Today in Labor History—June 17

June 17, 1838 – On or about today the first Cherokee Indians began the Trail of Tears forced march to Oklahoma. 4000 Cherokees died as a result of President Jackson's Indian Removal bill, 10% of the tribe. (From the Daily Bleed)

Sioux charge during the Battle of Rosebud (image from the Library of Congress)

 June 17, 1876 – An encampment of Lakota and Cheyenne in Rosebud, South Dakota, led by Crazy Horse, was attacked by U.S. army soldiers, who were subsequently routed. (From the Daily Bleed)

Potemkin propaganda, 1925 (from x-ray delta one's flikr stream)

 June 17, 1905 – Five ships of the Black Sea fleet arrived from Sevastopol to quash the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin. One of the ships, the George the Conqueror, joined the Potemkin rebels, with both ships escaping to Romanian waters. (From the Daily Bleed)

Magonistas, Tijuana, June 22, 1911

 June 17, 1911 – Tijuana was recaptured from the Magonista anarchist rebels by Federal troops, now lead by Madero. Among those surviving and escaping was the famous Wobbly songwriter Joe Hill. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 17, 1913 – The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) initiated a sit down strike at the Studebaker auto plant. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 17, 1936 – The Steel Workers Organizing Committee was founded in Pittsburgh, by Philip Murray, John L. Lewis and nine other labor organizers. The Steel Workers Organizing Committee evolved into the United Steelworkers of America. Within one year, more than 125,000 people had joined the union, rallying around the goal of raising wages to $5 per day. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

Tank in Liepzig (Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 175-14676 / CC-BY-SA)

 June 17, 1953 – Workers revolted in East Berlin and Leipzig, sparking rebellions all over East Germany. Workers were striking for democracy and in opposition to Russian imperialism. The USSR responded with tanks. (From the Daily Bleed)

FOIA released CIA file on the overthrow of Arbenz

June 17, 1954 – The CIA supplied and directed Guatemalan forces in the overthrow constitutionally elected government of Jacabo Arbenz Guzman, after it nationalized United Fruit Co. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 17, 1980 – Mine workers struck in Montana today through November 21. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 14

June 14, 1381 – Wat’s Rebellion continues, with peasant rebels capturing London Bridge and the Tower of London and killing the English Chancellor and Treasurer. (From the Daily Bleed)

Antonio Maceo

June 14, 1848 –Cuban revolutionary and guerrilla leader Antonio Maceo was born (1848-1896). Known as the "Titan of Bronze," Maceo helped defeat the Spanish and win Cuban independence. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 14, 1877 – The First American Flag Day was declared by US government (on this 100th anniversary of the flag’s creation). Howard Zinn said, "There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." (From the Daily Bleed)

June 14, 1905 – A mutiny broke out on the Russian battleship Potemkin after sailors were shot for complaining about being served maggot-ridden meat. Civilians soon joined the mutineers in revolutionary actions that included the burning of granaries, quays and ships in harbor. The insurrection was part of the 1905 Russian Revolution in which the soviet (councilist) form first appeared. The mutiny was the basis for the seminal film by Sergei Eisenstein, with music scored by Dmitri Shostakovich. (From the Daily Bleed)

Battleship Panteleimon (formerly Potemkin)

 June 14, 1914 – An Italian General Strike was broken through the treason of the Socialists and their trade union, bringing an end to "The Red Week of Ancône." (From the Daily Bleed)

Sheriffs positioning themselves to attack miners during the Battle of Blair Mountain

June 14, 1921 – In West Virginia, which was under martial law due to ongoing violence between miners and thugs hired by the mining companies, state police and vigilantes raided the Lick Creek tent colony. 47 strikers were arrested. Within a few months, much of Southwester West Virginia would be engaged in the largest civil uprising in U.S. history, as 10,000-15,000 coal miners battled cops and scabs. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 14, 1924 – The IWW labor hall was raided in San Pedro, California. Children were scalded in the process and the hall was demolished. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 14, 1928 – Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was born (1928-1967).

June 14, 1964 - Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison in South Africa on this date. (From Workday Minnesota)

Dr. Benjamin Spock (MDC Archives)

 June 14, 1968 – Radical pediatrician and child-care expert Dr. Benjamin Spock was convicted of conspiring to counsel draft evasion. Spock, who was the target of political attacks and repression by the Nixon administration, refused to support the liberal McGovern and instead ran as the candidate of the People's Party. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 14, 2006 – State police attacked 50,000 striking teachers occupying streets Zocalo of Oaxaca. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 12

June 12, 1402 – The Duke of Burgundy massacred 3500 people in Paris. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 12, 1868 – U.S. troops invade Japan "to protect US interests" during their civil war. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 12, 1904 - 50,000 members of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen walked off their jobs across the U.S. They were demanding an equalization of wages and conditions throughout U.S. plants. (From Workday Minnesota)

Francisco Ferrer

June 12, 1907 – Francisco Ferrer y Guàrdia, Spanish anarchist and creator of the original Modern School, was released from prison today for lack of evidence. He had been arrested on June 4, 1906, for complicity in an assassination attempt against King Alfonso, and held in the Carcelo Modelo in Madrid. The bombing had been committed by another young anarchist named Morral, who hid his bomb in a bunch of flowers and tossed it into the royal wedding party, killing 15 and wounding more than 70. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 12, 1910 – The Francisco Ferrer Association in the U.S. was founded, forming a colony in New Jersey and the first U.S. Modern School in New York. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 12, 1912— Massachusetts became the first state to adopt a minimum wage law. Other states passed similar laws later that year. (From Shmoop Labor History)

June 12, 1957 – Hundreds of students continued to fight cops and attack Communist Party headquarters in Hang Yang, China. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 12, 1963 – NAACP leader Medgar Evers fatally shot, Jackson, Mississippi. His murderer is not convicted until 1994. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 12, 1964 – Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment for "sabotaging" the South African government. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 12, 1967 – The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously voted to end laws banning interracial marriages, which was still illegal in 16 states. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 12, 1967 – Riots occurred in African Americans communities in Tampa, Florida, with more following in Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio two days later. (From the Daily Bleed)

  

June 12, 1985 – 1,756 people were arrested in 150 cities across the U.S. protesting against illegal American arming and financing of Nicaraguan Contras. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—June 7

June 7, 1896 – A bomb exploded during a religious parade in Spain, killing a dozen people and wounding 30. The government response was to mass arrest anarchists, torturing hundreds in the Montjuich Prison. The severity of the government’s response sparked international protests. (From the Daily Bleed)

Cripple Creek under martial law, 1894

"Illegal" sheriffs' deputies under arrest, Cripple Creek, 1894

June 7, 1907 – The Colorado state militia was sent to Cripple Creek (again), to suppress a Western Federation of Miners (WFM) strike. A brutal strike occurred in Cripple Creek in 1894, the only time a state militia was called out in support of striking workers. There had been numerous firefights between striking workers and the mine owners’ private security forces, including the use of dynamite. The private cops had been terrorizing union members, their families and even local residents unaffiliated with the mines. The WFM won that strike, but it was short-lived, with the mine owners going on the offensive, particularly in 1903-1904, a period known as the Colorado Labor Wars. During this period, private detectives, goons, vigilantes, state militias and national guards were all used by the mine owners to attack the miners. On June 6, 1904, there was an explosion at the Independence mine that killed several nonunion miners. The Citizen’s Alliance brought in the National Guard, who, on June 7, shot into the WFM’s union hall. The Citizen’s Alliance also set up Kangaroo courts and convicted and deported nearly 240 miners who refused to renounce their union memberships. The Cripple Creek strike officially ended in December, 1907. However, the WFM’s struggle in Colorado helped inspire the creation of the even more radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), in 1905. One of the leaders of the WFM and Cripple Creek struggle, Big Bill Haywood, was also a founding member of the IWW. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

June 7, 1929 – Striking textile workers in Gastonia, North Carolina, fought off a vigilante attack on their union hall. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 7, 1968 – Violent clashes occurred between French workers at the Renault plant and police. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 7, 1971 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that clothing with the words "Fuck the Draft" was protected by the First amendment. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 7, 1991 – A three-week General Strike in Albania ended by bringing down the government. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 7, 2001 – George Bush signed a $1.35-trillion tax cut, mostly for the rich. Not long after this “stimulus” plan was put into action, the economy, went further into the tank. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—May 17

May 17, 1838 - The first women’s anti-slavery conference was held in Philadelphia. (From Workday Minnesota)

May 17, 1858 –1,200 Coeur d'Alene, Palouse, Spokane & Skitswich Indians defeated Colonel Steptoe’s forces near Colfax, WA. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 17, 1900 – Following the relief of Mafeking, 26,000 Boer women and children died in the world's first concentration camps. (From the Daily Bleed)

Thomas Mooney, 1910

May 17, 1917 – Tom Mooney's scheduled date of execution was stayed while case was appealed. Mooney ultimately spent 22 years in prison for the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade bombing in 1916, a crime he did not commit. Mooney, along with codefendant Warren Billings, were members of the IWW and were railroaded because of their union affiliation. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 17, 1947 –President Truman ended a nation-wide railroad strike by threatening to take over the railroads and send in the army. (From Shmoop Labor History website)

May 17, 1954 – In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas), the Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" public education was unconstitutional, and a violation of the 14th Amendment. The ruling reversed the 1896 "separate but equal" Plessy vs Ferguson decision. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 17, 1968 – Thousands of students marched for the second day in a row from the Sorbonne to the Renault works in spite of the opposition of the trade unions which were afraid of revolutionary contamination. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 17, 1968 – BOAC pilots in England began a work-to-rule, 48 hours earlier than originally planned. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—May 16

Voltaire, age 70

May 16, 1717 – Voltaire was imprisoned in the Bastille for writing subversive satire. (From the Daily Bleed)

Lamartine in front of the Town Hall of Paris rejects the red flag on 25 February 1848

 

May 16, 1848 – An unsuccessful communist coup was attempted, Paris. (From the Daily Bleed)

Napoleon atop the Vendôme column: "So, you low-life bugger, we'll take you down like we did your scoundrel nephew!"

May 16, 1871 – The Paris Commune destroyed the Vendôme Column ("monument de barbarie"). (From the Daily Bleed)

May 16, 1898 - 1,600 woodworkers in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, went on strike at seven sash and door manufacturers for better pay and union recognition. (From Workday Minnesota)

May 16, 1912 – Studs Terkel was born, New York City. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 16, 1918 – Congress passed the Sedition Act against radicals, leading to the arrest, imprisonment, execution and deportation of dozens of unionists, anarchists and communists. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 16, 1934 – Teamsters initiated a General Strike for union recognition in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 16, 1938 - The U.S. Supreme Court issued the Mackay decision permitting employers to permanently replace striking workers. In a classic case of double speak, the court said that management could not fire strikers, but could "permanently replace" them. One of the most recent and well-known examples of this occurred when Reagan crushed the air traffic controllers’ strike. The U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that allows bosses to fire (er, replace) striking workers. (From Workday Minnesota)

May 16, 1943 –The Warsaw ghetto resistance was finally crushed by the Nazis. 56,000 died in the process. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 16, 1979 –A. Philip Randolph died. Randolph was an African American labor leader, peace activist, and president and founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 16, 2007 – Baristas at the Starbucks in East Grand Rapids announced their membership in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union. Starbucks, notorious for poor treatment of workers, followed with numerous anti-labor violations and was forced by the NLRB to settle Grand Rapids union worker complaints in October. (From the Daily Bleed)

Teen Targeted as Terrorist for Using Facebook

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,”

—George W. Bush’s address to the American people in preparation for war with Afghanistan, September 20,2001.

Cameron D’Ambrosio, a Massachusetts high school student, apparently is not with “us” since he was arrested on “terror” charges last week. The youth faces up to 20 years in prison for making a reference to the Boston Marathon bombings on his Facebook page. He is currently being held on $1 million bail, according to Alternet.

So were the police heroes? Did they act on good evidence, stop a terrorist act in its infancy, and perhaps save hundreds of lives, or was this just another example of overkill, censorship and thought policing?

According to the WSWS, D’Ambrosio posted the following rap lyrics: “F--- a boston bominb (sic) wait till u see the s--- I do, I’ma be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me!” Friends insist that he was just emulating the macho, boastful style of other rappers and that, like other rap singers, he was merely singing about current events, not planning to emulate them—they insist that he never would carry out a bombing. More significantly, the police did not find any weapons or tools for making bombs, nor any plans for acquiring them. There were no victims. No specific threats were made against any person or target and he had no affiliations with any terrorist organizations

The Thought Police and America’s War on Youth

One would hope that parents and teachers are educating young people to be very careful what they say and do, especially online, in this hyperparanoid climate. However, that does not make D’Ambrosio’s actions illegal, let alone evidence of terrorism. Unless the authorities can find a compelling motive, plan, and the means to carry it out, their actions signal a willingness of the government to preemptively take out citizens merely for their feelings, artistic interests, or what they might possibly do in the future.

It should be pointed out that people routinely reference illegal or antisocial activities on their Facebook pages (and in musical lyrics) without legal consequences (e.g., drug use, violence against women, gay bashing). More to the point, “terrorist” speech is still protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution (as long as it doesn’t involve a specific, imminent and likely threat). In 1969, for example, in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court upheld the KKK’s right to call for violence against politicians—though plans or action to actually carry out such an attack would be illegal.

D’Ambrosia is not the only teen being sucked into America’s Kafkaesque anti-terror gulag system. According to the WSWS, Alex David Rosario, a high school student in Michigan, faced terrorism charges in January for threatening to shoot coworkers, something he claimed was only a joke, and two Louisiana high school girls were arrested and charged with “terrorism” in February for emailing threats to students and faculty. There was also Kiera Wilmot, who I wrote about last week, arrested and charged as an adult for weapons possession in response to a science experiment.

None of these cases would have been considered acts of terrorism prior to the September 11 attacks and Bush’s assertion that “you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists.” What they signal is that the war against terror, which has been used to terrify the American public for more than a decade now, is increasingly being turned on the American public itself, including kids, and that the criteria used to identify terrorists has been so broadened that virtually anyone can be targeted. Consider investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill’s observation that the Obama administration is now using drone “signature strikes” to assassinate people based solely on their “profiles” (e.g., age, gender, location and who they might be hanging out with), including U.S. citizens, thus eviscerating their rights to a trial, to confront the evidence against them, and to have the representation of an attorney. A “signature” strike was used to take out Denver-born, 16-year-old, Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, who was assassinated by U.S. drones in Yemen in 2011 (see Democracy Now).

The hyperbolic use of the term terrorism—considered comical ten years ago when Bush’s education secretary, Rod Paige, referred to the National Educators Association (NEA) as a terrorist organization—is now being used to arrest, torture and kill innocent civilians and dissidents throughout the world. For example, members of Mexico’s teachers union, (Coordinadora Estatal de Trabajadores de la Educación en Guerrero, CETEG) were recently arrested on trumped up terrorism charges. In June, 2012, 72 members of Turkey’s KESK public sector union were charged with terrorism and imprisoned until April, 2013, according to Labour Start News, while dozens more have been arrested on similar charges over the past few months. And, according to Scahill, dozens of innocent civilians have been killed in “anti-terror” drone signature strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Protection for Whom?

One might reasonably wonder who the authorities are trying to protect (and at what cost), when they lock down an entire city (as they did in Boston, and more recently in Valley Springs, CA), conduct warrantless house to house searches, and threaten to arrest anyone who leaves their home. The same might be asked about the Obama administration’s assertion of its right to use drones to assassinate U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.

In this context, being labeled a terrorist becomes all the more significant. If the government can arrest musically-inclined teens on terrorism charges simply for expressing anger and hostility devoid of a credible or imminent threat, will the terror jacket placed on the NEA by Rod Paige one day be used to arrest its members, as occurred in Mexico and Turkey?

Not likely—not unless they actually start to strike in significant numbers and pose a credible and imminent threat to the status quo, something they show no indication of doing. Likewise, if the labor movement were to engage in protracted multiple work stoppages, it seems inevitable that the government would accuse them of being economic terrorists. But this, too, seems remote. Unlike actual terrorists, the labor movement’s response to harassment, abuse and discontent tends toward a retraction from combativeness and collaboration with its persecutors.

CEOs Now Earn $7,000 per Hour (350x Employ Wages)

CEO compensation at the nation’s 327 largest companies now averages $7,000 per hour or 350 times what the typical employee earns, according to new data from the AFL-CIO. This includes salaries, bonuses, perks, stock awards, stock options and other incentives.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has a total annual compensation of nearly $101 million, or $48,548 per hour, more than the average worker makes in an entire a year ($35,204). Other top earning bosses include Oracle chief, Larry Ellison, who brings in $96.2 million per year, Leslie Moonves, (CBS), who makes $69.9 million per year, and seven others with compensation packages exceeding $40 million per year.

Money Morning writes that “most people agree” that CEOs deserve “substantially” more money than their employees. While they do not provide any data to support this claim, it is plausible considering such comments are routinely made by the media and politicians. Yet the explanations people give for why bosses deserve substantially (or any) more than their employees are irrational and unsupported by the evidence. Workers (not CEOs) do all of the heavy lifting in any workplace. CEOs primarily just make decisions about how to run the workplace, decisions that workers are much better equipped to make based on their experience and expertise (assuming the goals are to make the business run in a way that is safer for workers and the environment, that provides better quality and value for consumers, and that makes the world a better place for the majority of its people).

Of course the CEOs and other bosses do not care about any of those things. The only thing that counts are profits, which are made by paying workers as little as possible. They accumulate and maintain their power and wealth precisely because of their relationship to the means of production. As the owners, they get to make the rules, including how much to pay themselves (and how little to pay us). The greater the profits, the more valuable the CEO becomes to the shareholders and therefore the more he can demand in pay. Since lowering labor costs increases profits, the tendency is for the wage gap to continually grow, particularly during recessions (when workers are laid off or their wages are slashed more than usual)—a tendency that generally continues unchecked until labor successfully fights for wage increases, something that has not happened on any scale in over a generation.

Contrary to popular thought, shaming CEOs or legislating pay limits have very limited effect. Why should Eric Schmidt or Larry Ellison care what we think. They never have to sit next to us at the diner or wait in line with us at Walmart. (Larry Ellison, by the way, had his mansion reassessed shortly after the housing market collapse, costing several San Francisco Bay Area school districts millions of dollars in lost revenues). If it was possible to shame him, you would think the affected teachers’ unions would have done it.

As we saw with the subprime lending crisis, any attempts by Congress to limit executive pay were met by cries that this would limit competitiveness, which we are constantly told is essential for job creation, which of course is the only conceivable way to ensure we all have enough to eat, adequate health care and a roof over our heads. The notion of bailing out homeowners was never a possibility, even though this would have kept far more people in their homes than the alternative of bailing out the banks. The former solution is unacceptable because it uses tax dollars (including a sizable share contributed by the wealthy) to help working and middle class people, rather than the usual practice of funneling the money into private business. Worse, had the banks not been bailed out, many very wealthy individuals would have lost money, something else that cannot be tolerated.