Today in Labor History May 14, 1771: Utopian-socialist Robert Owen was born on this day in Wales. In the early 1800s, he made a fortune in textiles. However, he tried to run his mills on higher principles than greed. For example, he offered prices at his company store that were only slightly higher than their wholesale cost. In contrast, his competitors paid their workers only in script and charged inflated prices at their stores. In 1810, Owen implemented the eight-hour workday for his employees. And in 1817, he came up with the slogan, “Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.” He also provided free schools for the children of factory workers.
In 1824, he traveled to America and invested his fortune in an experimental socialistic commune at New Harmony, Indiana. It only survived for two years. However, it changed many aspects of American culture. Residents created the first public library and public school system open to both boys and girls. The town also became an important center of scientific research in the mid-1800s.
1800s
May 14, 1856: U.S. President Franklin Pierce unofficially “recognized” the proslavery dictatorship of Nicaragua, by William Walker, an American pirate. Walker was later deposed after interfering with Cornelius Vanderbilt’s transportation network. (Vanderbilt ran the transcontinental transport between the Atlantic and the Pacific, the predecessor to the Panamanian Canal). Walker returned and tried to conquer all of Central America. However, Honduran forces captured and executed him in Trujillo, in 1860.
1930s-1940s
Today in Labor History May 14, 1920: IWW Longshoremen in Seattle, Washington ended their strike that had begun on April 9.
Today in Labor History May 14, 1932: “We Want Beer” marches were held throughout the U.S. 15,000 unionized workers demonstrated in Detroit. Prohibition was repealed within a year.
Emma Goldman
May 14, 1940: Emma Goldman (1869-1940) died in Toronto, at the age of 70. She had been raising money for anti-Franco forces in Spain.
Goldman emigrated to the U.S. from Lithuania in 1885. The Haymarket Affair radicalized her and attracted her to the anarchist movement. As a young woman, she planned the assassination of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, along with her lover Alexander Berkman. However, Frick survived and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. After that, she renounced “propaganda by the deed.” Nevertheless, she continued to agitate for women’s and workers’ rights and for anarchism. And she went to prison numerous times for “inciting to riot” and for distributing information about birth control. She also went to prison in 1917 for “inducing persons not to register” for the draft. When she was released, the U.S. deported her, and 248 other radicals, to Russia. She initially supported the “workers’ revolution.” However, she denounced the Soviet Union after learning of their violent suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion.
1950s
Today in Labor History May 14, 1953: Milwaukee brewery workers began a 10-week strike, demanding contracts comparable to East and West Coast workers. They won when Blatz Brewery accepted their demands. Blatz was later ousted from the Brewers Association for “unethical” business methods.
1960s
May 14, 1960: Police beat 200 anti-HUAC protesters in San Francisco, California.
Today in Labor History May 14, 1961: Racists bombed and burned a bus full of Freedom Riders in Alabama. They shot out the tires and threw smoke bombs into the bus, and then attacked the occupants with sticks. Doctors at the local hospital refused to treat the wounded.
May 14, 1968: Sorbonne students occupied the university. Workplace occupations occurred throughout France. By the end of May, over 10 million workers had participated in occupations.
1970s
Today in Labor History May 14, 1970: State police confronted anti-war demonstrators at Jackson State University, Mississippi. Shortly after midnight, they opened fire, killing two African-American students and wounding twelve others. No cops were ever arrested or indicted. This occurred eleven days after the massacre at Kent State.
1980s
May 14, 1980: Salvadoran and Honduran soldiers gunned down 600 Salvadoran refugees as they tried to cross the Sumpul River from El Salvador. Soldiers from El Salvador’s notorious ORDEN paramilitary also bludgeoned people with gun butts and gored them with machetes and military knives. They also threw babies and children into the air and decapitated them with machetes. A Honduran priest who visited the site said that there were so many vultures picking at the bodies in the river that it looked like a black carpet. Typhoid cases broke out in villages down river because of the large quantity of rotting corpses. And bones from the victims could still be seen a year later.
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