On This Day in Working Class History

On this day, 28 May 1936, 32,000 workers occupied the Renault plant in Paris. 100,000 more workers soon occupied every major engineering factory around the city. Over the following month a strike wave swept the whole country from the factories to non-unionised shops, involving 2 million workers in 12,000 strikes and occupations. To stop the upheaval, employers and the government had to agree wage increases of 7-15%, a 40 hour working week, paid holidays and collective bargaining rights. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10039/french-popular-front-strike-wave

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On this day, 27 May 1935 in Canada, employers at Ballantyne Pier locked out members of the Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association in an attempt to break workers' organisation on the docks. After breaking a previous union, employers had set up the VDWWA as a tame company union, but the attempt to pacify the workers was unsuccessful. Workers responded by going on strike for months, but by December they were defeated. However it did not take long for workers to organise themselves once again and form a new union. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9941/ballantyne-lockout-begins

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On this day, 26 May 1824, the first recorded factory strike in US history took place when 102 women and girls working at the Slater Mill in Pawtucket picketed their factory. 
Two days prior, the mill owners in the town had decided to increase working hours by one hour a day for everyone with no additional pay, and cut the pay of power-loom weavers by 25%. The weavers affected were all women and girls aged 15 to 30, whom were previously being paid "extravagant wages for young women," according to the employers. 
What the owners did not expect, something which had not happened before in the infant textile industry, or indeed any factory in the country: the women organised themselves and went on strike. They were joined by other workers and members of the local community, who blockaded the mills, protested and hurled rocks at the mansions of the owners. One prominent local politician, George F. Jenkes wrote in his journal during the dispute: “I have just returned from one of the moste gloomy assemblage of people I have ever witnessed, from the street from the Pawtucket Bank across the bridge to Josiah Mill’s shop is literally filled with Men Women and Children — making a mob of very daring aspect, insulting the managers of cotton mills in every shape — pulling and hauling — screaming and shouting thro the streets.” 
On the final day of the week-long strike, one of the mills was set ablaze. The day after the fire, the mill owners moved to negotiate with the workers, and they reached a compromise. 
In the wake of the dispute, other groups of workers began organising themselves, and other strikes would break out across the New England textile industry in the coming years. 
Learn more about this dispute in our podcast episode 32: https://workingclasshistory.com/2019/08/12/e28-the-pawtucket-mill-strike/



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On this day, 25 May 1901, 27 unions around Argentina gathered and together formed the the revolutionary anarchist union the Federacion Obrera Argentina (later renamed the FORA).
It was committed to the methods of workers’ organisation and direct action as principal weapons in the struggle against the state.
In October, the FOA organised its first general strike, a 24-hour strike in solidarity with striking sugar refinery workers in Rosario, one of whom was killed by police.
In 1902, the union organised a general strike of bakery workers to demand the release of two bakery union members who had been arrested by police. The police raided the FOA headquarters, and large numbers of union members were arrested and tortured, eventually breaking the strike. FOA stevedores walked out on strike shortly thereafter.
In an attempt to halt a wave of strikes, the government passed the Anti-Alien Act, enabling them to quickly deport “undesirable” migrants - namely, anarchists and union activists. A state of siege was then declared, and most union offices and radical publications were shut down.
In spite of the repression, the union continued to grow, and in 1904 it was renamed Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA). The FORA organised multiple other general strikes, and survived repeated raids and attacks by police and right-wing mobs.
In the 1920s, faced with mass unemployment, the union launched a campaign for a maximum six-hour working day.
A wave of strikes broke out once more in 1929. But shortly thereafter, in 1930, a right wing coup by a general José Félix Uriburu took place. Uriburu's regime declared martial law, and initiated a wave of terror against the anarchist and working-class movements, including the systematic use of torture, and secret executions. This broke both the FORA and the anarchist movement more generally.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9770/fora-anarchist-union-founded

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On this day, 24 May, 1919, thousands of coalminers in Alberta, Canada walked off the job in a dispute over pay, the cost of living, and conditions. They were organised in the One Big Union: a revolutionary union which planned to organise all workers together and take control of society. 13 mine companies in Drumheller refused to negotiate and hired returning war veterans, arming them with clubs and iron bars and giving them free alcohol to terrorise the workers and beat and torture organisers, while the police turned a blind eye. By August the strike was broken.
Learn more about the One Big Union and the Industrial Workers of the World in Canada in episode 52 of our podcast: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e52-the-iww-in-canada/

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On 23 May 2020, thousands of miners at the Tenke Fungurume mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo went on strike.
The workers at the majority-Chinese owned firm were demanding the payment of a special allowance of $600 to each of 6000 workers who had been quarantined for two months during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite being quarantined, the workers had to continue to go to work.
After a one-day strike, employers agreed to pay the allowance.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/12754/tenke-fungurume-miners-strike

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On this day, 22 May 1992 the Royal Oak Mines company locked out members of the Canadian Association of Smelter and Allied Workers (CASAW) union at its Giant Mine in Yellowknife, Canada. CASAW members had been due to go on strike the following day after rejecting a contract which would tie their pay to fluctuations in the price of gold.
Management swiftly escalated tensions by hiring scab replacement workers, which had not been done in a mining dispute in Canada in over 50 years. The company brought scabs in from across Canada, sometimes using helicopters to bring them across picket lines. The company also hired Pinkerton private detectives and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to intimidate strikers.
Strikers fought back by throwing rocks at mine buildings, and on one occasion raiding the premises and breaking windows, for which Royal Oak sacked 38 strikers. As time dragged on, a handful of CASAW members began to cross picket lines and return to work themselves.
On September 18, a bomb exploded in the mine next to a rail line, killing nine scabs. After a 13 month criminal investigation, it transpired that the bomb was planted by a striking CASAW member, Roger Warren, who confessed to the crime but stated his intention was to scare the scabs and embarrass the company.
The Canada Labor Relations Board then ordered an end to the strike and lockout in November 1993, and CASAW members voted overwhelmingly to accept a contract very similar to the one they had previously rejected. 130 of the strikers then returned to work at the mine.
Warren was later imprisoned, until being granted April in 2014. Two other strikers were imprisoned for other acts of sabotage at the mine for sentences of 2 1/2 and three years respectively.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7869/giant-mine-lockout

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On this day, 21 May 1913, a bomb exploded at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland, set by suffragettes. The blast caused no casualties, although some blood was found at the scene, presumably from the perpetrator, but it did crack the masonry of the west tower, damage the floor and break some windows. The Dalkeith Advertiser reported the following day: 'The perpetrators left behind them a ladies’ handbag of the kind used for shopping. It contained a few currant biscuits wrapped in paper, a couple of safety pins, and in the grounds were found two pieces of paper. On one of them was written in ink “How beggarly appears argument before defiant deed. Votes for women.”'
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9413/royal-observatory-bombed

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On this day, 20 May 1963, 1350 Black workers at the Havelock mine in what is now Eswatini walked out on strike. They were demanding a nearly quadrupling of their minimum pay, as well as the dismissal of several managers, and better housing, sanitation and food. All 150 white workers at the facility scabbed on the strike and kept working.
The Swazi King sent a telegram to the workers condemning the strike, but they ignored him. 12 workers were arrested, but the strike continued and other workers also walked out in support of the miners, including workers at the Ubombo sugar estate and the Peak Timber mill.
The King then met with strikers personally and ordered them back to work, but again they refused. Eventually, a battalion of British troops was brought in at 3 AM on June 7, who set up roadblocks and surrounded picket lines around the mine. They questioned over 1000 miners individually, after which all except 153 returned to work.
British troops then helped local police round up all the remaining strikers who were charged with various crimes including being on strike illegally, and 91 workers convicted.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/12556/havelock-miners-strike

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On this day, 19 May 1920, a shootout took place in the town of Matewan, West Virginia between striking miners and the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who had arrived in town to evict miners’ families from their mountain encampment, in what would become known as the infamous Battle of Matewan. 
What made the situation in Matewan so unique was that the sheriff, Sid Hatfield (pictured, left), supported the miners rather than the coal companies. So the detectives brought along a fake warrant for the arrest of Hatfield, which he refused to respect, and shooting broke out. Seven Baldwin-Felts detectives were killed, including two of the Felts brothers themselves, as were two miners – Bob Mullins, and Tot Tinsley, an unarmed bystander – as well as the mayor Cabell Testermen. 
Hatfield and 22 other people, mostly miners, were subsequently arrested and put on trial for murder in what was at that time the lengthy murder trial in West Virginia history. But they were all eventually acquitted by a pro-union jury.
Having been unable to secure a conviction, Baldwin-Felts agents would later murder Hatfield alongside his deputy, Ed Chambers, on the steps of a nearby courthouse. None of the killers were convicted of any crime. 
More info in our podcast episodes 57-58 about the WV mine wars: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e57-west-virginia-mine-wars-1902-1922/
We have also published a graphic novel about this conflict, and we have other books and merchandise commemorating available in our online store: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/west-virginia-mine-wars

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