Today in Labor History July 16, 1934: The San Francisco General Strike began. The longshoremen’s strike actually started on May 9 and lasted 83 days, leading ultimately to the unionization of all West Coast ports. The strike grew violent quickly, with company goons and police brutalizing longshoremen and sailors. They hired private security to protect the scabs they brought in to load and unload ships, housing them in moored ships and wall compounds that the strikers attacked. In San Pedro, two workers were killed by private security on May 15. Battles also broke out in Oakland, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. On Bloody Thursday, July 5, in San Francisco, police attacked strikers with tear gas and with clubs while on horseback and later fired into the crowd, killing two and injuring others. A General Strike was called on July 14 and began on July 16, lasting 4 days. Many non-unionized workers joined the strike. Movie theaters and night clubs shut down. Many small businesses shut down & posted signs in solidarity with the strikers.

On July 17, the cops arrested 300 people they accused of being communists, radicals or subversives. The National Guard also blocked both ends of Jackson Street that day with machine gun-mounted trucks to aid vigilante attacks on the Marine Workers Industrial Union headquarters and the ILA soup kitchen. They raided many other union halls and communist organizations. Vigilantes kidnapped and beat a lawyer for the ACLU, as well as 13 radicals from San Jose, CA.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #GeneralStrike #SanFrancisco #longshoremen #waterfront #union #communism #vigilantes #BloodyThursday #PoliceBrutality #police #acab

Today in Labor History July 5, 1934: Two strikers were shot and killed and more than 100 were injured by San Francisco police in what came to be known as "Bloody Thursday," leading to one of the last General Strikes in U.S. history. The governor called in the National Guard to suppress the strike by the International Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU). Police and Guard violence led to 43 injuries due to clubbing and gas, and 30 more for bullet wounds. Two chemical companies used the unrest as an opportunity to test and sell their wares. Joseph Roush, from Federal Laboratories, shot a long-range tear gas shell at the strikers. He then told his company, "I might mention that during one of the riots, I shot a long-range projectile into a group, a shell hitting one man and causing a fracture of the skull, from which he has since died. As he was a Communist, I have had no feeling in the matter and I am sorry that I did not get more."

Mike Quinn wrote about the strike in his 1949 book, “The Big Strike.” Quinn was a working-class journalist and novelist. He was an active member of the Communist Party and a writer for the ILWU.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #GeneralStrike #SanFrancisco #longshoremen #BloodyThursday #ilwu #riots #communism #massacre #police #PoliceBrutality #acab #writer #author #fiction #novel @bookstadon

Corporate institutions like the #birdapp work in the interest of neo-liberal cultural hegemony. Even before Musk, #twitter served capitalist interests and did its part in maintaining neo-liberal capitalist hegemony. Therefore, what we have now, with the #twittermigration , is an opportunity, an opportunity to build a counter-hegemony that serves the interests of oppressed classes and peoples, an opportunity to bring about ideological change. :anarchiststar:

#BloodyThursday #twitterpurge

welcome to everyone joining after #BloodyThursday #TwitterMassacre #Muskageddon

Hi new followers. Welcome to Mastodon! I hope you enjoy it here as much as I do.

Some recent writing of mine:
The internet is ephemeral (one the death of online communities) https://kitoconnell.com/2022/11/29/internet-community-ephemeral/

All about bookstores in #Texas https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-bookstores-2022/

Are You OK? The Lives Of Young #Trans Texans (Photo Essay) https://www.texasobserver.org/trans-kids-youth-are-you-ok-photos/

#journalism #LGBTQIA #books #SocialMedia #Twitter #BloodyThursday