Tag: Labor Movement

May Day 2026

Happy May Day!

Today is the first of May and the International Day of the Worker….how many know the history behind May Day?

You know me any chance to drop some history and I am there…..

May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, is a holiday celebrating workers and the history of labor organizing. Every year on May 1st, working people around the world join together for a day of remembrance and demonstrations. The holiday is a significant display of international solidarity and worker power. In Los Angeles, May Day unites the labor movement with advocates for immigrant rights and other community organizations.

The origins of May Day can be traced back to international labor organizing in the late 19th century. The holiday originated from a movement demanding improved working conditions and greater recognition for workers’ contributions. In 1884, a national federation of unions announced a campaign to establish an eight-hour workday by May 1, 1886. Workers in cities across North America went on strike leading up to that date in one of the era’s largest and most tumultuous periods of worker unrest.

In May 1886, police in Chicago shot striking workers, prompting activists to organize a protest in the city’s Haymarket Square. When a bomb exploded at that protest, killing one police officer and wounding others, police opened fire into the crowd, resulting in the deaths and injuries of both police and protesters. Eight protesters were arrested for inciting violence. The ensuing trial was considered by many to be unfair and resulted in the execution of seven of the eight men (1). This series of events would come to be known as the “Haymarket Incident” or “Haymarket Affair.” The image below is a newspaper clipping reporting on the executions from the Watertown Republican, November 16, 1887. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress’ “Chronicling America” digital project (2).

In the years following 1886, international labor groups and socialist advocates endorsed the commemoration of May 1 as International Workers’ Day or May Day. In some places around the world the “Chicago Martyrs” are still memorialized in May Day activities. But in the U.S., May Day celebrations became less common during the height of the Cold War.

What is May Day?

May Day should always be about the worker and their place in society.

Do not let some pseudo-intellectual tell you any different.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Battle Of Blair Mountain

Is this a little known battle of the Revolutionary War? The War of 1812 maybe? How about a decisive battle of the Civil War?

To be honest none of those would be accurate.

As a former labor activist and union organizer I am well aware of this “battle”……this is the battle of coal miners against the exploitative coal mine owners…….

The year is 1921…….

The Battle of Blair Mountain was the result of years of bitter labor disputes between the miners and coal companies of southern West Virginia. Since the late 1800s, the coalfields of the state’s Mingo, Logan and McDowell Counties had operated under a repressive company town system. Workers mined using leased tools and were paid low wages in company currency, or “scrip,” which could only be used at company stores. Safety conditions were often deplorable, yet despite the efforts of groups such as the United Mine Workers (UMW), the mine operators had kept unions out of the region through intimidation and violence. Companies compelled their workers to sign so-called “yellow dog contracts” pledging not to organize, and they used armies of private detectives to harass striking miners and evict them from their company-owned homes.

The hostilities only ramped up in 1920, when the UMW finally started to organize workers in Mingo County. On May 19 of that year, members of the Baldwin-Felts detective agency arrived in the town of Matewan to evict union miners from houses owned by the Stone Mountain Coal Company. After catching wind of the detectives’ activities, Matewan Mayor Cabell Testerman and a pro-union sheriff named Sid Hatfield raised a small posse and confronted them near the local train station. A verbal argument quickly escalated into a gunfight, and when the smoke cleared, seven Baldwin-Felts agents had been killed along with Mayor Testerman and two local miners.

https://www.history.com/news/americas-largest-labor-uprising-the-battle-of-blair-mountain

Labor history is one part of the American history experiment that is seldom taught in our schools….sadly because it was an important part of our history…..

Image result for newserbattle of blair mountain

For the lazy among us….a short videos explaining the Battle Of Blair Mountain……

Class Dismissed!

Turn The Page!

Labor Day–2018

Today is the first Monday of September and that means that it is Labor Day….most other countries celebrate it on the First of May but we here must be different.

Because it is a holiday I will be doing the usual stuff with family….grilling and a little fun…..

Since this will be my last post today and I do like some history I offer up a couple of videos on the history of the celebration of Labor Day….

A wee bit more history for you……

Many people worked hard to see that Americans could make a living wage (some say we are not there yet)…..as for my musical interlude is songs from the workers struggles of the early days of the 20th century.

I do hope that everyone has a wonderful day off and be well and be safe and please drink responsibly….

Eugene V. Debs

My weekend begins and as usual I have something different to post…..I do not usually do book or movie reviews but I will make an exception in this case.

In my past I was a member and organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and as a member I learned all about the early days of the workers movement of the early 20th century and one of the giants of the labor movement in those days was Eugene V. Debs.

Tuesday was May Day and a new movie was released about the life of Eugene V. Debs and since I live in a jerkwater town in Mississippi it will not show here so I will have to wait for streaming or the DVD.

I did find a good review of the movie in The American Conservative…….

May Day is a workers’ holiday in socialist history, greeted with joy, celebration, picnics and speeches since at least the 1880s. In contrast, and exactly a century ago, May 1918 was a time of trepidation. The government of Woodrow Wilson, reacting to opposition of US entry into WWI, set out to squelch the free speech of antiwar protesters. At the same time, labor struggles had reached a point that threatened the administration, and so Wilson also set out to drive the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World out of business entirely, if possible.

Imagine the great socialist hero Eugene Debs at this moment. Sixty-two years old and physically worn out, discouraged because the socialist presidential vote two years earlier had fallen sharply from 1912, he nevertheless rallied his energies. He would speak about the horrors of war and the hopes of socialism, no matter the dangers to himself.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/44254-american-socialist-film-chronicles-the-life-of-labor-hero-eugene-v-debs

If you live where the movie is showing then you should go watch if you like American history and the people that made this country great and see just what the American worker had to go through to get to where they are today.

Time for a breakfast and a walk……TTFN

The Murder Of Joe Hill

In my younger years I was a labor organizer for the IWW….I worked mainly with bartenders and casino workers….you have not lived until you try to organize workers at at a casino…..

Anyway as a organizer for the IWW I learned about the early days and especially about one of the “saints” of the labor movement, Joe Hill…..who was murdered in November1915 ……learn more about this extraordinary man……

Don’t mourn – organise!
Joel Emmanuel Haaglund was born in Gefle, Sweden in 1882. He emigrated to the United States in 1901 and settled in California where he changed his name to Joe Hill. Converted to socialism in 1910, Hill became a member of the revolutionary rank-and-file union the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and was one of the leaders of the San Pedro dock workers’ strike. In 1912 he was beaten up and permanently scarred during a free speech campaign in San Diego.

Hill, left, was also a songwriter and his socialist songs appeared in the trade union newspapers, Industrial Worker and Solidarity. After his Red Songbook was published his songs were sung on picket lines and demonstrations. Songs such as The Preacher and the Slave (the phrase “pie in the sky” originates from a lyric in this song) and Casey Jones – The Union Scab became internationally known folk songs.

(read on)…..

He was jailed and executed by firing squad in Salt Lake City, Utah…..his final wish was to Big Bill Haywood leader of the IWW….. “Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.”

Below is a song about Joe Hill sung by Paul Robeson…..

More songs from the IWW…..

One Big Union

Another weekend and we take some time to reflect on the past week and the one approaching…….since I usually do not post much politics and such on these couple of days……I will do the next best thing….HISTORY (moans, groans and head slapping)……

In my younger days I was a delegate for the IWW, Industrial Workers of the World, the original union in the beginning later came the AFL-CIO and others….my days with the union was spent in outreach and activism to help the workers…..my main work was done with bartenders and casino workers……

Most Americans have never heard of the IWW so I thought I would give them a little history to mull over while they go about their weekend duties……

It all began around the year 1905…….

The IWW changed American trade unionism forever, being the first big union to organise black and white across entire industries, and calling for the abolition of the wage system and industrial democracy. It was largely defeated by a massive campaign of repression launched by bosses and the government.

Source: 1905-today: The Industrial Workers of the World in the US

Before you think you know everything about the labor movement you might want to read this short history……..there is so much more to the movement than what you think you know…..

A few songs of the IWW to close……

 

 

My granddaughter likes Pete Seeger’s song…”All You Fascists Born To Lose”…what a great kid!

Time for me to bow out for the day…TTFN….be back tomorrow with more stuff….chuq

Closing Thought–01May17

Happy May Day…..celebrate the International Day of the Worker…..

The world over the worker is celebrated on May 01….that is except in the US we could not celebrate it with everyone else we had to have a separate day for labor…..1st Monday of September.

Around the early days of the 20th century the world was seeing the workers demanding some rights that have been denied them for so long.  There were riots, protests, and movements popping up all over the world.

This is when the trade unions starting showing their strength…back in those days it was the IWW, the Wobblies…..and it grew from there….

So today I thought that some tunes from those days of struggle would be a good way to end the day for me….people like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie,Paul Robeson, etc……..

Enjoy some musical history…..

I will see you guys tomorrow…..have a good day and evening…..be well, be safe….chuq

Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.)

Hi Dee Ho my loyal readers…..today is Labor Day when the country celebrates our workers and the jobs they do……

Back in the 80’s and 90’s I was an organizer for the IWW……so today I thought I would give my readers a look into this union and its activities for the last 100 years……

The role of Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) in the history of the United States of America.

The Industrial Workers of the World was established in Chicago, in 1905, by members of the socialist-led Western Federation of Miners and other groups opposed to what they saw as “class collaboration” by the American Federation of Labor (A.F.L.).

The driving force behind the I.W.W. was William D. Haywood, the leader of the Western Federation of Miners, which had established a reputation for work stoppages in Colorado mines. Joining Haywood at the launch of the I.W.W., which he described as the “first continental congress of the working class,” were Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party and Daniel De Leon of the Socialist Labor Party. Also present were Mother Jones, the “angel of the miners,” and Lucy Parsons, whose husband had been executed in the Haymarket affair.

Source: Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.)

Most Americans have NO idea about the IWW and the important part they played in American Labor……

This may not be my only post today….for I want to spend some time with family…..doing the BBQ thing and a few beers…..but Labor Day is an important day and an important part of our history.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day…..I will be back tomorrow.

100 years later: 5 timeless lessons from Joe Hill

A couple of decades ago I was a delegate for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)…..a union organizer and activist…..and back in the early years of the 20th century when labor was starting to organize to help workers and their lives…….labor is still as despised as it was make in the day on difference is they use political games instead of baseball bats to defeat the movement…….back in the beginning  there was an organizer named Joe Hill….

In 1902, after the death of his parents, Joe and his brother Paul immigrated to America where they expected to “scrape gold off the ground.” After working various jobs in New York City, Joe moved to Chicago and found work in a machine shop. Shortly thereafter, he was fired from his job and blacklisted for attempting to organize the workers. As a result, Joel Haaglund changed his name to Joe Hill. He traveled extensively around the country before joining the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in San Pedro, California in 1910.

Joe quickly became immersed in the IWW and devoted his life to the “awakening of ‘illiterates’ and ‘scum’ to an original, personal conception of society and the realization of the dignity and rights of their part in it.” He wrote songs like “The Preacher and the Slave” and “Casey Jones – the Union Scab” to inspire solidarity in the ranks of the IWW and to recruit new members. He encouraged a “conscientious withdrawal of efficiency,” which was not a call for violence, but rather a sprinkle of sand in the workings of machinery, and, more specifically, the efforts of non-union friendly employers.

In 1914, on his way from California to Chicago, Hill stopped to earn some money in the Utah mines. There he encountered three friends who he had met while working in San Pedro: Otto Applequist and the Eselius Brothers. Edward and John Eselius allowed Joe to live at their house as a guest. Otto Applequist was one of Joe’s closest friends and may have been involved in the alleged murder of the Morrison’s. Joe Hill was eventually convicted of murdering John and Arling Morrison, and took his last breath in Utah before the firing squad. His trip to Chicago was eventually completed – in a casket.

There many things that Joe Hill teaches the labor movement……things that can be applied today….things that would make the American worker more important than they are today……

Source: 100 years later: 5 timeless lessons from Joe Hill

Labor Day–2015

Good morning fellow bloggers!

It has been a hectic but a fascinating Summer…..I have been busy thanx to all the craziness in this world…..keeping up with wold events……I do hope that everyone has had a good Summer……so much has happened that it is mostly a blur trying to keep up with all the changes going on…..

Today we observe the contributions of the American worker (we were too good to have it on the day the rest of the world has it, 01 May) to the society that has become one of the most prosper on the planet…..plus it is the unofficial end to summer.  But sadly for many it is just a holiday….they know little of the struggles of the American worker.

Today is a day to spend some time relaxing and enjoying family and friends……having cook outs, watching parades, football, baseball and some excellent cold beer.

This will probably be my only post for today for I want to do all the things that I listed previously and give my poor overtaxed mind an extra day of quiet and a soothing atmosphere.

I will return tomorrow as opinionated as ever although a little more rested than normal……go enjoy family food and fun….you deserve a break.

Have a great day guys…..thanx to you I am feeling all the love…….onward!