoene's novel Munich Signature (1991); and Leonardo Padura's novel Herejes (2013). Cordell Hull, who was Secretary of State at the time, and who led the fight to turn the refugees away, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1944. It was one of the worst Nobel prizes ever awarded (along with Henry Kissinger (1973), who facilitated bloody dictatorships in Chile and Argentina, genocides in Bangladesh and East Timor, and carpet bombing of Cambodia. Or Elihu Root (1912), the U.S. Secretary of War who oversaw the brutal repression of the Filipino independence movement. And let’s not forget Shimon Peres, Yitzak Rabin and Yasser Arafat (1994), who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize despite their histories of human rights abuses. Or Aung San Suu Kyi (1991). Or Mikhail Gorbachev (1990), who sent tanks into the Baltic republics less than a year after winning his “peace” prize, killing numerous civilians. Or Barack Obama (2009), who began assassinating civilians with his drones and arresting more immigrants than his predecessor, George W. Bush, not long after winning his Nobel. Or Woodrow Wilson (1919), an outright racist and apologist for slavery, who sent troops to occupy Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, and to “intervene” in Cuba, Honduras and Panama, and who oversaw the Palmer raids that led to over 10,000 arrests and over 500 deportations of union leaders, peace activists, socialists and anarchists. Or Menachem Begin (1978), who four years after receiving his “peace” prize launched the bloody invasion of Lebanon, and who refused to fire Ariel Sharon, even after the Kahan Commission found Sharon culpable for the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #nazis #fascism #jews #holocaust #NobelPrize #massacre #genocide #imperialism #invasion #occupation #ConcentrationCamp #HistorialFiction #novel #books #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History June 4, 1919: Trotsky banned the 4th Ukrainian Congress of Free Soviets with his Order #1824. He also sent troops to destroy the Rosa Luxemburg Commune near Provkovski, and declared the Ukrainian anarchist insurgent Nestor Makhno an outlaw. The Free Territory within Ukraine, also known as Makhnovia (after Nestor Makhno) lasted from 1918 to 1921. It was a stateless, anarchist society and it was defended by Makhno’s Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army (AKA the Black Army). Roughly 7 million people lived in the area. The peasants who lived there refused to pay rent to the landowners and seized the estates and livestock of the church, state and private landowners, setting up local committees to manage them and share them among the various villages and communes of the Free State.

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=iy7ep9e6qNo

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=nPGMuJFGaiI

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