Working Class Calendar

Philadelphia General Strike (1910)

Sat Feb 19, 1910

Image: Workers and supporters gather before a meeting on February 2nd, 1910, as the tensions between the Rapid Transit Company and workers increased. From the Library of Congress [philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/]

On this day in 1910, the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (RTC) fired 173 union members, resulting in a series of escalating labor actions that culminated in a general strike.

RTC fired the workers "for the good of the service" and hired replacement workers from New York City. Immediately after the firings, the union leadership ordered the strike, taking their respective trolley cars off the streets effective at 1:00 that afternoon.

During the strike, workers destroyed trolley property. A crowd of 2,000 seized a trolley and set it on fire. Another crowd of 5,000 seized a crew working a trolley and beat them in the street. A bomb threat in Germantown was disregarded until dynamite was loaded onto the tracks by 2,000 workers.

Despite the union threatening a general strike if strike breakers were brought in, RTC brought in 600 strike breakers while simultaneously denying that they had done so.

When the National Guard entered Philadelphia to provide protection for RTC, members of other unions saw this as a clear signal that the city and state governments were uniting in favor of the companies against the unions, and the entire city began a general strike.

The general strike began on March 5th, 1910 with 60,000-75,000 workers, but grew to more than 140,000 over the following weeks. During the strike, Philadelphia police arrested high-ranking union organizers and sympathy strikers, half of whom were under eighteen.

Newspapers reported violence and sabotage that rendered streetcars inoperable, as well as retaliation by strikebreakers who shot into crowds and killed several bystanders with trolleys. Approximately ten strikers and bystanders were killed by gunfire from strikebreakers and police.

The general strike ended on March 27th, however streetcar workers remained on strike until April 19th. After nine weeks of the strike, costing RTC $2,395,000 and the city government millions, RTC agreed to a wage increase, the re-hiring of strikers within three months, and mediation of the initial 173 union-targeted firings.

• Date: 1910-02-19
• Learn More: philadelphiaencyclopedia.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #General Strikes.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

France Anti-CPE Protests (2006)

Tue Feb 07, 2006

On this day in 2006, 400,000 people in France took the streets to protest the "First Employment Contract" (CPE), Prime Minister Villepin's new labor law which eroded worker protections for young people.

Claiming that "urgent" action was needed to "bring the French labour market into the modern era", Villepin's CPE package would allow employers to hire 18-26 year-olds on two year contracts and fire them without notice or explanation.

In response, student unions called for a week of meetings and mobilization, and for a national day of protest on February 7th. The national protest continued beyond February 7th, however, and a national strike was called on March 28th (incidentally, the same day a million workers in the UK struck to defend their pensions).

Hundreds of thousands of workers went on strike, and three million people took to the streets all across the country. Unions were prepared to call another general strike when the French government finally gave in and withdrew the law.

A similar law (the CNE) which applied to small businesses of fewer than 25 people was eventually overturned by the courts in 2007.

• Date: 2006-02-07
• Learn More: libcom.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Seattle General Strike (1919)

Thu Feb 06, 1919

Image: Seattle General Strike participants leaving the shipyard after going on strike, 1919. [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1919, a general strike involving ~100,000 workers in Seattle began. Workers, vilified as "Bolsheviki", set up an alternative government that distributed 30,000 meals daily and a police force that did not carry weapons.

Dissatisfied workers in several unions began the strike to gain higher wages after two years of World War I wage controls. Government officials, the press, and much of the public viewed the strike as a radical attempt to subvert American institutions.

During the strike, a cooperative body made up of rank and file workers from all the striking locals was formed, called the General Strike Committee. It acted as a "virtual counter-government for the city", according to labor historian Jeremy Brecher.

The committee organized to provide essential services for the people of Seattle during the work stoppage. A system of food distribution was also established, which distributed as many as 30,000 meals each day.

Army veterans created an alternative to the police in order to maintain order. A group called the "Labor War Veteran's Guard" forbade the use of force and did not carry weapons, using "persuasion only". Major General John F. Morrison, stationed in Seattle, claimed that he had never seen "a city so quiet and orderly."

On February 7th, Mayor Ole Hanson threatened to use 1,500 police and 1,500 troops to replace striking workers the next day, but the strikers assumed this was an empty threat and were proved correct. A few days later, Hanson stated the "sympathetic strike was called in the exact manner as was the revolution in Petrograd."

Union leadership, including the American Federation of Labor (AFL), began to exert pressure on the General Strike Committee and individual unions to end the strike, causing some locals to return to work.

The executive committee of the General Strike Committee, pressured by the AFL and international labor organizations, proposed ending the general strike at midnight on February 8th, but their recommendation was voted down by the General Strike Committee.

On February 10th, the General Strike Committee voted to end the general strike the following day, listing the following reasons: "Pressure from international officers of unions, from executive committees of unions, from the 'leaders' in the labor movement, even from those very leaders who are still called 'Bolsheviki' by the undiscriminating press. And, added to all these, the pressure upon the workers themselves, not of the loss of their own jobs, but of living in a city so tightly closed."

Immediately following the general strike's end, the Socialist Party headquarters was raided by police, and thirty-nine IWW members were arrested as "ringleaders of anarchy" despite playing a marginal role in the strike's development.

• Date: 1919-02-06
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, depts.washington.edu.
• Tags: #Labor, #General Strikes, #IWW.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior (1985)

Wed Jul 10, 1985

Image: The Rainbow Warrior in Marsden Wharf in Auckland Harbour after the bombing by French secret service agents. © Greenpeace / John Miller [greenpeace.org]

On this day in 1985, the French government, in an act of state-sponsored terror, bombed the Greenpeace-operated boat Rainbow Warrior, which was en route to protest a nuclear weapons test planned by the French state. The bombing, later found to be personally ordered by French President François Mitterrand, killed a freelance photographer on board named Fernando Pereira.

France had been testing nuclear weapons on the Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia since 1966. In 1985 eight South Pacific countries, including New Zealand and Australia, signed a treaty declaring the region a nuclear-free zone.

Since being acquired by Greenpeace in 1977, Rainbow Warrior was active in supporting a number of anti-nuclear testing campaigns during the late 1970s and early 1980s, including relocating 300 Marshall Islanders from Rongelap Atoll, which had been polluted by radioactive fallout by past American nuclear tests.

For the 1985 tests, Greenpeace intended to monitor the impact of nuclear tests and place protesters on the island to observe the blasts. Three undercover French agents were on board, however, and they attached two limpet mines to Rainbow Warrior and detonated them ten minutes apart, sinking the ship.

France initially denied responsibility, but two of the French agents were captured by New Zealand Police and charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder.

The resulting scandal led to the resignation of the French Defence Minister Charles Hernu, while the two agents pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in prison. They spent a little over two years confined to the French island of Hao before being freed by the French government.

In 1987, after international pressure, France paid $8.16m to Greenpeace in damages, which helped finance another ship. It also paid compensation to the Pereira family, making reparation payments of 650,000 francs to Pereira's wife, 1.5 million francs to his two children, and 75,000 francs to each of his parents.

• Date: 1985-07-10
• Learn More: www.greenpeace.org, en.wikipedia.org, www.zinnedproject.org.
• Tags: #Terrorism, #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Striking CSN Workers Killed (1988)

Wed Nov 09, 1988

On this day in 1988, a conflict between soldiers and metallurgists on strike at Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil led to the deaths of three workers, with at least thirty-one more injured.

According to author Andrew Costa, the city of Volta Redonda was engaged in a general strike for the implementation of a six-hour shift and the reinstatement of workers dismissed in an earlier 1987 strike. Women in the local neighborhoods prevented CSN vans from picking up their husbands to work with pickets on the street, and the Residents Associations carried out barricades so that CSN busses and other transport could not run while the company was refusing to negotiate with workers.

The conflict on November 9th began when about 600 state soldiers descended on Avenida Independência, in front of CSN, throwing tear gas bombs at a crowd of workers. The crowd responded with by attacking sticks and stones. Three people were killed, and thirty-one were wounded. A monument dedicated to the victims of the violence was later partially destroyed with bombs.

In spite of this violence, workers eventually prevailed, winning their right to six-hour shifts.

• Date: 1988-11-09
• Learn More: almanaque.folha.uol.com.br, subverta.org.
• Tags: #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org