Today in Labor History May 16, 1717: Voltaire was imprisoned in the Bastille for writing subversive satire.
Today in Labor History May 16, 1871: The Paris Commune destroyed the Vendôme Column (“monument de barbarie”). Karl Marx predicted the destruction of this monument in 1852, in his political pamphlet Le 18 Brumaire de Louis Bonaparte. “But if the Imperial mantle finally falls on the shoulders of Louis Bonaparte, the bronze statue of Napoleon will fall from the height of the Vendome column”
Oshkosh Woodworkers’ Strike
May 16, 1898: 1,600 woodworkers in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, went on strike at seven sash and door manufacturers for better pay and union recognition. The overwhelming majority were German immigrants. Additionally, 400 non-union workers walked off in solidarity. About half of them joined the union that same day.
The strike began in response to the mill owners refusal to pay promised wage increases. Pay was already incredibly low and none of the mill owners recognized the union. Furthermore, they often hired women and children to keep their costs low, paying them half of what they pain men. Additionally, the U.S. had recently declared war on Spain. Consequently, food and fuel prices were rising steeply.
For the first month, the strike successfully prevented the mills from operating. Eugene Debs came to speak, as did Samuel Gompers. Women workers and family members picketed along with the men. They also attacked scabs by throwing sand and salt into their eyes. On June 23, when they pelted scabs with rotten eggs, an engineer aimed a hose at them. In response, they tore down a fence and a melee ensued. That same engineer cracked a teenage boy in the back of the skull with a club. The boy died later that night. Soon after, the governor called out the National Guard, which quelled the protests and occupied Oshkosh for the next week.
During the strike, mill owner George Paine accused three labor leaders of conspiracy to damage his mill. Clarence Darrow successfully defended the men, convincing the jury that it was Paine who was guilty of conspiracy. However, the strike was ultimately a failure. They won raises only at some of the mills, and only by a few pennies per day. Union leaders were blacklisted and the union, itself, lost much of its earlier support.
1900s
Today in Writing History May 16, 1906: Margaret Rey was born. Rey was an author an illustrator of children’s books. She co-wrote the Curious George books with her husband H.A. Rey. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, she studied art at Bauhaus and later worked in advertising. In 1935, she fled Germany to escape the Nazis, moving to Rio de Janeiro. There she met H.A. Rey, also a German Jew who had fled the Nazis.
May 16, 1909: There was a large meeting at the Somers saw mill, in Montana. IWW men voted to go on strike on the 20th, joining the trend of set by the river drivers and brewers.
1910s
Today in Labor History May 16, 1912: Studs Terkel was born, New York City. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for his book The Good War, a collection of oral histories from World War II. Terkel was born to Russian-Jewish parents. He joined the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project. This provided him work in radio. He best known for his program, The Studs Terkel Program, which aired on WFMT, Chicago, from 1952-1997. Some of the people he interviewed on this show included: Bob Dylan, Big Bill Broonzy, Frank Zappa, Leonard Bernsteins, martin Luther King and Tennessee Williams.
May 16, 1916: Five IWW men who worked for Merchants-Delivers, in Ballard, WA, went on strike for a twenty-cents per day raise. And in Youngstown, Ohio, 2,000 IWW machinists went on strike for an eight-hour day, a closed shop and a fifty-cent hourly minimum wage.
The Sedition Act
Today in Labor History May 16, 1918: Congress passed the Sedition Act against radicals and pacifists, leading to the arrest, imprisonment, execution and deportation of dozens of unionists, anarchists and communists. The law forbade the use of “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive” language about the U.S. government, its flag, or it military. The mainstream press supported the act, despite the significant limitations it imposed on free speech and of press freedom. In June, 1918, the government arrested Eugene Debs for violating the act by undermining the government’s conscription efforts. He served 18 months in prison. Congress repealed the act in 1920, since world War I had ended. However, Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer, lobbied for a peacetime version of it. Additionally, he continued to round up labor activists, communists and anarchist for seditious behavior.
1920s-1930s
Today in LGBTQ History May 16, 1929: Adrienne Cecile Rich was born. She was a poet, feminist and lesbian rights activist. One of her most famous poems was called “Power.” It was about Marie Curie and her slow dead from radiation.
May 16, 1934: Teamsters initiated a General Strike for union recognition in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. On Bloody Friday (July 20), police shot into the crowd, killing 2 and wounding 67. The Communist League (Trotskyist) supported the strikers. They later turned into the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The strike changed Minneapolis from an open-shop town into one that was much more unionized. Local 544 remained under the socialists control until 1941, when 18 of their leaders were sentenced to prison under the Smith Act.
Today in Labor History May 16, 1938: The U.S. Supreme Court issued the Mackay decision permitting employers to permanently replace striking workers. In a classic case of double speak, the court said that management could not fire strikers, but could “permanently replace” them. One of the most recent and well-known examples of this occurred when Reagan crushed the air traffic controllers’ strike. The U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that allows bosses to fire (er, replace) striking workers.
1940s
May 16, 1943: The Nazis finally crushed the Warsaw ghetto Uprising. 13,000 Jews were killed during the uprising. 6,000 of them were burned alive. Of the remaining 50,000, most were captured and taken to death camps. 17 German soldiers died and 93 were injured.
Today in LGBTQ History May 16, 1947: Cheryl L. Clarke was born. She is a lesbian poet and black feminist activist. She is also co-owner of Bleinheim Hill Books and co-organizer of the Hobart Festival of Women writers.
1950s
Today in Music History May 16, 1953: Romani guitar wizard and jazz legend, Django Reinhardt, died. Reinhardt was the first major jazz talent to emerge from Europe and is still probably the best. He formed the Paris-based Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1934 with violinist Stephane Grappelli. This group was one of the first jazz groups anywhere to feature guitar as a lead instrument. Reinhardt toured briefly with Duke Ellington in 1946. He died unexpectedly of a stroke at age 43. In 1928, he had an accident that left him only able to use his first two fingers on his left hand. This forced him to invent a new technique that allowed him to become even more proficient than he had been prior to the accident. He never learned to read or write music and played completely by ear.
1960s
Today in Labor History May 16, 1961: Park Chung-hee led a coup that overthrew the second Republic of South Korea. He served as president (dictator) until his assassination in 1979.
May 16, 1966: The Communist Party of China issued the May 16 Notice. This marked the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. During the decade it lasted, the Cultural Revolution was responsible for millions of deaths and arrests, and the destruction of countless historical and cultural materials.
1970s
Today in Labor History May 16, 1974: Tito was elected president (i.e., dictator) for life in Yugoslavia.
May 16, 1979: A. Philip Randolph died. Randolph was an African American labor leader, peace activist, and president and founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
1990s-2000s
Today in Labor History May 16, 1997: President (i.e., dictator) of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, fled the country. In 1960, he overthrew the democratically elected nationalist, Patrice Lumumba. He seized the presidency for himself in 1965 and ruled the country for 32 years, until he was forced out in 1997.
May 16, 2007: Baristas at the Starbucks in East Grand Rapids announced their membership in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union. Starbucks was and is notorious for their poor treatment of workers. The NLRB slapped them with numerous anti-labor violations and forced them to settle the Grand Rapids dispute in October.