More from @ErikLoomis

Erik Loomis

@ErikLoomis

12 Nov

This Day in Labor History: November 12, 1892. The New Orleans General Strike ended with a major victory for workers!! Let's talk about this great moment in our labor history!

In early 1892, New Orleans’ streetcar drivers won a strike and received union recognition and a shorter workday. This inspired workers across New Orleans to form unions and join up their organizations with the American Federation of Labor. About 30 new unions formed.

Around 20,000 workers were union members and they formed their own labor federation called the Workingmen’s Amalgamated Council. Moreover, some of these unions were racially integrated.

Read 36 tweets

Erik Loomis

@ErikLoomis

11 Nov

This Day in Labor History: November 11, 1918. French authorities in Indochina created the first labor code for its rubber plantations, tying workers to the land and creating a horrifying exploitative system. Let's talk about the labor history of colonialism!

As the rubber industry took off in Indochina in the early twentieth century, French authorities demanded pliant labor for it. French planters wanted cheap labor, they wanted a lot of it, and they didn’t want to have them move around.

But malaria was endemic in Cochinchina (South Vietnam before the 1975 unification of the country). Planters looked as far as China and Java to find laborers. Sanitation was becoming a major issue that planters and the French colonial government had to take seriously.

Read 34 tweets

Erik Loomis

@ErikLoomis

10 Nov

This Day in Labor History: November 10, 1933. !orkers at the Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota sat down on the job. Possibly the first sit-down strike in American history, the win these workers achieved helped set up the labor militancy of the New Deal era. Let's talk about it!

The Industrial Workers of the World had basically been crushed after World War I, during the Red Scare. Leaderless, with Big Bill Haywood dying in exile in Moscow, the organization divided into factions in the 1920s that effectively made it irrelevant.

It would still pop up every now and again, especially in areas where it had built real worker support, such as the forests of northern Idaho and western Montana. But by and large, it was an afterthought in an era where the left had turned to communism.

Read 31 tweets

Erik Loomis

@ErikLoomis

8 Nov

This Day in Labor History: November 8, 1970. Congress approved the Reorganization Acts Amendment that laid the groundwork for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Let's talk about the EPA is a pro-worker agency!

The need for the EPA was nearly undeniable. The nation’s industrial past had absolutely devastated the natural world. Corporations could dump pollution wherever they wanted and they did so with aplomb. Pittsburgh was famous for its smoke, Cleveland had burning rivers.

Oil slicks covered California beaches and had led to legendary gushers covering the land in Texas and Oklahoma. Companies such as General Electric dumped PCBs in the Hudson River and other waterways around the nation.

Read 37 tweets

Erik Loomis

@ErikLoomis

5 Nov

This Day in Labor History: November 5, 1916. Police and their thugs in Everett, Washington slaughter between 5 and 12 members of the IWW as they attempted to dock in the town to organize there. Let's talk about the Everett Massacre!

Shingle weavers lived a tough life. You could always tell who was new to the job. The newbie had 10 fingers. Shingle weavers created roofing shingles out of raw pieces of cedar.

They did so with bare hands and whirring buzz saws without protection. In addition, the saws produced wood dust that workers breathed in. “Cedar asthma” was a common malady.

Read 22 tweets