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Canada Limits War Industry Strikes (1939) On this day in 1939, Canada extended the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act (IDIA) to cover disputes between employers and employees engaged in "war... (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

Canada Limits War Industry Strikes (1939)

Tue Nov 07, 1939

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Image: Asbestos Strike in Canada, from Centre d'archives de la région de Thetford - Fonds Famille Gérard Chamberland

On this day in 1939, Canada extended the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act (IDIA) to cover disputes between employers and employees engaged in "war work", severely limiting the contexts in which a strike was legal to initiate.

The IDIA, first passed in 1907, forbade strikes and lockouts in mines and certain public utility industries until a dispute had first been dealt with by a board of conciliation. Before 1939, only forty-one of one thousand applications actually made it to the strike stage.

War work was defined as including "the construction, execution, production, repair, manufacture, transportation, storage or delivery of munitions of war or supplies" and "the construction, remodelling, repair or demolition of defense projects." After the extension of the IDIA, the applications to strike increased six-fold, however only seven strikes (4% of the total) were allowed in the following year and a half.

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Leon Trotsky (1879 - 1940) Leon Trotsky, born on this day in 1879, was a Marxist theorist, revolutionary, and politician (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

Leon Trotsky (1879 - 1940)

Fri Nov 07, 1879

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Leon Trotsky, born on this day in 1879, was a Marxist theorist, revolutionary, and politician. "Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies."

Trotsky joined the Bolshevik Party a few weeks before the October Revolution and immediately became a leader within the party, thus also playing a key role in the October Revolution.

Trotsky became more prominent from March 1918 to January 1925 as the leader of the Red Army in the post of Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. He was also a vital leading figure in the Red victory in the Russian Civil War and one of the seven members of the first Politburo.

After the rise of Joseph Stalin, Trotsky was removed from his positions and eventually expelled from the Soviet Union in February 1929. He spent the rest of his life in exile, and was assassinated in 1940 in Mexico City by Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent.

Trotsky was a prolific author whose works include History of the Russian Revolution (1930) and The Revolution Betrayed (1936). Key characteristics of Trotskyist thought include the concepts of "Permanent Revolution" and the "United Front" of revolutionaries and reformers against common enemies.

"Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies."

- Leon Trotsky

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Michael Schwerner (1939 - 1964) Michael Schwerner, born on this day in 1939, was one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field/social workers killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi by members... (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

Michael Schwerner (1939 - 1964)

Mon Nov 06, 1939

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Image: Photograph of Michael Scwerner with light hair and a goatee, facing the camera

Michael Schwerner, born on this day in 1939, was one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field/social workers killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

In the early 1960s Schwerner became active in working for civil rights for black people; he led a local Congress of Racial Equality group on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, called "Downtown CORE." He participated in a 1963 effort to desegregate Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Maryland. As activism increased in the South, Schwerner and his wife Rita Schwerner Bender volunteered to work for National CORE in Mississippi, helping black people exercise their right to vote.

Michael Scwerner and fellow civil rights workers James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were killed near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi while investigating the burning of Mt. Zion Methodist Church, which had been a site for a CORE Freedom School.

Arrested by the local sheriff, the trio was released that evening without being allowed to contact anyone. On the road, they were stopped by patrol lights and two carloads of KKK members, kidnapped, tortured, and killed.

The sheriff, along with six others, were indicted and convicted for depriving the three men of their civil rights. No one was held accountable for their murders until 2005, when outspoken white supremacist Edgar Ray Killen was convicted on three counts of manslaughter.

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Hilde Radusch (1903 - 1994) Hilde Radusch, born on this day in 1903, was a German communist, anti-fascist, and queer feminist author (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

Hilde Radusch (1903 - 1994)

Fri Nov 06, 1903

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Hilde Radusch, born on this day in 1903, was a German communist, anti-fascist, and queer feminist author. Imprisoned by the Nazis, Radusch survived World War II and became a prominent lesbian writer and activist.

In 1924, Radusch became a member of the Communist Party, and from 1929 until 1932 Radusch served as a Communist Party city councilor in Berlin.

Radusch was arrested by the Nazi government on April 6th, 1933, less than a month after returning from a political trip to the Soviet Union. After refusing to sign a contrived confession, she ended up in the Barnim Street women's prison, along with around two hundred other "politicals", those identified by the Nazi government as political prisoners (distinct from "criminals").

Released in September 1933, she went on to run a restaurant with her partner Else "Eddy" Klopsch, which served as a refuge for people wanted by the Nazi regime. After the war, she became the head of the Schöneberg office dedicated to "Victims of Fascism", however she lost the job after being denounced as "lesbian".

Radusch was the editor of "Our Little Newspaper" ("Unserer Kleinen Zeitung"), described by historian Ilona Scheidle as the first lesbian newspaper after World War II. In the 1970s, Radusch co-founded "L74", a Berlin group of older lesbians.

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Eugene V. Debs (1855 - 1926) Eugene V. Debs, born on this day in 1855, was an American socialist, trade unionist, founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five time... (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

Eugene V. Debs (1855 - 1926)

Mon Nov 05, 1855

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Eugene V. Debs, born on this day in 1855, was an American socialist, trade unionist, founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America.

Through his presidential candidacies and labor organizing, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.

While in prison for leading the Pullman Strike, Debs read various works of socialist theory and emerged six months later as a committed adherent to the international socialist movement.

Debs was a founding member of the Social Democracy of America (1897), the Social Democratic Party of America (1898) and the Socialist Party of America (1901). Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for President of the United States five times, including 1900 (earning 0.6% of the popular vote), 1904 (3.0%), 1908 (2.8%), 1912 (6.0%) and 1920 (3.4%), the last time from a prison cell. He was also a candidate for United States Congress from his native state Indiana in 1916.

Debs was noted for his fiery oration. In 1918, Debs was arrested after giving a speech denouncing American participation in World War I. He was convicted under the Sedition Act of 1918 and sentenced to a term of 10 years. In his speech to the court, Debs provided one of his most well-known quotes:

"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

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Cedric Robinson (1940 - 2016) Cedric Robinson, born on this day in 1940, was the author of "Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition" and a professor of Black Studies and Political... (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

Cedric Robinson (1940 - 2016)

Tue Nov 05, 1940

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Cedric Robinson, born on this day in 1940, was the author of "Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition" and a professor of Black Studies and Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Robinson's areas of interest included political philosophy, radical social theory in the African diaspora, comparative politics, and the relationships between and among media and politics.

According to Professor Robin D.G. Kelley, "[Robinson's] monumental Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (1983) takes Karl Marx to task for failing to comprehend radical movements outside of Europe. He rewrites the history of the West from ancient times to the mid-twentieth century, scrutinizing the idea that Marx’s categories of class can be universally applied outside of Europe. Instead he characterized black rebellions as expressions of what he called the 'Black Radical Tradition', movements whose objectives and aspirations confounded Western social analysis. Marxism also failed to account for the racial character of capitalism."

In a critical review of the work, authors William I. Robinson, Salvador Rangel and Hilbourne A. Watson state "Black Marxism has become a favored text with which to badger radical intellectuals and activists who place a premium on proletarian struggle. This has led some among left organizers to fear they may be condemned as Eurocentric, as 'class reductionists', and as 'ignoring race' should they place a premium on class analysis, should they insist that racism is an outcome of class exploitation, and that its eradication involves a transnational and pan-ethnic proletarian struggle against capitalism...At a time when global capital is on an all-out rampage against the global working and popular classes and when our very survival is under threat, we need more than ever a transnational revolutionary proletarian politics. We won’t find that in Black Marxism."

"Racism, I maintain, was not simply a convention for ordering the relations of European to non-European peoples but has its genesis in the 'internal' relations of European peoples."

- Cedric Robinson

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United Farm Workers Office Bombed (1970) On this day in 1970, a United Farm Workers (UFW) office was bombed Salinas Valley, California (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

United Farm Workers Office Bombed (1970)

Wed Nov 04, 1970

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On this day in 1970, a United Farm Workers (UFW) office was bombed Salinas Valley, California. The bombing took place during the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm workers strike in U.S. history, which had begun on August 23rd of that year.

The Salad Bowl strike was in part a protest against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters winning legal jurisdiction over farm workers in California (the UFW had previously organized these workers). The Salad Bowl Strike caused the price of lettuce to double practically overnight, and lettuce growers lost $500,000 a day.

During the strike UFW leader César Chávez was arrested and imprisoned. When he was visited by athlete Rafer Johnson and Ethel Kennedy, widow of slain Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Johnson and Kennedy were attacked by an anti-union mob on the steps of the jail and police had to suppress the quarrel.

Although the strike ended on March 26th, 1971 when the Teamsters and UFW signed a new jurisdictional agreement reaffirming the UFW's right to organize field workers, jurisdictional labor disputes (and associated violence) would continue for years afterward. These tensions led directly to the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.

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Folsom Prison Strike and Manifesto (1970) On this day in 1970, over 2,400 prisoners published a prisoner's rights manifesto and began a 19-day strike at Folsom State Prison in California (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

Folsom Prison Strike and Manifesto (1970)

Tue Nov 03, 1970

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Image: A gate of Folsom State Prison

On this day in 1970, over 2,400 prisoners published a prisoner's rights manifesto and began a 19-day strike at Folsom State Prison in California. The manifesto called prisons "fascist concentration camps" and demanded the right to join a union.

The manifesto was overtly political, seeking an "end to the injustice suffered by all prisoners, regardless of race, creed, or color." It also called the U.S. prison system "fascist concentration camps" and made a set of demands for prisoner's rights.

Among those demands were "an end to political persecution, racial persecution, and the denial of prisoners, to subscribe to political papers" and "that inmates be allowed to form or join labor unions".

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Plowshares Kitsap Break-in (2007) On this day in 2009, five anti-nuclear weapons peace activists who were part of the Plowshares movement broke into the Naval Base Kitsap, a nuclear-submarine base... (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

Plowshares Kitsap Break-in (2007)

Fri Nov 02, 2007

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On this day in 2009, five anti-nuclear weapons peace activists who were part of the Plowshares movement broke into the Naval Base Kitsap, a nuclear-submarine base on Hood Canal northwest of Bremerton, Washington.

This "Disarm Now Plowshares" protest was a symbolic disarming of one of the largest nuclear-weapons stockpiles in the United States.

The five activists cut a hole through the perimeter fence surrounding the Bangor submarine base and began walking toward the storage area for nuclear weapons, carrying hammers and vials of their own blood. After making it within 10 yards of where the nukes were stored, they were arrested by Marines at gunpoint.

After being charged with conspiracy, trespass, destruction of property on a naval installation, and depredation of government property, the group was found guilty on December 13th, 2010.

At sentencing, Judge Benjamin Settle considering releasing the defendants while they waited for their prison terms to begin, however all individuals refused and, while singing songs of peace, federal marshals escorted them out of the courtroom and into federal detention.

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Norman Morrison Self-Immolation (1965) Norman Morrison (1933 - 1965) was a Baltimore Quaker who committed suicide via self-immolation in protest of the Vietnam War on this day in 1965 (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

Norman Morrison Self-Immolation (1965)

Tue Nov 02, 1965

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Norman Morrison (1933 - 1965) was a Baltimore Quaker who committed suicide via self-immolation in protest of the Vietnam War on this day in 1965. Morrison was 31 and left behind a wife and three children.

The act was a protest United States involvement in the Vietnam War, and took place directly below Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's office at the Pentagon. Morrison was 31 and left behind a wife and three children.

Morrison's death was widely publicized and drew comparisons to Thích Quảng Đức and other Buddhist monks, who burned themselves to death to protest the repression committed by the South Vietnam government in years prior. In Vietnam, Morrison became a folk hero to some, his name rendered as "Mo Ri Xon". On May 9th, 1967, protesters held a vigil for Morrison before occupying the Pentagon for four days until being removed and arrested.

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UMW Coal Strike (1919) On this day in 1919, the United Mine Workers (UMW) initiated a nationwide strike of more than 400,000 coal miners, demanding better wages and a 30-hour week (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

UMW Coal Strike (1919)

Sat Nov 01, 1919

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On this day in 1919, the United Mine Workers (UMW) initiated a nationwide strike of more than 400,000 coal miners, demanding better wages and a 30-hour week. The U.S. declared the strike illegal while the media smeared workers as communists.

U.S. Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer, the same individual behind the infamous Palmer Raids, declared the strike illegal by invoking the Lever Act, a wartime measure that made it a crime to interfere with the production or transportation of necessities.

The law had never been used against a union before, and in fact American Federation of Labor (AFL) founder Samuel Gompers had been promised by President Woodrow Wilson that the Lever Act would not be used to suppress labor actions.

The strike was subject to Red Scare propaganda: coal operators made false charges that Lenin and Trotsky had ordered the strike and were financing it, and some of the press repeated those claims. Others used words like "insurrection" and "Bolshevik revolution". Because of this propaganda and the Attorney General's injunction against the strike, the UMW called the strike off on November 8th.

Many workers ignored this order, however, and the strike continued for over a month, with a final agreement being reached on December 10th. Workers won a 14% wage increase and the creation of an investigatory commission to mediate wage issues.

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Smith Act Trial (1949) On this day in 1949, the first trial of communist leaders under the Smith Act began in Manhattan. The trial spanned 10 months at the height of anti-communist hysteria (stahmaxffcqankienulh.supabase.co)
 

Smith Act Trial (1949)

Tue Nov 01, 1949

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Image: Defendants charged under the Smith Act Robert Thompson and Benjamin Davis smiling, surrounded by pickets as they leave the Federal Courthouse in New York City in 1949 [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1949, the first trial of communist leaders under the Smith Act began in Manhattan. The trial spanned 10 months at the height of anti-communist hysteria. All 11 defendants were convicted, and all 5 of their attorneys imprisoned.

The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28th, 1940.

The Act set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government by force or violence and required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the federal government. Approximately 215 people were indicted under the legislation, including alleged communists, anarchists, and fascists.

On November 1st, 1949, the first trial of communist leaders began in Manhattan, New York. The trial, lasting ten months, was one of the longest in United States history, and took place at a fever pitch of anti-communist hysteria - the USSR tested its first nuke, communists won the Chinese Civil War, and the House of Un-American Activities Committee began its censorship in Hollywood, all while the trial was underway.

All eleven defendants were convicted under the Smith Act, and all five of their defense attorneys were imprisoned for contempt of court. Two were later disbarred. In the years following, more than 100 additional Communist Party USA (CPUSA) officers were convicted for violating the Smith Act, decimating the leadership of the CPUSA.

The Supreme Court put an end to these types of convictions in Yates v. United States (1957), where it ruled that radical speech was protected under the 1st amendment.

Joan Little Acquitted (1975) On this day in 1975, Joan Little became the first woman in U.S. history to be acquitted for defending herself from sexual assault with deadly force after she killed a... in c/workingclasscalendar@lemmy.world
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