Tag Archives: Labor

1921: Beware the Ides of March

Posted on March 14, 2020 by corvusfugit

The National Association for the Promotion of Labor Unionism Among Negroes was founded in 1918 by A. Philip Randolph—the great union organizer who would later form the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters—and writer Chandler Owens; it was promoted through their … Continue reading →

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1930: Work Must Not Cease

Posted on February 10, 2020 by corvusfugit

A performance of Karel Capek’s R.U.R. at the Haohel Theater, Tel Aviv in 1930. The play opens in Rossum’s Universal Robots (thus the title), a factory which manufactures artificial humanoids designed to be perfect obedient workers. At first, the robots … Continue reading →

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1937: Local 174

Posted on December 15, 2019 by corvusfugit

This mural showing the early history of UAW local 174 was painted by Walter Speck and Barbara Wilson in 1937 and originally hung in the local’s union hall at 2730 Maybury Grand St., in Detroit, Michigan. After moving with the … Continue reading →

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1944: The Removal of Sewell Avery

Posted on November 29, 2019 by corvusfugit

In 1942, in an effort to avoid strikes in war-related industries, Franklin Roosevelt reinstated the War Labor Board and directed it to oversee and arbitrate negotiations between unions and employers. Most unions had also agreed not to strike during the … Continue reading →

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1937: The Building of Tidewater

Posted on September 20, 2019 by corvusfugit

John Noble: The Building of Tidewater (c.1937)

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15 mya: Oecophylla

Posted on May 25, 2019 by corvusfugit

    Up to hundreds of weaver ants…line up side by side in militarily precise rows. They grip the edge of one leaf with the claws and pads of their hindlegs and the edge of the other with their jaws and … Continue reading →

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1945: With These Blows of My Hammer

Posted on May 21, 2019 by corvusfugit

On September 14, 1945, trade unionist Paul Bebert, a former concentration camp prisoner, destroyed the swastikas that Nazis has affixed to union offices in Hamburg. He read this statement to the crowd: With these blows of my hammer I will … Continue reading →

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1987: Basebenzi Masimanyane

Posted on May 11, 2019 by corvusfugit

Congress of South African Trade Unions: 1987 Calendar In 1987, COSATU conducted a two-day strike during the general elections in May as part of its Living Wage Campaign. More than 2.5 million workers took part. Later that month, their headquarters … Continue reading →

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1891: May Day

Posted on May 1, 2019 by corvusfugit

Happy May Day! Walter Crane: The Triumph of Labour (1891)

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1865: An Army of Striking Labor

Posted on April 28, 2019 by corvusfugit

In Black Reconstruction in America (1935), W. E. B. Du Bois argues that a “general strike” by millions of enslaved African-Americans decided the outcome of the civil war. By rebelling against their masters, abandoning southern plantations, contributing their labor to … Continue reading →

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