Today in Labor History December 3, 1946: Women retail clerks at Hastings and Kahn’s launched the Oakland General Strike, the last General Strike to occur in the U.S. Other workers soon joined in. Overall, more than 100,000 workers participated in the 3-day Oakland General Strike, which was part of the 1945-1946 strike wave, the largest strike wave in US history. Over 5 million workers participated in the nationwide strike wave, including 225,000 UAW members, 174,000 electric workers struck, 750,000 steel workers, 250,000 railroad workers. There were several other General Strikes in 1946, too, including Lancaster, PA; Stamford, CT; Rochester, NY. In reaction to this strike wave, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, which severely restricted the powers and activities of unions. It also banned General Strikes, stripping away the most powerful tool workers had. #workingclass #LaborHistory #oakland #GeneralStrike #strike #wildcat #union #tafthartley #solidarity

Today in Labor History December 2, 1859: The authorities hanged abolitionist John Brown in Charleston, Virginia for his leadership of a plot to incite a slave rebellion. Victor Hugo, who was living in exile on Guernsey, tried to obtain a pardon for him. His open letter was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. His plea failed, of course. On the day of his execution, John Brown rode in a furniture wagon, on top of his own coffin, through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers, to the gallows. The soldiers included future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth. Walt Whitman described the execution in his poem “Year of Meteors.” #workingclass #LaborHistory #slavery #abolition #JohnBrown #rebellion #hanging #deathpenalty #poetry #fiction #books #novel #BlackMastadon @npub1wceq...lzu8

Today in Labor History December 1, 1914: The famous labor song, "Solidarity Forever," was written on this date by IWW songwriter and cofounder Ralph Chaplin. He wrote the song for a hunger march to be led by Lucy Parsons in Chicago (on January 17, 1915). The song has been translated into many other languages, including French, German, Polish, Spanish, Swahili and Yiddish. And it is still commonly sung at union gatherings in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. The inspiration for the song came from the brutal 1912-1913 Paint Creek-Cabin Creek mining strike, in West Virginia, led by Mother Jones and others. Private cops and vigilantes murdered at least 50 miners and their family members during that strike. Impressed with the solidarity and resolve of the miners, Chaplin began work on the song. You can enjoy a Utah Phillips cover of the song here: And read my biography of Lucy Parsons here:

Michael Dunn

Lucy Parsons - Michael Dunn

Lucy Parsons anarchist communist revolutionary

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #solidarity #folkmusic #song #music #utahphillips #ralphchaplin #lucyparsons #motherjones #BlackMastadon

What am I thankful for? I'm thankful that H5N1 hasn't yet mutated to become easily transmissible P2P. Oh, wait. Maybe it already has and we just don't know it yet because we're hardly doing any monitoring in the U.S. I'm not generally a superstitious person. But if another pandemic is imminent, 2025 would be the year for a perfect storm, with anti-vaxxer, conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. heading HHS; Great Barrington co-author and anti-public health hawk Jay Bhattacharya heading NIH; and anti-science TV quack Doc Oz heading medicare. And let's not forget, former Florida Representative Dave Weldon as admin for the CDC, Marty Makary as commissioner of FDA, and Fox News TV quack Janette Nesheiwat as surgeon general. All 3 are anti-science conspiracy nuts. Each has spread vaccine misinformation. All oppose gender-affirming care for transgender individuals. If any of y'all are worried about H5N1, don't be. It's just like the flu. #publichealth #H5N1 #pandemic #DrOz #rfkjr #trump #cdc #nih #vaccines #transrightsarehumanrights #lgbtq #thanksgiving