On This Day in Working Class History

On this day, 22 May 1992 the Royal Oak Mines company locked out members of the Canadian Association of Smelter and Allied Workers (CASAW) union at its Giant Mine in Yellowknife, Canada. CASAW members had been due to go on strike the following day after rejecting a contract which would tie their pay to fluctuations in the price of gold. Management swiftly escalated tensions by hiring scab replaceme...

On this day, 21 May 1913, a bomb exploded at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland, set by suffragettes. The blast caused no casualties, although some blood was found at the scene, presumably from the perpetrator, but it did crack the masonry of the west tower, damage the floor and break some windows. The Dalkeith Advertiser reported the following day: 'The perpetrators left behind them a l...

On this day, 20 May 1963, 1350 Black workers at the Havelock mine in what is now Eswatini walked out on strike. They were demanding a nearly quadrupling of their minimum pay, as well as the dismissal of several managers, and better housing, sanitation and food. All 150 white workers at the facility scabbed on the strike and kept working. The Swazi King sent a telegram to the workers condemning the...

On this day, 19 May 1920, a shootout took place in the town of Matewan, West Virginia between striking miners and the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who had arrived in town to evict miners’ families from their mountain encampment, in what would become known as the infamous Battle of Matewan.  What made the situation in Matewan so unique was that the sheriff, Sid Hatfield (pictured, left), support...

On this day, 18 May 1980, workers and students in Gwangju, South Korea, rose up against their brutal US-backed dictator, Chun Doo-hwan.  Peaceful protesters were fired upon, with many shot and others beaten and stabbed to death by paratroopers. This sparked an uprising across the city, as local residents raided local armouries and police stations, seized weapons and eventually succeeded in driving...

On this day, 17 May 1968, the Catonsville Nine, a group of Catholic Activists, went to the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland to protest the US Occupation of Vietnam.  Entering the Selective Service office, the nine took 378 draft files from cabinets, took them outside, and burned them in the parking lot with a batch of homemade napalm. Learn more about resistance to the Vietnam war in the US in...

On this day, 16 May 1967, the All Circles Struggle Committee (ACSC) was established in Hong Kong in the wake of violent police repression of a strike of plastic flower factory workers.  On May 6, British colonial police violently beat picketing workers and bystanders, causing mass outrage. Protests against and clashes with police began breaking out across the city. After the ACSC was set up to coo...

On this day, 15 May 1942, the body of 60-year-old waterfront worker and member of the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World union, Matti Valentinpoika Huhta (better known as T-Bone Slim), was found floating in New York's Hudson River. Living for years as a transient worker travelling around the USA looking for work, Slim was also an accomplished author, poet and songwriter. A member of the...

On this day, 14 May 2021, dock workers in Livorno, Italy, refused to load weapons and explosives destined for Israel during a wave of Israeli attacks on Gaza. Members of the rank and file Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) discovered where the shipment was headed, and then decided they would not touch it. They issued a statement declaring: "The port of Livorno will not be an accomplice in the massacre...

On this day, 13 May 1935, workers loading bananas in Oracabessa, Jamaica, went on strike and rioted. They blocked roads to prevent strikebreakers from being brought in, and cut power lines. Armed police were sent by British colonial authorities from Kingston to suppress the stoppage. Strikes spread to other groups of dock workers on the island later that month. More information, sources and map: h...

On this day, 12 May 1978, dayshift toolroom workers at the Saab-Scania auto plant in Sao Bernardo, Brazil, decided to stop work, in spite of the military regime. The strike spread and within two weeks over 20 factories and 45,000 workers had downed tools for a pay increase.  In the following weeks the stoppage spread to Osasco and São Paulo, before all the auto companies agreed to make pay increas...

On this day, 11 May 1894, the Pullman railroad strike began in Chicago following the firing of three workers the previous day, called by Eugene Debs’ American Railroad Union (ARU). A month after it began, 400 ARU delegates from around the country met, and in defiance of Debs and their leadership agreed to boycott all Pullman railroad cars across the country in support of the workers in Chicago. Th...

On this day, 10 May 1941, the Strike of the 100,000 took place in Nazi-occupied Belgium, on the first anniversary of the German invasion. Beginning in a steelworks in East Belgium, tens of thousands walked out, forcing authorities to grant an 8% pay increase, before arresting hundreds of strikers and sending many to the concentration camps.  More information, sources and map: https://stories.worki...

On this day, 9 May 1935, port workers in Kingston, Jamaica refused to load a vessel, the MV Costa Rica. One of their complaints was that they were not being paid for their lunch hour and demanded a settlement. Leading worker organiser William Alexander Bustamante intervened and an agreement with employers was reached. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/artic...

On this day, 8 May 1978, education workers in Peru launched their first "great strike" against the military dictatorship of Francisco Morales-Bermúdez. Workers in the education union SUTEP organised struggle committees around the country to coordinate the dispute.  Despite repression from the military, with support from mothers, fathers and students, the workers held out for 81 days.  They returne...

On this day, 7 May 1912, the first general strike for waiters and hotel workers in New York City began when 150 workers at the Belmont Hotel walked out on strike. Organised by the Industrial Workers of the World union, at its peak over 6,000 workers were out, demanding one day off per week, higher wages and no discrimination against union members. The employers tried to stoke racial hatred by hiri...

On this day, 6 May 1937, 400 Black women tobacco stemmers went on strike at the IN Vaughan Company in Richmond, Virginia amidst a wave of unrest in the industry. With assistance from the Southern Negro Youth Congress the women walked out fighting for better pay and conditions, and were joined on picket lines by white women textile workers. After 48 hours, they won better pay, a maximum 8-hour day,...

On this day, 5 May 1886, the Bay View Massacre took place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 14,000 labourers at Milwaukee's largest employer, Bay View Rolling Mills, were striking to replace the ten-hour shift with an eight-hour workday for the same rate of pay. The Wisconsin State Militia, which was dispatched by Governor Jeremiah Rusk, opened fire on the strikers. The aftermath resulted in sixty wounded,...

On this day, 4 May 1970, the Kent State massacre took place when the Ohio National Guard fired 67 rounds into a crowd of students protesting against the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam war, killing four and wounding nine others, including bystanders and one person who was permanently paralysed. Student John Cleary was there, and recalled how he tried to take a photograph of the soldiers: “A...

On this day, 3 May 1926, police in New York City arrested 46 striking furriers, fighting for an 8-hour day. 31 of them were arrested in the fur district at the junction of 7th Avenue and 30th St for "refusing to move on when ordered to do so." Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city, 1,500 delegates of the 12,000 strikers agreed to insist that the employers had to accept the workers' demand of a 40-hour...

On this day, 2 May 2022 approximately 2000 striking garment and textile workers gathered in the Nhlangano manufacturing hub in Eswatini for a mass meeting. Some had walked more than 8 km to get there. The strike of around 8000 workers in total had begun five weeks prior, demanding a living wage of at least E15 per hour or E2983 (US$183) per month. Representatives of the striking union, the Amalgam...

Today, May 1, is International Workers' Day! It commemorates the sentencing to death of seven anarchist workers in Chicago who were wrongly convicted for throwing a bomb at police who attacked a strike demonstration in May 1886.  80,000 workers in Chicago had walked out on May 1 demanding a maximum 8-hour working day, alongside over 200,000 other workers across the US. Employers and the government...

On this day, 30 April 2022 food delivery couriers working for the Deliveroo app in Dubai went on strike, shutting down the app, and defying a ban on strikes in the United Arab Emirates. The drivers were facing a pay cut from $2.79 per delivery down to $2.38. The UK-based firm, backed by tech giant Amazon, also intended to increase the length of the working day up to 14 hours per day. The workers,...

On this day, 29 April 1982, 300 mainly South Asian women machinists were on strike in protest at the sacking of two male union activists and over low wages at the Supreme Quilting clothing factory in Smethwick, West Midlands. After a prolonged dispute, during which they also picketed the plant of a sister company, Raindi Textiles, 24-hours a day, they went back to work after achieving promises of...

On this day, 28 April 1789, Fletcher Christian led the mutiny on the Royal Navy ship the Bounty against the bullying and oppressive Captain William Bligh. The crew seized control of the ship and set Bligh and 18 of his supporters adrift, who famously survived. Some of the mutineers were captured, but others eventually settled with some Polynesians they effectively enslaved in the previously unpopu...