On This Day in Working Class History

On this day, 7 June 1948 Chinese indentured phosphate miners on Nauru protested when a ship came to take them back to China, but they demanded part of their pay.
The workers charged that Chinese interpreters who controlled the community funds would not pay out their share of contributions. Police attempted to arrest one Chinese worker, after which the other miners barricaded themselves into their settlement. The Pacific Islands Monthly journal claimed that the workers "built barricades, armed themselves with spears, clubs and axes, and showered stones upon officials who approached them."
The Administration, run by Australia on behalf of the United Nations, responded by declaring a state of emergency and bringing in riot police. Police attacked the settlement, killing two and injuring 16 Chinese miners. They also arrested 49 people, two of whom were bayoneted to death in custody.
The killer of the workers in custody was charged with unlawful killing but later acquitted. In contrast, the surviving 47 Chinese workers were convicted of offences including extortion and rioting, and deported.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7982/Nauru-Chinese-workers-protest

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On this day, 6 June 1988, a general strike was declared in South Africa by Black unions and anti-apartheid groups. Up to three million took part in the stoppage, in protest at the two-year-old state of emergency and further proposed restrictions on the right to strike. The strikers held out against police, who opened fire on crowds in townships, until 8 June.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10638/anti-apartheid-general-strike

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On this day, 5 June 2001, rioting broke out in the Harehills area of Leeds in response to a heavy-handed police search on an Asian man who had been wrongfully arrested over his car's 'suspicious' tax disc. Unrest broke out later that evening as a multiethnic crowd of around 200 Black, Asian and white people burning cars and attacking police, leaving two injured.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10542/harehills-riots

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On this day, 4 June 2003 after five weeks of strike action, workers in the Faroe Islands won a pay increase of 9% over the next two years, as well as other improvements.
Around 12,000 workers organised in the Færøernes Arbejderforeninger walked out on strike in May – almost a third of the entire working population. Most of the strikers were dockworkers or workers in the fish processing industry.
The refusal to unload ships caused supplies and fuel on the islands to run out, which forced the employers to concede to several demands, including a pay increase, an increase in piece rate payments to dockworkers, as well as new contractual arrangements forcing employers to purchase specialist equipment needed by workers for certain jobs. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7956/faroe-islands-strike-wins

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On this day, 3 June 1977, police in India opened fire on a workers' demonstration, killing 12. Thousands of workers from the Bhilai Steel plant and mines had been demonstrating at the police station where strike leader Shankar Guha Niyogi was being held following his arrest the previous day. As the steel plant was a joint Soviet-Indian project, the Communist Party denounced Niyogi as a CIA agent. He was assassinated in 1991 by employers' hired guns. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10200/bhilai-steel-workers-massacre

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On this day, 2 June 1975, 100 sex workers occupied the church of Saint Nizier, Lyon, refusing to leave unless their convictions for soliciting were rescinded. They were evicted after a week, but a precedent-setting legal judgement cancelled the workers’ imminent prison sentences shortly thereafter. 
Books and more about sex workers and their struggles available here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/sex-workers

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On this day, 1 June 1981, just over 700 production workers at the Schlitz Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, walked out on strike after contract negotiations broke down, when workers were offered far inferior settlements to Miller workers in the same town. Schlitz had been struggling financially since the late 1970s, partly due to a change to the recipe which was made to save money but was deeply unpopular. The workers kept up their walkout until the end of September until bosses retaliated by closing the plant, sacking all employees. The company was then sold.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8098/schlitz-workers-strike

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On this day, 31 May 1989, CLR James, Trinidadian Marxist and author of The Black Jacobins, the definitive history of the Haitian Revolution, as well as other texts on class, colonialism and cricket, died aged 88 in Brixton, London. 
As a young man he joined the movement against British colonialism, and later moved to England and became cricket correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, forerunner to the Guardian newspaper.
He lived in the US for a time, where alongside Raya Dunayevskaya and Grace Lee Boggs (pictured L-R), he formed the influential Johnson-Forest Tendency. Returning to Britain, he continued to write fiction and non-fiction, including a history of the Ghanaian revolution, until his death at home.
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On this day, 30 May 1968 in Senegal at 6 PM, unions announced plans for an indefinite general strike to begin at midnight in protest at police brutality against a school and university student uprising. Despite police repression, workers held firm until 12 June when the government caved in and offered a 15% increase in wages.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10319/senegal-general-strike

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On this day, 29 May 1941, animators for Disney in Los Angeles walked out on strike when 16 union cartoonists were fired for demanding union recognition, including Goofy creator Art Babbitt. 
Disney workers held a mass meeting the previous day where an assistant to Babbitt put forward a motion to strike, which was approved. On May 29, hundreds of men and women set up picket lines outside Disney studios and set up a protest camp in a field across the road. The majority of cartoonists, including non-union members, respected the strike. Warner Bros cartoonists also marched over to Disney at one point dressed as French revolutionaries from 1789. Union chefs from nearby restaurants also showed solidarity with the strike by cooking for pickets before and after work. One day rumours circulated that hired thugs were going to attack the strikers, so mechanics from Burbank airport armed themselves with wrenches and went to guard the strikers' camp.
Walt Disney drove across the picket line every day, and on one occasion got out of his car to try to attack Babbitt. Eventually, after five weeks, the strike was settled by mediators who ruled in favour of the union on every issue, and the workers received pay increases of nearly 50% in many cases. Babbitt also won his job back following a lawsuit. 
Walt Disney was bitter about his defeat until he died (lol). 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10122/disney-animators'-strike

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