On This Day in Working Class History

On this day, 28 April 1789, Fletcher Christian led the mutiny on the Royal Navy ship the Bounty against the bullying and oppressive Captain William Bligh. The crew seized control of the ship and set Bligh and 18 of his supporters adrift, who famously survived. Some of the mutineers were captured, but others eventually settled with some Polynesians they effectively enslaved in the previously unpopulated Pitcairn Islands, where their descendants live to this day. Later, the Polynesians would revolt against the mutineers.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9969/mutiny-on-the-bounty

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On this day, 27 April 2007, police attacked striking Firestone rubber workers in Harbel, Liberia, injuring dozens and killing one.
Workers on the million-acre plantation had organised an Aggrieved Workers Committee the previous year to fight for better pay and conditions, and remove corrupt union officials whom they believed were mismanaging funds of the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia (FAWUL). Eventually, the government ordered union elections to take place. Firestone management attempted to delay the election, and so in late April workers went on strike in protest.
Despite the repression, the workers kept up their struggle and union elections were eventually held in July, where the rank-and-file workers won all of the seats.
The workers went on strike again in December for union recognition.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7923/firestone-strikers-attacked

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On this day, 26 April 2020, workers at the Amazon fulfilment centre in Shakopee, Minnesota, walked out on strike in protest at a colleague being fired for staying home during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Workers claimed that over 50 members of the predominantly Somali workforce participated in the spontaneous work stoppage after the company sacked a worker called Faiza Osman who stayed home in order to protect her two children from the novel coronavirus, despite the fact that Amazon had informed workers they were allowed to stay home. Amazon claimed that fewer than 25 out of 1,000 workers took part.
Strikers were also protesting against Amazon's decision to terminate its unlimited unpaid leave policy, despite coronavirus cases being reported at over half of its 110 warehouses.
Following the walkout, Osman was reinstated by the company.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9801/amazon-workers-strike

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On this day, 25 April 1945, some major cities in Italy were liberated from fascism following a working class uprising and general strike in what has since been immortalised as the country's annual Liberation Day. 
Other towns and cities were liberated before and afterwards. But on April 25, the cities of Milan and Genoa were liberated. Genoa was the only European city where Nazi forces surrendered to resistance partisans. At 7:30 PM, German general Günther Meinhold and communist factory worker Remo Scappini signed the Nazi surrender agreement.
The partisan resistance force in Genoa only consisted of around 5000 fighters, compared with over 10,000 Germans, with thousands more outside the city. The partisans controlled all the major roads going in and out of the city, and they were supported by an insurrection in the city. Some German officers resisted the order to surrender, but by 9 AM on April 26, the resistance announced that the insurrection had succeeded and Genoa had been liberated.
Learn more about the Italian resistance in our podcast episodes 77-80: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e77-80-italian-resistance/

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On this day, 24 April 1980, coalminers in Sabuk, South Korea, won all 11 of their demands from employers and authorities after a four-day insurrection. They had been demanding a 40% pay increase, and an amnesty for all protesters after miners, housewives and other local workers had risen up and expelled a column of armed police from the city. However the following month they were betrayed as the US-backed dictatorship tore up the amnesty and arrested and tortured 70 people, later jailing 30.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9623/sabuk-coal-strike-wins

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On this day, 23 April 1938, Robert Rumble's Poor Man's Improvement and Land Settlement Association sent a petition to the governor in Jamaica demanding a minimum wage for agricultural workers and peasants, and an end to exploitation by landlords: "We are the Sons of Slaves," they wrote, "who have been paying rent to the Landlords for fully many decades. [...] We want a Minimum Wage Law. We want freedom in this the hundredth year of our Emancipation. We are still economic slaves, burdened in paying rent to Landlords who are sucking out our vitalities." Rent strikes and land occupations began, and tenants seized lands and erected fences around them. Unrest on the island escalated until it was suppressed by British troops in June. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9533/rural-jamaicans-demand-minimum-wage

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On this day, 22 April 1944, 200 young Black people, mostly students at Howard University, held a sit-in demonstration at Thompson's, a segregated restaurant in Washington DC – where Jim Crow laws were not in effect but segregation by custom existed. After effectively slashing the number of paying customers, the restaurant was ordered by its headquarters to begin serving Black customers. 
The University, in fear of losing federal grants, subsequently directed its students to cease direct action and Thompson's promptly restored segregation. 
One of the key organisers of the action was Pauli Murray, pictured, a young student and activist, who identified as part male and part female, and whose romantic relationships were with women.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9444/thompson's-cafeteria-sit-in

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On this day, 21 April 1894, a nationwide strike of coal miners in the US against pay cuts began. Despite the United Mine Workers union having only 20,000 members, 145,000 miners walked out, and despite violent repression and facing starvation they held out for weeks and won some concessions. Many miners even rejected the union’s settlement and held out for more but were eventually starved back to work. This is a history of the coal miners’ struggles that year: https://libcom.org/history/us-coal-miners-strikes-1894-jeremy-brecher

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On this day, 20 April 1914, the Ludlow massacre took place when US troops opened fire with machine guns on a camp of striking miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado. 
12,000 miners had gone out on strike the previous September against the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation (CF&I) following the killing of an activist of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).
They then demanded better safety at work, and to be paid in money, instead of company scrip (tokens which could only be redeemed in the company store).
The Rockefellers evicted the striking miners and their families from their homes, and so they set up "tent cities" to live in collectively, which miners' wives helped run. Company thugs harassed strikers, and occasionally drove by camps riddling them with machine-gun fire, killing and injuring workers and their children.
Eventually the national guard was ordered to evict all the strike encampments, and the morning of April 20 they attacked the largest camp in Ludlow. They opened fire with machine guns on the tents of the workers and their families, who then returned fire.
The main organiser of the camp, Louis Tikas, went to visit the officer in charge of the national guard to arrange a truce. But he was beaten to the ground then shot repeatedly in the back, killing him. That night, troops entered the camp and set fire to it, killing 11 children and two women, in addition to 13 other people who were killed in the fighting. The youngest victim was Elvira Valdez, aged just 3 months.
Protests against the massacre broke out across the country, but the workers at CF&I were defeated, and many of them were subsequently sacked and replaced with non-union miners. Over the course of the strike 66 people were killed, but no guardsmen or company thugs were prosecuted.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9243/ludlow-massacre

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On this day, 19 April 1968, while 6,000 textile workers were on strike against redundancies in Valdagno, northern Italy, scabs were sneaked into the factory under police protection. The workers were brutally charged by police leading to them fighting with the 1,000-strong police force, occupying the factory and toppling the bronze statue of the factory’s founder, Count Gaetano Marzotto (an iconic moment, as Count Marzotto had until then had been widely depicted as an enlightened benefactor). 47 workers were arrested. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9064/valdagno-textile-strike

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