Today in Labor History May 21

1600s

Today in Labor History May 21, 1660: the Iroquois Confederacy defeated the French colonial militia in the Battle of Long Sault.

Today in Writing History May 21, 1688: Poet and satirist Alexander Pope was born. Some of his more well-known pieces include The Rape of the Lock, The Duncia, and An Essay on Criticism. Perhaps less well-known was the fact that he was permanently disabled by Pott disease, a form of tuberculosis. As a result, his growth was stunted and he had a severe hunchback.

1700s

Today in Writing History May 21, 1703: The authorities imprisoned writer Daniel Defoe for seditious libel. Defoe was most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719. However, he also wrote political pamphlets, including The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, which satirized how Tories handled religious dissenters. As a result, the authorities arrested and imprisoned him.

1850s-1870s

May 21, 1851: Colombia abolished slavery.

Today in Labor History May 21, 1856: Stonemasons in Victoria, Australia won that nation’s first eight-hour working day.

Bloody Week during the Paris Commune, 1871 — _{A barricade on Place Blanche during Bloody Week, whose defenders included Louise Michel and a unit of 30 women. By Moloch[1] – Own work, Pub Dom}

May 21, 1871: The Bloody Week, a savage orgy of repression and violence, was launched against the Paris Commune. As a result of the French government’s massacres and summary executions, 20,000 to 35,000 civilians died. Additionally, 38,000 people were arrested.

1890s

Emile Henry's attentat at the Cafe Terminus, 1894. — _{Attentat de l’hôtel Terminus, Le Petit Journal Illustré, 26 Février 1894. By Osvaldo Tofani. Pub Dom}

Today in Labor History May 21, 1894: The French authorities executed anarchist Emile Henry by guillotine. His final words were, “Courage, comrades! Long live Anarchy!” Henry grew up in a family of radicals. His father had been a supporter of the Paris Commune. As a result, his family was exiled to Spain, where Henry was born. However, his father contracted mercury poisoning from his factory job there and died when Henry was ten. Because of this, the family moved back to France. Henry’s older brother, also an anarchist, helped him make connections with other French revolutionaries. In 1892, Henry set a time bomb at the offices of the Carmaux Mining Company, which killed five cops. In February, 1894, he set off a bomb at the Café Terminus, killing one person and wounding twenty. Consequently, the authorities arrested him and sentenced him to death by guillotine.

1900s-1910s

May 21, 1904: Jazz legend and piano master Fats Waller was born. His creativity and innovations in the Harlem stride style of piano playing influenced much of the jazz that followed. During his career, he copyrighted over 400 of his compositions. He started playing piano at age six. As a teenager, he studied with the stride piano master, James P. Johnson. In 1926, he was kidnapped by Al Capone’s men and forced at gunpoint to perform for the gangster’s birthday party. In the early 1940s, he became the first African American songwriter to compose a hit Broadway musical.

Today in Labor History May 21, 1910: IWW textile workers were on strike in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

1920s

May 21, 1921: Italian labor activists and anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti went on trial. They eventually were executed as part of a government campaign against dissidents.

Dorothy Hewett plaque. — _{By Snapandrattle33 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0}

May 21, 1923: Dorothy Hewett was born. She was an Australian feminist poet, novelist and Community Party member.

1930s-1940s

Today in Labor History May 21, 1935: Jane Addams died. Addams was a peace activist, sociologist and author. She was a co-founder of the ACLU and a leader in the history of social work and women’s suffrage. In 1931, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Additionally, like Alexander Pope, she suffered from Pott Disease. In 1889, along with her lover, Ellen Gates Starr, she co-founded Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago. Eventually, the house became home to 25 women and was visited weekly by around 2,000 others. It became a center for research, study and debate. Members were bound by their commitment to the labor and suffrage movements. The facilities included a doctor to provide medical treatment for poor families, gym, adult night school and a girls’ club. The adult night school became a model for the continuing education classes that occur today.

May 21, 1945: The “Little Wagner Act” was signed in Hawaii (still an American colony). It guaranteed collective bargaining rights for pineapple and sugar workers. It came as a result of a 79-day strike that shut down 33 of the territory’s 34 plantations.

The Great Strike Wave of 1946

_{By AdrienRouxxx – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0}

Today in Labor History May 20, 1946: The U.S. government took over control of the coal mines (again). On April 1, 400,000 UMWA coal miners from 26 states went on strike for safer conditions, health benefits and increased wages. WWII had recently ended and President Truman saw the strike as counterproductive to economic recovery. In response, he seized the mines, making the miners temporarily federal employees. He ended the strike by offering them a deal that included healthcare and retirement security.

Roots of the Strike Wave

The coal strike was part of the strike wave of 1945-1946. During WWII, most of the major unions collaborated with the U.S. war effort by enforcing labor “discipline” and preventing strikes. In exchange, the U.S. government supported closed shop policies under which employers at unionized companies agreed to hire only union members. While the closed shop gave unions more power within a particular company, the no-strike policy made that power virtually meaningless.

Oakland General Strike, 1946 — _{1st day of Oakland general strike,}
_{downtown Oakland. By Unknown – Oakland Museum of California. Fair use}

When the war ended, inflation soared and veterans flooded the labor market. As a result, frustrated workers began a series of wildcat strikes. Many grew into national, union-supported strikes. In November 1945, 225,000 UAW members went on strike. In January 1946, 174,000 electric workers struck. That same month, 750,000 steel workers joined them. Then, in April, the coal strike began. 250,000 railroad workers struck in May. In total, 4.3 million workers went on strike. It was the closest the U.S. came to a national General Strike in the 20^th century. And in December 1946, Oakland, California did have a General Strike, the last in U.S. history.

Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, which severely restricted the powers and activities of unions. It also banned General Strikes, stripping away the most powerful tool workers had.

1960s

May 21, 1965: Clashes between striking mine workers in Bolivia and federal troops resulted in 48 deaths.

White Night Riot

Today in Labor History May 21, 1979: The White Night Riot occurred in San Francisco, California, the day before Harvey Milk’s birthday. On November 10, 1978, ex-cop and former city supervisor, Dan White, murdered Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California, and mayor George Moscone. His murder trial concluded on May 21. The jury found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter. However, the prosecutor had asked for a finding of first-degree murder. It was, after all, premeditated. Even worse, the judge gave White a reduced sentence based on the absurd Twinkie Defense. According to his attorney, White had a diminished mental capacity due to the large quantity of junk food he had consumed. A similar defense had failed repeatedly to get students excused from exams and school detentions.

Homophobic Roots of the Riot

White Night Riot, San Francisco, in response to Dan White sentence for Harvey Milk assassination. — _{Rioters at Civic Center Plaza. Burning police cruisers are seen in the background. By Daniel Nicoletta, CC BY-SA 3.0}

Needless to say, the public was outraged. However, there had been decades of police harassment and physical abuse of San Francisco’s LGBTQ community lead up to this miscarriage of justice. Tensions were already high. And this ruling, which virtually absolved White of his homophobic crime, was the torch to the powder keg. Things began with a peaceful march through the Castro district. But when the crowd arrived at City Hall, violence began. People attacked the windows of City Hall. When the cops tried to protect the building, people hurled rocks and bottles at them, forcing them to run inside. Where ever the cops showed up, people threw rocks at them. At least a dozen cop cars were torched. They busted windows in the financial district and in government buildings.

Many people were injured. The riot caused hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of property damage to City Hall. And when the riot was finally subdued, the cops made a retaliatory raid on the Elephant Bar, in the Castro District. Cops in riot gear beat patrons. They arrested 24 people.

Furthermore, the double assassination of Moscone and Milk dramatically altered the political landscape of San Francisco. Under Moscone and Milk, the city was moving in a progressive, pro-neighborhood direction. With the new mayor, Diane Feinstein, city politics returned to the traditional, conservative, pro-Chamber of Commerce, law and order framework that preceded Moscone and Milk.

2000s

May 21, 2004: Nearly 100,000 unionized SBC workers began a four-day strike to protest the local phone giant’s latest contract offer.