On this day in 1919, the United Mine Workers (UMW) initiated a nationwide strike of more than 400,000 coal miners, demanding better wages and a 30-hour week. The U.S. declared the strike illegal while the media smeared workers as communists.

U.S. Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer, the same individual behind the infamous Palmer Raids, declared the strike illegal by invoking the Lever Act, a wartime measure that made it a crime to interfere with the production or transportation of necessities.

The law had never been used against a union before, and in fact American Federation of Labor (AFL) founder Samuel Gompers had been promised by President Woodrow Wilson that the Lever Act would not be used to suppress labor actions.

The strike was subject to Red Scare propaganda: coal operators made false charges that Lenin and Trotsky had ordered the strike and were financing it, and some of the press repeated those claims. Others used words like "insurrection" and "Bolshevik revolution". Because of this propaganda and the Attorney General's injunction against the strike, the UMW called the strike off on November 8th.

Many workers ignored this order, however, and the strike continued for over a month, with a final agreement being reached on December 10th. Workers won a 14% wage increase and the creation of an investigatory commission to mediate wage issues.

The US miners' strikes, 1919-1922 - Jeremy Brecher :workerworker

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  • Babs [she/her]
    ·
    11 months ago

    My partner's mama wants to come visit us soon 🙂

    She's an old lady with lots of mental health issues and a whole slew of ignorant prejudices around race and sexuality 😶

    She apparently doesn't know I'm trans 😬

    • thirtymilliondeadfish [she/her]
      ·
      11 months ago

      please keep us updated. Also stay safe or something but oml such hijinks. Will she even realise you're trans?

      • Babs [she/her]
        ·
        11 months ago

        I should be safe and such, that's not a worry - she's a little old lady and my bf has my back.

        The fucked up thing about being trans and having BDD is I have no idea if she'll notice. I live assuming that everyone can immediately tell, but my bf and some of my friends are insistent that I'm too hard on myself. I certainly can't trust my own perception on the matter. I can logically assume I'm maybe attractive based on how people flirt with me, but I imagine I'm cute in a clocky way so idk.

        • thirtymilliondeadfish [she/her]
          ·
          11 months ago

          same/similar experience here these days. I can see it thus assume others do, whether they do or not.

          I hope it goes well for you, but even if it doesn't, it has the chance to be a very funny story. Fingers crossed for a lovely time with the mil though!
          (What's bdd?)

          • Babs [she/her]
            ·
            11 months ago

            (What's bdd?)

            Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

            cw: dysphoria, dysmorphia https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/aff4a6a5-358b-4720-9950-01842dcf387d.png