#OtD 8 Feb 1887 the Dawes Act was signed into US law. It authorised the President to subdivide Native American tribal communal land into allotments for Native American individuals, thus forcing a capitalist and proprietary relationship with land shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/500...

#OtD 8 Feb 1517 Hernandez de Cordova set sail from Cuba heading west to Mexico in search of Indigenous peoples to enslave for the mines. He was defeated by Maya fighters and forced to retreat, dying from his wounds shortly after returning to Cuba stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1078...

#OtD 8 Feb 1921 Peter Kropotkin, famous proponent of anarchist-communism, died of pneumonia in Russia. He took part in revolutionary groups in four countries and was a major contributor to anarchist theory. Works by and about him available here: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...

#OtD 8 Feb 1943 Lepa Svetozara Radic, a 17-year-old partisan from Bosnia-Herzegovina was captured by the Germans. The Nazis offered her her life if she gave up the names of her comrades, but she showed "unprecedented defiance", refused and was executed stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1078...

#OtD 8 Feb 1915 DW Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation premiered. The first major blockbuster in the US, it glorified the KKK and inspired a resurgence in KKK membership, still having an impact to this day stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1078...

#OtD 8 Feb 1840 began the fight for the 8-hour working day in New Zealand. Samuel Parnell (pictured), a carpenter from London, insisted on 8 hours when offered a job, to which the employer had to agree, leading to more 8-hour day organising in NZ stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1078...

#OtD 8 Feb 2011 Egyptian workers joined the Arab Spring, starting a series of strikes against Mubarak and his regime, leading him to abdicate three days later stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1079...

#OtD 8 Feb 1938 veteran metalworker and anarchist, Olga Taratuta, was executed in the USSR for organising rail workers. She had been arrested and imprisoned many times by the regime and by the Tsar, but never gave up the fight for the working class stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1078...

#OtD 8 Feb 1968 the Orangeburg massacre took place in South Carolina when police opened fire on Black SC State students, killing three and wounding 27 after Black student-led protests at a segregated bowling alley shop.workingclasshistory.com/en-gb/collec...

#OtD 7 Feb 2006 400k people in 187 cities across France protested against the new CPE law which gave bosses right to fire 18-26 year-old workers with neither notice nor reason. Strikes, riots, occupations and blockades forced govt to drop it stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1070...

#OtD 7 Feb 1952 nine anarchist anti-Franco guerrillas of the Tallion action group were sentenced to death. Five were executed the following month but four (inc Miguel Garcia, pictured) had sentences commuted to life imprisonment and were later freed stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1069...

#OtD 7 Feb 1917 US labour leader, Tom Mooney, who was framed for a bombing was convicted & sentenced to death. Mass campaigning eventually forced President Wilson intervene to grant him a stay of execution, then commutation stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1069...

#OtD 7 Feb 2008 Pilar Molina Beneyto, Spanish historian, writer, filmmaker, revolutionary and feminist died aged 68. Leaving school at 14, she joined the @CNTsindicato union, fought for women's rights and helped record civil war anti-fascist history stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1070...

#OtD 7 Feb 1952 workers won a bagel bakers' and drivers' strike in New York City. Bagel Bakers Local 338 had won their demands on 28 January, but drivers in the Teamsters union remained out until employers agreed to pay them back wages stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1069...

#OtD 7 Feb 1974 Grenada achieved independence from Britain, following a turbulent period of civil unrest, including a nationwide general strike which had been ongoing since 1 January, protesting against police and paramilitary brutality stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1070...

#OtD 7 Feb 1919 construction workers in Essex, NJ, voted to strike if alcohol prohibition came into force. However, union leaders called off the action, saying it would make them "look ridiculous". We made this commemorative merch: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...

#OtD 7 Feb 2019 George Zreik set himself ablaze at the Our Lady of Kaftoun secondary school, where his daughter attended, in the Koura district of Lebanon after a fee dispute with the management. He died a few days later from his burns stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1251...

📣 New Podcast! "7 February 1919: No Beer No Work movement" on @Spreaker #beer #history #workers

#OtD 6 Feb 1916 the Cabaret Voltaire nightclub opened in Zürich, Switzerland. Described as "history's wildest nightclub" it was the spiritual home of the often radical Dada art movement, formed by artists revolted by the capitalist carnage of WWI stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1060...

#OtD 6 Feb 1921 France's colonial govt began construction of the Congo-Ocean Railway in what is now the Republic of the Congo. At least 14,000 people died making it and it was used to transport goods like rubber stolen inland to be shipped to Europe stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7969...

#OtD 6 Feb 1918 the British Parliament introduced voting rights to women over 30 who met certain property requirements. This had followed many years of often militant struggle by women for the right to vote stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1060...

#OtD 6 Feb 1915 women's liberation activist and militant chemical worker, Soledad Estorach, was born. She built barricades in Barcelona with the outbreak of revolution in 1936, and was active in the Mujeres Libres women's group shop.workingclasshistory.com/en-gb/collec...

#OtD 6 Feb 1919 the Seattle general strike occurred when 100,000 downed tools in support of striking shipyard workers. They then went on to elect a general strike committee and began running the city under workers' control for five days stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1060...

#OtD 6 Feb 2001 Filipino revolutionary socialist and union activist Felimon "Popoy" Lagman was assassinated in Quezon City. The govt blamed the Communist Party but Lagman's family believe that the killers were acting on behalf of the state stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1061...

#OtD 6 Feb 1985 it was reported that workers in the Vatican City threatened to hold the first strike in the 2000 year history of the Catholic Church in pursuit of a pay claim. It appears that the dispute was eventually resolved through negotiation stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7970...

#OtD 6 Feb 1974 with the prospect of a UK-wide coalminers strike Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath called a snap election under the slogan "Who governs Britain?" - meaning the government, or the unions? He lost, and miners won 35% pay increase workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e81-...

#OtD 6 Feb 1976 Native American activist Leonard Peltier was captured in Canada on the basis of fictitious affidavits generated by the FBI. He was extradited to the US, where he was imprisoned until 2025 for allegedly killing two FBI agents stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1061...

#OtD 6 Feb 1919 workers in Butte, Montana responded to a dollar per day wage cut by launching a general strike. To prevent disunity, workers formed a Workers and Soldiers Council to conduct the strike stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1060...

📣 New Podcast! "6 February 2006: Liberia Firestone strike" on @Spreaker #black #history #liberia

#OtD 5 Feb 1894 anarchist Auguste Vaillant was beheaded in France. He called the bomb he threw into the Chamber of Deputies "the cry of an entire class that calls for its rights and will soon join its acts to its words." More details here: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...

We've got some great new books available in our online store. Proceeds support our work as well as independent, radical publishing. Check out our constantly-growing collection at shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...

#OtD 5 Feb 1913 17-year-old Jewish migrant garment worker, Ida Breiman, was murdered by a sweatshop owner while on strike in Rochester, NY. She and 200 others had struck for better pay and 8-hour day when boss opened fire killing her and wounding three stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1050...

#OtD 5 Feb 1885 King Leopold of Belgium declared his new colony the Congo Free State. What followed was one of the most horrific examples of European colonialism, with 8 to 10 million killed. More on colonialism in the Congo here: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...

#OtD 5 Feb 1982 negotiations between union and management began after the mostly female workforce of the Plessey capacitor plant in Bathgate, Scotland, began to #occupy the factory against its closure stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1051...

It's #WorkingClassHistoryWednesday! In Part 2 of our series on the 2001 Argentina uprising, Tomas recounts his experience of the rebellion, and discusses the wave of community assemblies and workers' control that spread afterwards. Out now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/e116-a...

#OtD 5 Feb 1948 beer sellers in Greymouth, New Zealand agreed to restore the price of beer to its previous level, ending a four-and-a-half-month-long boycott--one of the most effective boycotts ever seen in New Zealand stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1050...

#OtD 5 Feb 1975 the Limazo riots began in Lima, Peru amidst rapidly rising prices. During a police strike, which was supported by some of the left, slum dwellers began expropriating goods en masse. In repressing the rebellion over 100 were killed stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1051...

#OtD 5 Feb 1973 3000 cleaners and other municipal workers in Durban, SA, went on strike. They were joined by 16,000 workers in other depts the following day, and a further 11,000 the day after that, part of a wave of strikes in the city stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1051...

#OtD 5 Feb 1933 a mutiny of Indonesian and Dutch crew started on the Dutch ship, De Zeven Provinciën in protest at pay cuts. When they wouldn't surrender, Dutch aircraft bombed the ship killing 23 people. Many of the survivors were jailed for years stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1050...

#OtD 5 Feb 2020 10 workers from Cosmic Enterprises Independent Labor Union in the Philippines were arrested after striking for a month, and accused of violence. The dispersal was later ruled to be harassment and against the Labor Code stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1051...

#OtD 5 Feb 1919 140 workers in the @CNTsindicato union walked out on strike against the sacking of 8 workers in a Barcelona hydroelectric plant. It grew to a general strike shutting 70% of firms until bosses caved and introduced 1st 8-hour day laws stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1050...

#OtD 5 Feb 1952 Juan Gordillo, mayor of notorious Marinaleda in Andalusia since 1979, was born. He helped establish the village in its current state and led robin hood raids on supermarkets during austerity in 2008 stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1051...

#OtD 5 Feb 1971 students and workers at the Diliman University in the Philippines took over the university's UP Press and printed the first issue of Bandilang Pula (Red Flag), the official newspaper of the Diliman Commune in Tagalog and English. More: stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1117...

#OtD 5 Feb 1981 240 mostly women workers at the Lee Jeans factory in Greenock Scotland occupied it upon learning that it was due to be closed. They held out 7 months until management caved and agreed to a buyout which kept their jobs stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1051...

📣 New Podcast! "5 February 1919: La Canadiense strike" on @Spreaker #barcelona #catalonia #history

Tomas Rothaus shares his account of the street-fighting that kicked off Argentina’s 2001 uprising and discusses the factories placed under workers’ control during the rebellion on the @workingclasshistory.com #podcast: www.patreon.com/posts/e116-a... #podcast#1u #UnionStrong #LaborRadioPod #LaborHistory

#OtD 4 Feb 1968 a fishing boat from Hull, England, sank, killing all but one of its 19 crew. It sparked a powerful direct action campaign by fishermen's wives which rapidly won health and safety improvements in the industry stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1042...

#OtD 4 Feb 1913 Rosa Parks was born. Often wrongly described as "quiet", she was actually a lifelong activist who supported Black power, Malcolm X and worked alongside the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. More about the LRBW in our pod: workingclasshistory.com/2018/08/28/e...

Part 2 of my, shockingly thorough, conversation with @workingclasshistory.com about all things Argentina, with particular emphasis on the anti-neoliberal uprising of December 2001. @pmpress.bsky.social

This is brilliant news, and also shows why the Labour Party wants to abolish most trials by jury, and how important it is they don't get away with it: