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Bread & Roses: The Strike Led and Won by Women

Jan. 12 was the anniversary of the start of the 1912 Bread and Roses strike--one of the most significant struggles in the history of the U.S. working class--in Lawrence, Mass. A new state law had reduced the work week from 56 to 54 hours. A small gain for workers? Sounds like it. But of course the bosses found a way to gain the advantage. They speeded up the looms and cut the average measly wage of $6 a week--a last straw for workers living on the edge of starvation. When the wage cut was announced, workers shouted: "Short pay! Short pay!" Thousands of women and men started a spontaneous strike that rippled through two dozen textile factories in Lawrence. Some 23,000 people left the mills and poured into the streets. Immediately the National Guard was called out, along with 22 militia companies and 50 thugs disguised as strikers. They overturned trolley cars, smashed windows, assaulted people and planted dynamite near the strike headquarters. But even quicker on the scene was Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a 21-year-old organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World--the Wobblies. Flynn, Big Bill Haywood and other IWW leaders moved in to help organize the strike. AN EARLY DEATH Lawrence was founded in 1845 as a textile city. By the turn of the century, advanced technology had enabled the owners to bring in lower-paid workers and force the skilled workers out. In 1905 the American Woolen Company built the world's biggest textile plant in Lawrence, hiring Arab, Russian and East European immigrants. By 1912, people of 25 different nationalities lived within a one-mile radius of the mill. They lived in crowded company-owned tenements. Eight to 10 people from different families shared one living space. Whole families--including children under 14 years old--worked in the mills. The mills were hot and humid. The work was fast paced, with high accident rates. Bosses made ethnic slurs. They sexually harassed the women. Workers froze in the winter because they couldn't afford the clothes they produced. Rickets were common among children for lack of milk. Nearly half died before they were 6 years old. Over one-third of the mill workers died before age 25, mostly from tuberculosis and other respiratory illnesses. PROTESTING IN 25 LANGUAGES In 1912, the American Federation of Labor was a grouping of weak craft unions, made up of white men organized by trade. The AFL refused to organize Black workers. Until 1918, the federation barred women from membership--even in an industry like textiles with twice as many female workers as male. The AFL opposed the Lawrence strike, calling it revolutionary and anarchistic. The IWW, in contrast, was formed by socialists like Eugene Debs. They called for industry-wide unions and even one big union for the whole country. The IWW emphasized unity and solidarity. The Lawrence strike broke new ground in two ways. Women led it. And there was a conscious effort to unite workers of all nationalities. Every union meeting was translated into 25 different languages. There were four demands: a 15-percent wage increase, a 54- hour work week, double pay for overtime, and rehiring of all strikers without discrimination. But the workers saw the strike as really a broader struggle. They wanted to fight for socialism. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn had grown up poor in New England mill towns. She watched starving mill workers leave before daylight and return after dark. She was familiar with the rats, cockroaches, lice and disease that plagued their families. The strikers had a strong spirit of class struggle. They sang, put on shows, dances, debates and parades. The Lawrence strikers are remembered for inventing the moving picket line. Police had been arresting them for loitering--so they linked arms and formed a moving human chain that wove around the mills 24 hours a day, preventing scabs from getting in. Flynn led meetings about the special oppression facing women and immigrants. Women led the picket lines and were better at intimidating scabs. Cops threw the women in jail but they refused to pay the fines. As soon as they were released they returned to the picket lines. One freezing morning, cops drenched the strikers with fire hoses. The women caught a cop on a bridge, stripped off his uniform and nearly succeeded in throwing him into the icy river. One lawyer commented, "One policeman can handle 10 men, while it takes 10 police to handle one woman." The children grew weak as the strike continued into February and March. Flynn gathered food and set up soup kitchens. Arrangements were made for hundreds of children to be sent to the homes of socialists in other cities for the duration of the strike. This drew national and international publicity, and donations began to pour in. The cops responded by attacking women and children at the train station so the children couldn't leave. Cops clubbed them, threw them into a heap and dragged them into military trucks, clubbing them again if they cried out. They beat one pregnant women so hard she had a miscarriage. That was the turning point. The national and international outcry forced Congress to open an investigation. The pressure on the bosses built. THE BETTER THINGS IN LIFE On March 14, the strikers won a 25-percent raise for the lowest-paid workers and smaller increases for higher-paid workers, time-and-a-quarter pay for overtime, and no discrimination against strikers. The workers celebrated their victory by singing "The International," the communist anthem. The IWW kept the strike committee going to fight for the release of Ettor and Giovanitti, leaders who had been framed soon after the walkout began. They were charged with the death of a woman whom 19 witnesses said was shot by a soldier. The strike victory resulted in easily won wage increases in mill towns throughout New England. But once the Lawrence struggle ended and the IWW left town, the bosses stabbed the workers in the back. They instigated a 50-percent speed-up in the mills. The Catholic Church joined the bosses in a campaign to discredit the IWW and harass union members. By the fall of 1913, IWW membership in Lawrence had fallen to 700. An economic recession in 1913-1914 brought wage cuts and unemployment to the mill workers. Later, after the Russian Revolution, the Wobblies faded from the scene. The IWW's best, including Flynn, left to form the Communist Party, while others turned toward anarchism. However, the Lawrence strike had shown that low-paid, oppressed workers of diverse nationalities could unite, organize and wage a powerful struggle to win concessions from the bosses. It stands as a shining example of how to build multinational, anti-racist unity with women in the lead. Today, labor is turning toward organizing these same groups--low-wage workers, women, immigrants. The struggle to organize workfare workers is in the tradition of the Lawrence strike. One reporter wrote of the Lawrence strike: "It was the spirit of the workers that seemed dangerous. ... They were always marching and singing. "The gray, tired crowds, ebbing and flowing perpetually into the mills, had awakened and opened their mouths to sing, the different nationalities all speaking one language when they sang together." The strikers wanted not only decent pay, but a chance to enjoy the good things of life. They carried signs saying, "We want bread and roses too!" And they sang: "As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days. The rising of the women means the rising of the [human] race. "No more the drudge and idler, 10 that toil where one reposes--but a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!" http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45b/073.html

1,500 protesters flex muscles during lawyers rally

LAHORE: About 1,500 lawyers, civil society activists and political workers took to The Mall to rally for the reinstatement of the sacked judges on Thursday.The National Coordination Council gave the protest call. Followed by the general house meetings, the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) and Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) took out their rallies from Aiwan-e-Adl and the Lahore High Court respectively. The two rallies joined at GPO Chowk and marched towards the Punjab Assembly Hall. Solidarity: Workers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Tehreek-e-Khaksar (TK), the Labour Party Pakistan, the Tehreek-e-Insaf (TI), the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) also took to The Mall to show solidarity with the protesting lawyers. They joined the rally at GPO Chowk holding flags in support of their party leaders.On their way to Charing Cross the protesters shouted slogans against the government and the chief justice of Pakistan for “using illegal means to get his daughter more numbers in FSc”. Lawyers who were contesting upcoming elections of the LHCBA and LBA were showing more aggression against the government apparently to win over other lawyers. Pledge: The protesters demanded that the government reinstate the sacked judges as soon as possible. At the Chairing Cross, senior lawyers spoke to the protesters and pledged to continue their movement until the reinstatement of sacked chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and other sacked judges. Advocate Hamid Khan said that lawyers, civil society and political parties were united on the reinstatement of the sacked judges. He said allegations against Justice Dogar had put a new spirit in the lawyers’ movement. He said they wanted Justice Dogar to be tried. He said appointing a chief justice as an acting governor was in violation of the Supreme Court’s judgement.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C12%5C19%5Cstory_19-12-2008_pg7_46

Velvet revolution, Czechoslavakia

Czech: sametová revoluce, Slovak: nežná revolúcia) (November 16 – December 29, 1989) refers to a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of the Communist government.[1] It is seen as one of the most important of the Revolutions of 1989.On November 17, 1989 (Friday), riot police suppressed a peaceful student demonstration in Prague. That event sparked a series of popular demonstrations from November 19 to late December. By November 20 the number of peaceful protesters assembled in Prague had swelled from 200,000 the previous day to an estimated half-million. A two-hour general strike, involving all citizens of Czechoslovakia, was held on November 27.With the collapse of other Communist governments, and increasing street protests, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced on November 28 that it would relinquish power and dismantle the single-party state. Barbed wire and other obstructions were removed from the border with West Germany and Austria in early December. On December 10, President Gustáv Husák appointed the first largely non-Communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned. Alexander Dubček was elected speaker of the federal parliament on December 28 and Václav Havel the President of Czechoslovakia on December 29, 1989.In June 1990 Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections since 1946.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution

Fishermen protest Fuel Prices

Riot police armed with shields and batons charged hundreds of protesting fishermen outside European Union headquarters Wednesday after a demonstration over high fuel prices turned violent.Protesters hurled flares, firecrackers and rocks at police beyond razor-wire barricades. They also fired flare guns at the EU headquarters building. As they retreated down the main boulevard through Brussels' European Union district, protesters broke into EU buildings, smashing windows and dragging out flags and other items to burn in the street.Fishermen, truck drivers and farmers across Europe have protested in recent weeks to demand government aid to help compensate for high fuel costs, which they say are threatening their livelihoods.In France on Wednesday, truckers and taxi drivers staged so-called "snail" protests in which they drove slowly to hold up traffic to express their anger at high gasoline and diesel prices.Farmers left oil cans and other petroleum products in front of regional government offices in several cities in southern France. Protesters blocked deliveries to and from an oil depot in Cusset in eastern France, and blocked a river port in the major city of Lyon.French government officials were to meet with transport unions to try to avert a nationwide strike.Meanwhile, the CEO of France's Total SA told French lawmakers in Paris that oil prices were expected to stay high for a long time and said consumers should get used to it.Europeans face higher fuel prices than elsewhere because of excise taxes that are added to national sales tax. EU leaders have put the problem on top of their June 19-20 summit agenda.During Wednesday's protest in Brussels, about 400 fishermen from France, Italy, Spain and Portugal besieged the EU's headquarters for several hours before the violence broke out.At least two cars were trashed at an intersection and one was overturned. Hooded protesters pulled up paving stones apparently to use as weapons against the police, who were backed by water canons, dogs and two helicopters circling overhead.Police pushed the protesters away from the EU's landmark Berlaymont headquarters with water cannons mounted on trucks and baton charges by about 200 officers. It was not immediately clear whether any arrests were made.Earlier, a delegation of fishermen met briefly outside the European Commission with senior EU officials to outline their plight and demand emergency aid."To have a sustainable fishery we need to have cheaper fuel prices," said Pierre D'Acunto, a fishermen representative from the southern French port town of Sete on the Mediterranean coast. "It's impossible to work with these prices."Patrick Tabone, a senior official from the office of EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg, offered no immediate aid to the protesters. He recommended the fishermen accept calls for a mass overhaul of Europe's fisheries sector, including cutting back the size of fleets to prevent overfishing and to cut costs."What we need to ensure is that the responses we come up with are a real help to the sector, not only in the short term, but in the long term," Tabone told the fishermen.D'Acunto said European fishermen would continue their protests across Europe and picket EU agriculture and fisheries ministers talks planned for Luxembourg later this month.Under pressure at home from truckers and fishermen, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde on Monday asked EU nations to slash sales tax on fuel. Other EU nations are skeptical of the French plan, saying it does nothing to encourage people to consume less energy in the long term or to push producers to pump more oil. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/04/europe/EU-Fishermen-Protest.php

Tags: Year: 2008 Location: Europe Category: Protest and Persuassion Category: NonCooperation Protest and Persuassion: Declarations by organizations and institutions Protest and Persuassion: Banners, posters, displayed communications Protest and Persuassion: Delivering symbolic objects Protest and Persuassion: Marches Protest and Persuassion: Motorcades Protest and Persuassion: Assemblies of protest or support Methods of NonCooperation: Workmen's boycott Methods of NonCooperation: Protest strike Methods of NonCooperation: Industry strike

Indian Independence Movement

How was the Raj transformed from the jewel in Britain's imperial crown to the independent nations of India and Pakistan?1858: Beginning of the RajIn 1858, British Crown rule was established in India, ending a century of control by the East India Company. The life and death struggle that preceded this formalisation of British control lasted nearly two years, cost £36 million, and is variously referred to as the 'Great Rebellion', the 'Indian Mutiny' or the 'First War of Indian Independence'. Inevitably, the consequences of this bloody rupture marked the nature of political, social and economic rule that the British established in its wake. It is important to note that the Raj (in Hindi meaning 'to rule' or 'kingdom') never encompassed the entire land mass of the sub-continent. Two-fifths of the sub-continent continued to be independently governed by over 560 large and small principalities, some of whose rulers had fought the British during the 'Great Rebellion', but with whom the Raj now entered into treaties of mutual cooperation. 'The 'Great Rebellion' helped create a racial chasm between ordinary Indians and Britons.'Indeed the conservative elites of princely India and big landholders were to prove increasingly useful allies, who would lend critical monetary and military support during the two World Wars. Hyderabad for example was the size of England and Wales combined, and its ruler, the Nizam, was the richest man in the world. They would also serve as political bulwarks in the nationalist storms that gathered momentum from the late 19th century and broke with insistent ferocity over the first half of the 20th century. But the 'Great Rebellion' did more to create a racial chasm between ordinary Indians and Britons. This was a social segregation which would endure until the end of the Raj, graphically captured in EM Forster's 'A Passage to India'.While the British criticised the divisions of the Hindu caste system, they themselves lived a life ruled by precedence and class, deeply divided within itself. Rudyard Kipling reflected this position in his novels. His books also exposed the gulf between the 'white' community and the 'Anglo-Indians', whose mixed race caused them to be considered racially 'impure'.

Please see: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/independence1947_01.shtml) for the next seven pages.

Carnation Revolution (Portugal 1974)

Methods

NEWSFLASH

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