On This Day in Working Class History

On this day, 2 April 1863, a group of women, having been refused an audience with the governor John Letcher, took to the streets of Richmond, Virginia to protest food shortages, hoarding, and the spiralling inflation in the Confederate capital. The march soon turned into a riot with government warehouses, grocery stores, and commercial establishments attacked and raided. Chants of “bread or blood”...

On this day, 1 April 1949, 6,000 workers in 11 breweries in New York City walked out on strike for a pay increase, better staffing and a 35 hour working week instead of 40. The strike lasted 2 1/2 months, and massively slashed beer production in New York, previously the capital of the production in the country, causing Wisconsin to overtake it. The drought of local brew meant that beers from the M...

On this day, 31 March 2009, around 40 workers in the Caterpillar factory in Grenoble, France stormed their bosses' offices and kept four of them hostage, demanding better severance packages for workers being laid off.  Over 700 French Caterpillar workers were being made redundant.  The action was successful, and the company increased its pot of redundancy money by €1.5 million: leading to an avera...

On this day, 30 March 1976, a general strike and mass protests were launched in Palestine and by Palestinian citizens of Israel in protest at the Israeli government seizing large amounts of land owned by Palestinians in Galilee in order to construct Jewish settlements and military facilities.  A solidarity strike took place in most Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. There were widespread clashe...

On 29 March 1963, 150 sawmill workers at Peak Timber in what is now Eswatini went on strike demanding more pay. A further strike erupted at the mill on May 28, when 300 workers at the mill went on strike for a few hours in protest against the retrenchment of five workers after a small part of the plant was closed. There was further unrest on June 17, when workers gathered in support of a strike of...

On this day, 28 March 1919, the state of Arkansas joined the majority of other US states in introducing a law prohibiting anarchism and communism. The law, to "define and punish anarchy and… Bolshevism" barred any "attempt to overthrow [the] present form of government of the State of Arkansas or the United States" and "exhibit[ing] any flag, etc, which is calculated to overthrow present form of go...

On 27 March 1974 a strike began on Christmas Island, an Australian colony essentially run by the British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC), a phosphate mining company. The firm employed mostly Asian workers from Singapore, Malaysia and China, who were low-paid and housed in inadequate accommodation, and European workers who were paid five times as much as Asians and had better quality housing and scho...

On this day, 26 March 1915, police in Sioux City, Iowa, arrested 14 members of the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World union for holding street meetings in an attempt to drive the union out of town.  The IWW had begun a free speech fight to defend its right to organise. Members responded to a call and flocked to the town, holding street meetings to get arrested and flood the jails.  When...

On this day, 25 March 2008 two Chinese construction workers were killed and at least four injured during a strike in Mongomo, Equatorial Guinea. Workers employed by Jianyu Overseas Development, a subsidiary of the Wheihai group, working on infrastructure projects, went on strike a few days prior. Guinean troops arrived, stormed workers' dormitories, made several arrests and attempted to force stri...

On 24 March 2008 around 8000 workers at the Dacia-Renault factory in Romania launched an indefinite strike demanding pay increases of 50-70%. It was the biggest private sector strike in the country since the overthrow of the state socialist government in 1989. And for the first time in the country, workers based their pay demands not on Romanian salaries but on salaries of Renault workers in Turke...

On this day, 23 March 1944, the most significant attack on Nazi occupation forces by the Italian partisan resistance took place on Via Rasella in Rome. Around a dozen members of the communist-led partisan Patriotic Action Group (GAP) attacked an SS company of over 150 ethnic Germans, which was tasked with fighting the resistance. The partisans detonated a home-made bomb then opened fire with hand-...

On this day, 22 March 1986, thousands of striking workers from US military bases in the Philippines blockaded the gates of US navy and air force bases near Manila. Violence also broke out in many locations, as over 20,000 striking workers pursuing better severance built barricades and clashed with US service personnel attempting to cross the picket lines.  Our work is only possible because of supp...

Mini podcast episode about this date in history, 21 March 1991, when the abolition of the poll tax in the UK was announced, following a mass non-payment campaign and widespread rioting. The hated tax, introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, charged the working class the same as the rich as there was a charge for every individual in a household.  Despite the defeat of the working...

On 20 March 2013 workers for the Azores-based SATA airline (now renamed Azores Airlines) and TAP Air Portugal called off a three-day strike which was scheduled for the following day. 7000 workers including pilots and support staff were due to walk out in protest against scheduled pay cuts of between 3.5 and 10%. The strike was cancelled, when according to union officials, management agreed to all...

On this day, 19 March 1968, more than 1,000 students at the historically Black Howard University began an occupation of the administration building that shut down the school.   The protests were spurred by the planned expulsion of 37 fellow activists and went on to demand student involvement in disciplinary procedures, a more developed African-American studies curriculum, and the resignation of th...

On this day, 18 March 1834 the British Tolpuddle martyrs — James Brine, James Hammett, George Loveless, James Loveless, John Standfield, and Thomas Standfield — were sentenced to 7 years' transportation to Australia for attempting to organise a union. They had been trying to fight pay cuts for agricultural workers, but were shipped to Australia in appalling conditions. However the draconian senten...

On this day, 17 March 1916, around half of the 12,000 women working at the Armstrong-Whitworth Elswick munitions factory in Newcastle went on strike for better pay. It was the biggest strike by women arms workers during World War I to date. Authorities were taken aback by the women's "great determination and cohesion", and a Ministry of Munitions' wage tribunal was swiftly held and resolved in the...

On 16 March 1978 the Beyazıt massacre took place in Istanbul when seven students were killed and 41 injured at the University of Istanbul.  The bomb attack targeted left-wing students. The police had been informed in advance by an intelligence officer that a bomb attack on students exiting the university was planned by right-wing nationalists, but they failed to act. An investigation into the kill...

On 15 March 2018 hundreds of civil servants in Andorra went on strike for the first time since 1933 in protest at proposals to reform public sector pay and conditions. In particular, the workers wanted to defend their 35 hour working week and level of pay. 80% of teachers in the principality took part in the strike, and in total around 400 workers out of 3000 total civil servants participated, inc...

On this day, 14 March 1970, two sailors aboard the SS Columbia Eagle, carrying 10,000 tons of napalm for the US military in Vietnam, mutinied in protest at the war. Al Glatkowski and Clyde McKay had smuggled guns onto the ship which they used to hijack it and sail it to neutral Cambodia. But they never could have guessed what would happen next, as they became embroiled in a complex series of world...

On 13 March 1920, in Germany, just hours after the far-right Kapp Putsch began and the Social Democratic government called for a general strike, workers in Sömmerda, Germany – many of whom were members of the anarchist Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD) – took control of their town.  They formed an executive committee of 40 workers, disarmed the town guard, arrested the reactionary mayor, and f...

On this day, 12 March 1951, following a successful campaign against transport price rises, 300,000 workers took part in a general strike in Barcelona and nearby cities to protest against the right-wing dictatorship of general Francisco Franco.  Despite the mobilisation of thousands of police and civil guards, the strikers held out for two weeks while the government, terrified of the prospect of fu...

On this day, 11 March 1975, there was an attempted far right coup in Portugal, known as the March 11 Intentona. This happened in the context of the revolutionary period that Portugal which began with the fall of the right-wing dictatorship on 25 April 1974.  After the resignation of president António Spínola in September 1974, a left-wing government took power headed by prime minister and Communis...

On this day, 10 March 1920, the El Bordo mine fire occurred in Pachuca, Mexico, which killed dozens of miners. The fire broke out at 6 AM, and there was a brief evacuation period before the mine shafts were sealed shut.  Officials of the United States Smelting, Refining and Mining Company claimed that after the evacuation fewer than 10 workers remained inside, all of whom were declared to be dead...

On this day, 9 March 2020, tens of thousands of women across Mexico went on strike in protest at gender-based violence which kills thousands of women each year in the country. Transport, banking, education and retail were amongst the industries affected by women either staying at home or taking to the streets, under the slogan "Un Día Sin Nosotras" ("A Day without Us"). One worker, Isaura Miranda,...