125 years ago, one of the greatest united strikes happened here in New Orleans – the General Strike of 1892. The general strike grew out of the labor movement struggles for improved economic well-being and Black peoples’ continued struggles for equality and freedom.
1892 was an active year of class struggle. Two all-U.S.A. labor organizations were founded: the International Longshoremen Association and the International Seamen Union. On June 30, 1892, a major steel strike was launched in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The strike was violently defeated by Pinkerton guards with several strikers and guards killed. In New Orleans, May 1892, the streetcar drivers struck for shorter working hours and a closed shop. They won. Labor hours were reduced from 16 hours to 10 hours. Workers could now be unionized. On June 7, 1892, Homer A. Plessy and the Citizens Committee initiated their fight for equality and freedom against the Segregated Railroad Car Act at the railroad depot located then at Press and Royal Streets. This action was later followed by an important strike in October.
The strike in October was organized by three key unions that formed a partnership – the Triple Alliance. The three unions were the white Scalesmen and Packers unions and the Black Teamsters. Scalesmen and Packers were skilled laborers. Scalesmen’s labor was that of weighing commodities, a function that determined the value, the exchange value or selling price of a commodity. Packers were those laborers who loaded or ‘packed’ commodities for shipment on vessels such as boats, trains or other moving vehicles. Packers had specific tools to pack or ‘screw’ the commodities in place. Teamsters were those laborers considered not as skilled as scalesmen and packers. Teamsters moved commodities by carriages, wagons, drays (carts) as drivers and general laborers.
On October 24, these three unions went on strike for a shorter work day (10-hour day), overtime pay for after 60 hours and a union shop. There were between two to three thousand workers on strike. The city’s employing class (banks, stevedores, foundries, hotels, merchants, etc.) was struck with terror. Less than 30 years after the end of the Civil War, and with the counterrevolution of Reconstruction, Black and white workers united to walk out for joint demands.
THE CAPITALIST OWNERS’ AND BOSSES’ REACT
The exploiter and oppressor social class of owners and bosses organized an all-out strike-breaking assault. Their allies consisted of the bosses of the four railroads that entered the city, and also the bosses of cotton, sugar, and rice commodity exchanges. They amassed a huge strike-breaking and terror fund. The New Orleans Board of Trade, located at 316 Magazine Street, represented the interests of this social class of owners and bosses. The Board of Trade would make decisions for them.
The New Orleans Board of Trade refused to recognize the Triple Alliance. That summer, the workers had organized a city-wide united front called the Workingmen’s Amalgamated Council. This form of organization was a clever idea designed to pursue a specific form of struggle. The council represented the widely exploited and most oppressed sections of the community. The purpose of this council was to provide solidarity and aid to the workers’ struggles. The more ‘enlightened’ or ‘conscious’ workers knew that the strike’s outcome would affect the wages and conditions of all workers.
THE CAPITALIST OWNERS’ AND BOSSES TACTICS
Initially, the Board of Trade said that they would negotiate and sign only with the Scalesmen and Packers union and not with the Teamsters. Second, the newspapers, the Times Democrat, the Daily States, and others popularized an anti-Black sentiment. Headlines appeared agitating “Negroes Attack White Men”. Stories reported “mobs of brutal Negro strikers” running through the streets “beating up all who attempted to interfere with them”. The newspapers collaborated with the Board of Trade. The aims of these tactics were to appeal to white supremacy and undermine class unity. The poisonous lies these papers printed did affect the workers.
Wavering and vacillation appeared in the ranks of the Scalesmen and the Packers union. But conscious white workers, members of the radical Knights of Labor, struggled and argued with their class brothers. They agitated that the Black workers were not their real enemy but instead their class brothers. This struggle inside the workers’ movement enabled the workers to see and embrace their true class interests. Consequently, the Workingmen’s Amalgamated Council demanded that there be negotiation with the three unions (the two whites and one black) or no negotiation at all.
The Board of Trade refused. The Board then demanded that everybody return to work, and that bargaining would be considered after everbody returned to work.
Refusing to submit to threats or fear, the Workingmen’s Amalgamated Council escalated the fight and called for a general strike on November 8. Over 25,000 workers, of African, Caribbean, Spanish, French and other European descent that also included 45 locals responded to the call. More than half the city’s workforce struck. Carpenters, joiners, warehousemen, screwmen, coopers, coachmen, musicians, freight handlers, horseshoers, grain shovelers, plasterers, piledrivers, pressmen, tinners, drivers, cotton men, gas and electric workers united and struck together. When night fell, New Orleans economy was further paralyzed. The economy had been halted. This was the first time in U.S. history that Black and white workers carried out a general strike together!
The Board of Trade offered ‘special higher wages’ for anyone or any scab to come forward. With a population of 100,000 people in New Orleans, only 59 people stepped forward. Calls were made for scab labor to come from Birmingham and Mobile, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Galveston, Texas, but many prospects declined to come. They then told Governor Murphy Foster that they would pay the militia to do the work that the strikers refused to do. Hence, they demanded that Foster send the militia to end the strike. Foster did send soldiers. But the strikers were so well organized that the state militia was made useless. The militia could not move or transport any commodity, and more importantly, could not break the strike.
THE WORKERS ARE VICTORIOUS!
After three days, the Board of Trade surrendered to most of the strikers’ demands. They got a shorter work day. They got a 25% wage increase. Years later, the government’s legal suits against the strike leaders were eventually dropped. There were some gains made in the working conditions. But they did not win the closed shop which was full recognition of their unions.
Shamefully, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) – the only all-U.S.A. labor federation at that time did not follow up this historic victory but continued to organize all-white crafts. Because of the stand and actions of the AFL, the AFL contributed greatly to the shops remaining a haven of white supremacy, low wages, and non-union labor. In time, the millionaire owners and bosses were able to re-divide the workers and regain what they lost.
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Also today was the birthday of Edward "Ed" Boyce :iww:
born on this day in 1862, was president of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), a radical American labor organizer and a socialist state representative.
Boyce was arrested for his role in the 1892 Coeur d'Alene labor strike and inspired "Big Bill" Haywood (co-founder of the IWW) to join his first union.
In 1894, Boyce was elected to the Idaho state senate. There, he battled for the eight-hour day for miners, the establishment of an arbitration board to settle labor disputes, an investigation of the 1892 mining war, and the banning of "yellow-dog" contracts (contracts prohibiting workers from joining the union). Boyce was so disillusioned by the political process he resigned after one term.
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good feels story incoming:
met with a local pastor yesterday, talked a lot about class/racism in the city, he let me know that he has a trans daughter and told me how they slowly realized she was trans at a young age--didn't say the age but seemed to be like 8 or 10. this all happened as they were applying for a pastor position for a church that didn't have an explicit LGBT affirming statement, so they straight up said in the interview my daughter is trans and if you have a problem with that, we'll fucking walk. the church said we don't really know what that means but we're gonna do our best to learn and hired them. the church made a pro-LGBTQ statement a year later. some people left (including old money donors) but more people numbers-wise have joined since that happened. there are currently a couple of trans members of the youth group, and he was explaining how it's been super important for them to have a safe place. really good vibes from that conversation
I unironically love this lil dude. Look how cute he is:
:disgost: :wut: :what-the-hell: :sadness: :brow: :very-smart: :07: :shrug-outta-hecks: :big-cool:
I'm paid hourly and have to sit through the corporate "town hall" meeting where they talk about verticals and synergy and shit. I'm getting paid to lay on the couch and look at my phone for a couple hours :comfy:
Seeing ads for NFTs and cryptocurrenty popping up all over digital billboards around where I work. I hate this shitty, boring dystopia we live in :bern-disgust:
Just saying hello from work. Been here 10.5 hours, only 3 more to go.
Labor regulations plz :yes-honey-left:
Just I case anyone needs yet another reason to know that all this outrage about “discomfort based on race” in schools is bullshit, it is still common practice in my school district to read books aloud which contain the n word, in a majority white district, and only with a minor disclaimer at the beginning of the book. And every single time a white kid says the n word, a third of the class looks back at the one or two black kids and giggles.
These kids are real smooth about it too. Most white students will never have any idea that their classmates are walking by the black kids and telling them to pick cotton and saying their skin is dirty and shit. It’s fucking disgusting but none of these white Republicans have given two shits about that until Sean Hannity told them to get off their asses and attend a school board meeting for the first time in their goddamn lives.
May we all learn never to discuss family crests and mail order steaks :fidel-salute-big:
Alternatively: discuss seven different crests and stakes, none fully real. I think there's a plug-in that does that to google ad services: just spam them with contradictory information so their "targeting" loses all meaning. Do this to the Langley boys I say.
:thinking-about-it:
When the US instituted apartheid, instead of chattel slavery, this is considered by many to be a “progressive” action worthy of celebration
That’s how warped this country’s dialogue about itself is…
They put a sticky note on the constitution that said “you gotta outlaw someone and get it officially sanctioned by the courts before you can legally enslave em”
Like it’s just crazy. You don’t have to fight for anything about the US as an institution. It’s all pretend, the constitution just lays out the guiding principles for a white utopia that clearly allows for (and is dependent upon) a racialized underclass which is de jure powerless.
None of the “touch ups” (amendments) or laws passed have ever seriously contested this idea of a white utopia, and it should be no surprise that this entire set of social relations that make up the US is continuously steered toward this “utopia” by the most powerful actors in various sectors of society.
This idea is just “too much to bear” I guess for your average us citizen, so as a nation we cling to our extremely mythologized past of “inviting Indians to the first thanksgiving” and just absolute fairy tales for babies
lmao so how fucked is Black Friday gonna be this year when management asks for all hands on deck and like 3 people show up
Gonna be a bunch of disillusioned antiwork posters after Black Friday when they try and form a general strike with no grassroots or union involvement.
