On This Day in Working Class History

On this day, 7 August 1842, a mass meeting of 18,000 workers took place in the UK, organised by the Chartist movement. 
They decided to call a general strike beginning the following day, demanding universal male suffrage, and opposing pay cuts. 
The strikes began and spread rapidly around the country, to towns including Manchester, Burnley, Preston, Macclesfield, Oldham, Wigan, and many more.
Workers set up “committees of public safety” which coordinated action and gave permission for essential services to operate, such as water pumps which were needed to prevent coalmines from flooding.
By late September, up to half a million workers had taken part in the strike.
Troops were sent against the workers, and opened fire in towns including Halifax, Skipton, and Preston, while large numbers of strike leaders were arrested, and the strike began to falter.
The final remaining strikers returned to work by the end of September. While voting rights weren't achieved, a number of groups of workers were successful in reducing or reversing proposed pay cuts.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10685/chartist-mass-meeting

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On this day, 6 August 1970, up to 300 Yippies — countercultural radical youth — invaded Disneyland, protesting against the Vietnam war and calling for the liberation of Minnie Mouse from patriarchal captivity. Disney brought in extra security, and 150 armed riot police in preparation for the event: a theatrical "convention" called by the Youth International Party, whose members were nicknamed Yippies. 
The youths initiated a few provocations, including commandeering a raft to invade Fort Wilderness, openly smoking pot, snake-dancing down Main Street USA and demonstrating outside the in-park Bank of America branch before they were either arrested or expelled from the park. 
Learn more about the Vietnam war and opposition to it in our podcast series: https://workingclasshistory.com/tag/vietnam-war/

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On this day, 5 August 1981, after just two days on strike, 11,345 federal air traffic controllers were sacked by US president Ronald Reagan for refusing his order to return to work (content note: suicide). 
The workers in the extremely stressful industry had gone on strike demanding a pay increase and a reduction in working hours from 40 per week over five days to 32 per week over four days. Despite the threat of firing, only 1,300 workers crossed picket lines and returned to work. And Reagan, himself a former union leader, then fired all of the remaining strikers.
The workers were then banned from federal service for life (lifted over a decade later), their union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, was legally dissolved later in October, and military air traffic controllers were used as scab replacements until new hires could be trained. Some workers and their partners died by suicide. One striker's wife was found hanged in her kitchen by a pile of unpaid bills.
The dispute was a landmark event in the relationship between workers and employers in the US, similar to the great miners' strike in the UK in 1984-5 which was defeated by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. In both countries, much of the ability of workers to organise and win improved pay and conditions was destroyed, in a legacy which remains to this day.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10495/us-air-traffic-control-strike

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On 4 August 1941, shovel operators in the Moengo bauxite mine in the then-Dutch colony of Suriname went on strike. The walkout of mostly Javanese and Creole workers was swiftly followed by mill, shipping and tow boat crews. They were soon all offered substantial pay increases, and the strikes ended. Mill workers also had their working days reduced from 12 to eight hours per day.
Powerhouse workers were then given a pay increase without a strike, and workers in the electric shop threatened to strike and were given pay increases of 30 to 40%.
Workers were demanding pay increases because the cost of living had gone up with the background of World War II. And they would strike again a few months later.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7953/moengo-miners-strike

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On this day, 3 August 1945, a group in Melbourne called the Australian Soldiers' Legion (ASL) met up with a family called the Wagglens, which included a homeless, wounded World War II veteran, his wife and children, and squatted a house in Bell Street, Hawthorn. 
As members of the media watched on, ASL members entered the empty home and carried furniture in through the window. The group claimed to have identified 41 other empty houses, suitable for occupation, and to have settled 13 families in some of them in areas including Brighton, Newport, Camberwell and Kew. On the same day, a homeless veteran in Sydney squatted a house in the suburb of Auburn. 
They were emulating the actions of the Brighton Vigilantes in England, who had begun taking over empty properties. 
While the government officially commented that it "would not tolerate threatening act" and threatened police action, they did also announce they would introduce legislation to give local authorities power to install tenants in empty homes.
On the same day in Sydney, a homeless ex-soldier squatted an empty home on Marion Street, Auburn. He told the communist newspaper the Tribune: "Forcible possession of homes will not solve the housing problem. Only new houses will do that. But what other avenue is open to a man in desperate circumstances like me?" 
More information, sources and maps for both of these stories in the On This Day section of our Stories app at https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/date/today
Pictured: An Australian squatting family at this time

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On this day, 2 August 1917, the general strike in Rio de Janeiro ended as employers agreed to a 10% pay increase and a maximum 56-hour work week. The stoppage began with just one furniture worker the previous month, and the strike spread organically, despite the government declaring martial law and calling in police, the army and navy. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9165/rio-de-janeiro-general-strike-ends

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On this day, 1 August 1938, the Hilo massacre took place in Hawaii, when police opened fire at an unarmed group of striking dock workers, injuring 50. Longshoremen in different unions and of many different ethnicities united and staged a series of walkouts for equal pay with dock workers on the West Coast of the US. 200 workers gathered 1 August to protest against the arrival of a steamship, when police attacked and started shooting, injuring a quarter of all those present. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8051/hilo-massacre

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On this day, 31 July 1945, the newly elected Labour government sent 600 conscript troops into the Surrey docks in London to try to break a go-slow of dockworkers fighting for better pay. 
A Telegraph journalist described the go-slow: "In everything they did the men were unhurried in a way that looked deliberate. There was evidence that their actions were planned. True, the cranes were working and goods were passing from the dockside to the ship, but there was a leisureliness about the proceedings that made everything seem half-hearted. I soon learned the reason. At the moment bags of sugar were going aboard in slings. But it was pointed out that the slings were carrying only 4 at a time instead of the normal 12." 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10374/labour-government-sends-troops-to-break-dockers-go-slow 
Pictured: Troops working as scabs on the docks

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On this day, 30 July 1766, silver miners in Real Del Monte, Mexico, went on strike against a 25% pay cut in the first recorded strike against an employer in North American history. They faced down repression from the Spanish colonial bosses' private army and held out until September, when the employers caved in. 
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10292/real-del-monte-miners-strike

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On this day, 29 July 2019, the Blackjewel coal blockade began in eastern Kentucky. Mine operator Blackjewel went bankrupt, leaving hundreds of coalminers out of work and with weeks of unpaid wages. So five workers decided to block a train full of coal worth $1 million from leaving a mine, demanding what they were owed. The number of occupiers grew to dozens over the coming weeks, and lasted 59 days. Blackjewel later agreed to pay the workers over $5 million in unpaid wages.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10106/blackjewel-blockade

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