November 11, 2009
Military
Resistance 7K7
Thanks
to SSG N (ret’d) who sent this in. She writes:
"So,
if we’re fighting to build democracy in Afghanistan, can we go
home now?"
"I
Don’t Agree With This War"
"You
Don’t Want This Thing To Continue"
Mother
Of Queens Staff Sgt. Luis Gonzalez, Slain In Afghanistan, Condemns
The War
"I
don’t agree with this war," Bienvenida Gonzalez, 60, told
the Daily News as she grieved for her son. Above, Staff Sgt.
Luis Gonzalez.
October
31st 2009 BY Kerry Wills, Daily News Staff Writer [Excerpts]
A
Queens mother whose youngest son was killed this week in Afghanistan
tearfully condemned the war on Friday.
"I
don’t agree with this war," Bienvenida Gonzalez, 60, told
the Daily News as she grieved for her son, Staff Sgt. Luis Gonzalez.
"There’s a lot of families that it’s tearing
apart."
The
28-year-old died Tuesday along with six other soldiers when enemy
forces blew up their vehicle.
The
soldier’s wife, Jessica, who also is in the Army, declined to
comment, saying, "This is our time to mourn."
They
have a 5-month-old son, Isaiah.
Gonzalez,
who grew up in Corona, eagerly enlisted in the Army eight years ago
after graduating from John Bownes High School - and asked his mother
to pray that he passed the test.
"He
was a good boy, very happy," she recalled.
In
their last phone conversation two weeks ago, she said, "he said
not to worry about him at that moment because he was fine," and
talked about coming home from combat in January.
Family
friend Miriam Polanco said Gonzalez’s parents were anguished
over whether to talk about their opposition to the war.
"They
decided you have to speak up," she said.
"You
don’t want this thing to continue."
DO
YOU HAVE A FRIEND OR RELATIVE IN THE MILITARY?
Forward
Military Resistance along, or send us the address if you wish and
we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Iraq or
stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service
friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing
resistance to the wars, inside the armed services and at home.
Send email requests to address up top or write to: The Military
Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657.
Phone: 888.711.2550
AFGHANISTAN
WAR REPORTS
U.S.
Service Member Killed Somewhere Or Other In Afghanistan
Nov
8 By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
An
American service member was killed in an insurgent attack Saturday in
western Afghanistan. The statement said the death was not part
of the ongoing search operation for the two missing paratroopers but
gave no further details.
Soldier
From 2 RIFLES Killed Near Sangin
8
Nov 09 Ministry of Defence
It
is with sadness that the Ministry of Defence must announce that a
soldier from 2nd Battalion The Rifles, was killed in Afghanistan,
yesterday, Saturday 7 November 2009.
The
soldier, serving with 4th Battalion The Rifles, was killed as a
result of an explosion that happened near Sangin, in central Helmand
province, during the afternoon
OCCUPATION
ISN’T LIBERATION
ALL
TROOPS HOME NOW!
Mom
On Son Killed In War:
'He
Was So Scared’
Kimble
A. Han, 30, of Lehi, died of wounds in Afghanistan after an
improvised explosive device exploded nearby.
10/27/2009
By Mathew LaPlante, The Salt Lake Tribune
Saratoga
Springs
Lisa
Barnes knew.
She’d
never heard fear in her son’s voice before, but somehow she
recognized it when he called home from Afghanistan last week.
Her
son, Kimble Han, was a big, strong man. A patriot. A soldier.
But
he was afraid.
"I
guess a mom just knows those sorts of things," Barnes said.
"I’d never heard that from my son before, but yes, I
could tell. He was so scared."
Barnes
told her boy to be careful. Then, as often happens during calls
connecting two sides of the globe, the phone cut out.
"I
figured he’d call back when he was free," she said. "I
didn’t get to tell him that I loved him. I didn’t know it
would be the last time I would get to talk to him."
Han,
30, who enlisted in the Army in 2008 in search of a life he could be
proud of, died alongside another soldier on Friday when the vehicles
in which they were riding were struck by a coordinated two-strike
roadside bomb attack near Kandahar. Eleven other soldiers were
wounded in the ambush.
Han
leaves behind a wife, Melissa, and three stepchildren. Funeral
services are pending.
Barnes
said her son, who had begun his tour of duty in Iraq before being
transferred to Afghanistan, had told her that the improvised
explosive devices being employed by Taliban fighters were getting
bigger and harder to detect. Just a week earlier four other soldiers
with the same Colorado-based company were killed when their vehicle
was attacked in the same manner.
"Those
were his buddies," said Han’s older brother, Jerod, who
graduated a year ahead of his sibling from Cheyenne High School in
Las Vegas. "He told me that it was getting crazy. He said that
the highway they were clearing and patrolling was the most dangerous
road in the world. And when he put it like that, you could tell, he
really didn’t want to be there."
But
Jerod Han -- who moved to Utah to seek work with his younger brother
in 2002 -- said his soldier sibling didn’t waiver. He’d
joined the Army at a time of war, knowing that his enlistment would
almost certainly include a combat deployment. "He was finally
proud of something he was doing in his life," Jerod Han said.
"It gave him purpose and meaning in life. He was scared, but he
was proud. He was a soldier."
"A
Huge Number Of Casualties" As Occupation Forces Attack
Occupation Forces:
"Five
Of The Wounded Were U.S. Soldiers"
2009-11-08
AFP
KABUL:
Investigations were under way Sunday into the deaths of seven
soldiers and police killed in what Afghan officials called a
mis-targeted U.S. air strike, one of the worst "friendly fire"
incidents of an eight-year war.
It
occurred while U.S. and Afghan forces, searching for two missing
American paratroopers in a barren, rugged area, clashed with Taliban
insurgents on Friday, they said. Azimi said U.S. troops who
were fighting the rebels alongside the Afghans also suffered
casualties but he refused to give figures.
Earlier
NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said five of the
wounded were US soldiers.
One
Western military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told
AFP it appeared to be a "blue-on-blue incident" -- a
military term for friendly fire -- with "a huge number of
casualties".
Coordinated
Two Province Ambush Hits Occupation Fuel Supply Convoy
A
burning fuel truck on a road outside Jalalabad, Nangarhar province,
east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 8, 2009. A supply convoy of
foreign forces was attacked by militants near Jalalabad city, two of
the tankers were set on fire and three others damaged. (AP
Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Nov
8 By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
In
the east of the country, militants twice attacked a fuel supply
convoy as it traveled along a main supply route between Pakistan and
the Afghan capital of Kabul. Police said at least two private
security guards and a policeman were wounded in the attacks.
The
convoy first came under fire near the city of Jalalabad, during which
two fuel tankers were set on fire and three other trucks were
damaged, provincial police spokesman Ghafor Khan said. Two security
guards were wounded.
Afghan
police later joined the convoy to escort the remaining vehicles to
Kabul.
But
the vehicles came under attack again in the neighboring province of
Laghman, leaving one policeman wounded and damaging three other
trucks, said deputy provincial police chief Naqibullah Hotak.
POLITICIANS
CAN’T BE COUNTED ON TO HALT THE BLOODSHED
THE
TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE WARS
FUTILE
EXERCISE:
ALL
HOME NOW!
U.S.
air support flies over as U.S. soldiers in Soviet Union war era
bunkers high
in the mountains above the Pech Valley in Afghanistan’s Kunar
province on Oct. 25, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
IF
YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END
THE OCCUPATIONS
NEED
SOME TRUTH?
CHECK
OUT TRAVELING SOLDIER
Telling
the truth - about the occupations or the criminals running the
government in Washington - is the first reason for Traveling
Soldier. But we want to do more than tell the truth; we want to
report on the resistance to Imperial wars inside the armed forces.
Our
goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties
working-class people inside the armed services together. We want this
newsletter to be a weapon to help you organize resistance within the
armed forces.
If you
like what you've read, we hope that you'll join with us in building a
network of active duty organizers.
http://www.traveling-soldier.org/
And join with Iraq
Veterans Against the War to end the occupations and bring all troops
home now! (www.ivaw.org/)
TROOP
NEWS
NOT
ANOTHER DAY
NOT
ANOTHER DOLLAR
NOT
ANOTHER LIFE
The
casket of Army Staff Sgt. Nekl B. Allen at his burial services at
Arlington National Cemetery Oct. 8, 2009. Allen, 29, from
Rochester, N.Y., died Sept. 12 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, when
enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised-explosive device
and small arms fire. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Troops
Invited:
Comments,
arguments, articles, and letters from service men and women, and
veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box 126, 2576
Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or send email to
contact@militaryproject.org:
Name, I.D., withheld unless you request publication. Same
address to unsubscribe. Phone: 888.711.2550
Military
Resistance Available In PDF Format
If
you prefer PDF to Word format, email contact@militaryproject.org
"I
Am Lucky Because I Am Alive"
"Anybody
Who Comes Back From Afghanistan Alive Is Lucky"
Fusilier
Thomas James injured in Afghanistan Photo: David Rose
07
Nov 2009 By David Harrison, Telegraph Media Group Limited [Excerpts]
Plastered
with bandages, a patch over his eye and medical equipment on his lap,
Fusilier James sat in a wheelchair outside Coventry Cathedral earlier
this year, ignoring his own horrific injuries, to salute a friend
killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
Just
five weeks after being blown up by the Taliban, the brave 20-year-old
soldier left his hospital bed to attend the funeral of Fusilier Shaun
Bush, 24.
He
listed his injuries without a shred of self-pity or bitterness: he
lost an arm, an eye and several fingers, broke his pelvis and a leg,
and suffered burns all over his body in an explosion hours before the
one that killed Fusilier Bush on August 15.
"I
am lucky because I am alive," he told The Sunday Telegraph at
his home in Coventry where he returned on Friday after a spell at
Headley Court in Surrey, the Ministry of Defence’s
rehabilitation centre for wounded soldiers.
"Anybody
who comes back from Afghanistan alive is lucky."
64%
Of British Say Afghan War "Unwinnable"
[Thanks
to Mark Shapiro, Military Resistance.]
November
8, 2009 The Sunday Times [London]
A
new ComRes poll for the BBC indicated that 64% of the public feel
that the war is "unwinnable", up from 58% in July.
FORWARD
OBSERVATIONS
"At
a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is
needed. Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s
ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting
reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.
"For
it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle
shower, but thunder.
"We
need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake."
Frederick
Douglass, 1852
"Hope
for change doesn’t cut it when you’re still losing
buddies."
--
J.D. Englehart, Iraq Veterans Against The War
I
say that when troops cannot be counted on to follow orders because
they see the futility and immorality of them THAT is the real key to
ending a war.
--
Al Jaccoma, Veterans For Peace
"What
country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from
time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?
Let them take arms." Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens
Smith, 1787.
Firearms
are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the
peoples’ liberty’s teeth.
--
George Washington
Iron
Curtain
Vietnam
Veterans Memorial Washington, D.C. October 1986.
From:
Mike Hastie
To:
Military Resistance
Sent:
October 29, 2009 10:14 AM
Subject:
Iron Curtain
Iron
Curtain
Some
tragedies are so horrible in human history,
There
is a stampede to bury the truth,
so
to make room for the next horrible lie.
Mike
Hastie
Vietnam
Veteran
October
29, 2009
Photo
and caption from the I-R-A-Q (I Remember Another
Quagmire) portfolio of Mike Hastie, US Army Medic, Vietnam 1970-71.
(For more of his outstanding work, contact at:
(hastiemike@earthlink.net)
T)
One
day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam, a sniper round went over my
head. The person who fired that weapon was not a terrorist, a
rebel, an extremist, or a so-called insurgent. The Vietnamese
individual who tried to kill me was a citizen of Vietnam, who did not
want me in his country. This truth escapes millions.
Mike
Hastie
U.S.
Army Medic
Vietnam
1970-71
December
13, 2004
Hidden
History:
THE
NEW ORLEANS GENERAL STRIKE OF NOVEMBER 8, 1892
"The
First General Strike In American History To Enlist Both Skilled And
Unskilled Labor, Black And White, And To Paralyze The Life Of A Great
City"
"White
Supremacy Was A Political And Social Creed; It Never Saved Labor From
Being Paid As Little As The Negro"
[Very
special thanks to Melissa Reilly, Baton Rogue, Louisiana, for going
to the library to copy this otherwise lost article. T]
By
ROGER WALLACE SHUGG, Louisiana Historical Quarterly, Vol. 21, #2
This
paper was read before the third annual meeting of the Southern
Historical Association at a session held in Chapel Hill, N. C., Nov.
19, 1937.
It
is drawn largely irons the files of contemporary New Orleans
newspapers, to which specific citations are omitted because of the
necessary condensation of material.
****************************************
The
first general strike in American history to enlist both skilled and
unskilled labor, black and white, and to paralyze the life of a great
city occurred in New Orleans in November of 1892.
More
than 20,000 men, who with their families made up nearly half the
population, stopped work for three days.
Despite
wild alarm and the threat of military intervention, there were no
riots or bloodshed. It was an orderly demonstration for union
recognition, the right to bargain collectively, and a preferential
closed shop.
The
failure of the strike did not detract from its significance: it was
the climax of the strongest labor movement in the South during the
last century.
New
Orleans was almost as well unionized as any other city in the
nation. Here labor reached its high water mark in the South,
and in the crucial year of 1892 waged an economic battle as
symptomatic of popular discontent and ambition as the larger
political crusade of Populism.
To
understand this proletarian uprising it is necessary to trace briefly
the origin and development of working-class organization in New
Orleans with some regard for the changing but always difficult
position of labor in the South.
******************************
The
Old South was naturally hostile to combinations among workingmen.
It
was agricultural, not industrial, and the cultivation of the most
productive land was mainly in the hands of people whose race
designated their caste as one of involuntary servitude.
Because
the South was dominated by slavery and plantation agriculture, it
lacked the free labor, cities, manufactures, and extensive commerce
which have been historically prerequisite to the formation of
proletarian guilds. Trades unionism could not take root where trades
were few, and those of a manual nature, accessory to plantations, and
commonly supplied by slave artisans.
But
wherever towns grew into cities, there could be found the freedom and
division of labor characteristic of unionism.
Especially
was this true of New Orleans, metropolis of the lower Mississippi
Valley, a city in but not wholly of the South. Here unions
arose among the skilled white workers even in the days of slavery.
The earliest to leave any record was a Typographical Society,
established by the printers in 1810, and permanently revived in 1835
to enforce uniform wages and prices. Eighteen years later, delegates
were sent to Pittsburgh to participate in the organization of the
International Typographical Union, which is still in existence.
Strongest
of all local crafts in the South was the Screwmen’s Benevolent
Association, established in 1850 by a hundred New Orleans stevedores
who performed the highly skilled operation of "screwing"
bales of cotton aboard transatlantic packets. In gangs of five
they commanded a joint daily wage of $13.50, and advanced this rate
without a strike but through a monopoly of labor to an ante-bellum
peak of $21. Two companies of Screwmen’s Guards, proudly
mustering 350 soldiers, fought for the Confederacy. Except for
mechanics at Baton Rouge, however, the screw- men and printers were
the only crafts in Louisiana to organize before the Civil War.
In
Southern cities it was almost impossible to unite the jealous
elements of labor, colored and white, bond and free, native and
foreign-born, divided among themselves, suffering the competition or
disabilities of slavery, and isolated from their fellows in the
North.
Organization
was anomalous to a slaveholding society which believed status rather
than contract to be the natural order of its working class.
The
Old South boasted that slavery made it immune to labor trouble; there
might conceivably be servile revolts, but never a strike.
That
employers were not disposed to bargain with workers of one race when
they owned so many of another was revealed by a casual but
significant incident. Mississippi River steamboat-owners induced the
Louisiana Legislature to outlaw marine and wharf strikes and
authorize the arrest of agitators for "tampering" with
crews as if they were recruited from slaves.
So
long as human bondage was the law for one race, workers of different
color were in peril of losing their liberties and being swept into
the orbit of slavery.
The
Federal occupation of New Orleans in 1862 brought new favors and
unprecedented power to native white labor.
It
drew subsistence from military doles and public works. From ten to
forty thousand poor people, of whom three in every four were white,
depended on the army commissary for food throughout the War.
Several thousand workingmen were beneficiaries of the high wages
fixed by military decree.
Under
these circumstances a number of short-lived unions arose to support
the Free State party in an abortive attempt at reconstruction.
Many
artisans sat in the convention of 1864, and in response to a petition
from 1,500 laborers, wrote into the constitution a generous schedule
of minimum wages on public works. Because this movement was
largely political, a hot-house plant cultivated by General Banks, it
collapsed at the end of the War.
White
labor was depressed by the economic and political troubles of
reconstruction. Its unhappy plight may be briefly illustrated
by incidents ten years apart.
In
December of 1865 the carpenters established a union, unskilled
workers a benevolent association, mechanics and laborers united in
mass meeting to demand an eight hour day, and white and colored
longshoremen together went on strike for higher wages.
Ten
years later, the panic of 1873 threw thousands out of work, and the
animosity engendered by carpetbag government led to race riots on the
levee, where the negro was willing to work for half what the white
man claimed he needed to live.
Employers
took advantage of this racial difference in standards of living
wherever it was economically feasible.
When
at last they required the votes of white working-men to overthrow the
carpetbaggers, whites were hired instead of blacks, but at the same
low wages.
White
supremacy was a political and social creed; it never saved labor from
being paid as little as the negro.
The
Civil War emancipated the slave but failed to define the measure of
his new freedom, and likewise the liberty of any worker, black or
white.
For
thirty years after Appomattox, especially during the sorry years of
reconstruction, the South was preoccupied with a fourfold quest for
home rule, the restoration of agriculture, industrialization, and —
underlying all the others — a practical definition of free
labor.
The
rights and duties of the last concerned the white worker nearly as
much as the colored, for they were economic rivals in Southern
cities, frequently in the same occupations, skilled and unskilled.
The
questions which wanted solution were how far employers might extend
the stigma and penalties of colored to white labor, and to what
lengths by way of reaction the latter would dissociate themselves
from the former.
Labor
in Louisiana met the competition of unorganized negroes by two
interesting expedients.
In
crafts like those of the cotton trades, where freedmen threatened the
integrity of wages, they were organized into affiliated associations
by the screwmen and yardmen, and bound to fill a certain but smaller
proportion of jobs at no less than the white man’s wage.
Eventually the skilled negro came to share this work almost equally
with whites, and the standard of living of both races was mutually
protected.
For
nearly a generation after the War a daily wage of $6 was maintained,
and this liberal remuneration was enjoyed in 1892 by over 1,000 white
and nearly as many colored screwmen.
No
other craft followed the example set by the cotton trades of keeping
a monopoly of labor divided between the two races.
The
Knights of Labor inaugurated a new form of racial cooperation in the
'Eighties with their characteristic assemblies of workers,
skilled and unskilled, colored and white, organized in geographical
districts. By 1887 they boasted twelve assemblies in New
Orleans and thirty outside.
It
was the sugar plantation negroes who rallied to the Knights and led
to their eventual undoing in Louisiana. The local prestige and power
of this mushroom organization was destroyed in 1887 by a disastrous
strike in the Teche sugar fields, where 5,000 negroes were reported
to have joined District Assembly 194 of the Knights.
On
November 1st, at the height of the grinding season when the whole
cane crop was at stake, they refused to work because planters would
not increase their wages.
To
all white people, however, it was not a question of wages but of
negro organization, reminiscent of reconstruction; and the strike was
everywhere regarded as a racial insurrection.
Eight
companies of State militia, whose expenses were privately defrayed by
the Planters’ Association, policed Lafourche, St. Mary, and
Terrebonne, while landed proprietors began to evict workers from
their cabins, threatening them with starvation, and arranged to
import strike-breakers of both races.
Within
three days the negroes returned to the cane-fields and sugar houses.
They were not subdued without some violence, and ring-leaders were
first jailed and then run out of the parishes to avoid lynching.
The
white Knights in New Orleans condemned these summary tactics, but
their power, national as well as local, was on the wane.
Not
until the general strike was another attempt made to organize the
negro, and then in crafts by the American Federation of Labor.
The
twenty-five years after Appomattox were the seed-time of the labor
movement in Louisiana.
Unions
arose and disappeared, only to rise again; none but those in the
cotton and printing trades preserved an uninterrupted existence; yet
one by one, with increasing momentum after recovery from the panic of
1873, the skilled crafts organized.
In
1880, there were twenty unions in New Orleans, which joined in the
creation of a Central Trades and Labor Assembly. Economic
unrest grew as the century wore on, because workers became
dissatisfied with prevailing wages and hours. There were epidemics of
strikes in 1880 and 1887.
The
working- class awakened to a sense of its power, if organized, in
trades too numerous to mention.
It
was ready in the 'Nineties to expand the traditional definition
of free labor.
********************************************
The
general strike was foreshadowed in the spring of 1892 by the struggle
of street-car drivers, first for shorter hours and then for a closed
shop.
This
union, established in 1870, had long fought in vain against the
sixteen hour day required on railways. It was an "anachronism"
so late in the nineteenth century, admitted conservative newspapers,
and the employers consented to shorten it to fourteen hours, or even
to twelve if wages were cut.
With
a favorable public opinion, and almost all the utility employees
organized, the car-drivers easily won a trade agreement which
conceded a twelve hour day at regular wages and prohibited any
discrimination against members of the union.
This
guarantee was soon violated by the leading companies. Organized
employees were penalized for every offense, large or small, but the
unorganized became notorious as "company pets."
The
last straw was the dismissal on frivolous charges of the sixteen
workers who had sponsored the twelve hour movement.
The
apparent policy of the street railways, to divide and rule,
demoralized their employees and undermined the union in which they
had found security and strength to improve working conditions.
The
sole alternative to its eventual disruption, and consequent loss of
any concerted bargaining power, was thought to be a preferential
closed shop: only union men to be hired whenever available: this was
the logic of the dilemma to which the railway presidents, who had
recently banded together, reduced their employees.
Accordingly,
the car-drivers went on strike in the third week of May, 1892.
Both
capital and labor were deaf to the Mayor’s immediate plea for
arbitration.
Each
side summoned to its support every interested ally with a grim
resolution to settle the issue of a closed shop conclusively and thus
establish a precedent for other trades.
Labor
felt itself stronger than ever before. Sentiment in favor of a
sympathetic strike swept the rank and file of other unions, and was
checked only by the conservative leaders who took charge of the
car-drivers’ fight.
This
was the first crisis in which New Orleans crafts stood ready to risk
the existence of all for the preservation of one.
No
less united were the railways. They had the natural sympathy of
prosperous citizens who were outraged by the demands of labor and
inconvenienced by the curtailment of street transportation.
More
effective allies were the newspapers.
All
except the Item gave head-lines to disorderly incidents, colored them
with the appearance of anarchy, condemned the Mayor for his refusal
to allow the police to be used as strike-breakers, called for the
militia, and attributed to labor a conspiracy to usurp the
traditional prerogative of management — the power to hire and
fire employees without let or hindrance.
Fearful
of losing this essential control, a committee of fifty merchants from
the Board of Trade and commodity and security exchanges, representing
the commercial capital of New Orleans, came to the aid of the
railways. They also denounced the strike, refused to consider
arbitration, and appealed for the military protection of property.
The
cry for force can be explained only by the fervor with which
employers desired to crush the strike, because there was no serious
disturbance of the peace.
The
merchants were too powerful to be denied: if they could not obtain
the militia at once, they might rely on the local courts.
The
officers of the car-drivers’ union were arrested on the charge
of violating a reconstruction conspiracy law of 1870.
While
the case was never pressed, it served the purpose of bringing the
strikers to terms. Both capital and labor were stalemated, the
former by the Mayor, the latter by the court, and arbitration was the
obvious solution. With Mayor Fitzpatrick acting as chairman and
casting the odd vote consistently for labor, the car-drivers snatched
from the struggle a preferential closed shop.
Although
this strike lasted but a week and involved less than a thousand
workingmen, it set the pattern of the general strike.
Capital
and labor had come to grips in organized array.
A
dispute between the car-drivers and railways had involved all large
employers and unions. The issue which brought them into
conflict was no less acute in other trades. The question for the
future, and soon to be answered, was whether New Orleans would become
a city of the closed shop.
Toward
this end, spurred on by the car-drivers’ victory, labor
extended and consolidated its forces.
The
campaign of the American Federation of Labor for additional unions,
inaugurated early in the year when Samuel Gompers appointed local
organizers, met with quick success. Thirty new associations
were chartered, raising the total number to ninety-five, and
over-confident leaders boasted that they would soon muster every
workingman in the city. As the movement spread, it also
achieved greater unity.
The
Board of Labor Organization Presidents, created solely to deal with
the street railways, gave way in the summer months to a democratic
but centralized Workingmen’s Amalgamated Council.
It
consisted of two delegates from each of forty-nine unions affiliated
with the A. F. of L., and represented a membership of over 20,000
laborers.
The
Council was as strong in numbers and skills as the Board of Trade,
commodity and security exchanges in property and influence.
A
clash was inevitable between these federated bodies of labor and
capital because they divided the economic jurisdiction of New Orleans
without agreement as to their respective functions and spheres of
interest.
The
growing unrest of labor during the summer brought the eventual
conflict closer.
It
was noticeable that workers demanded recognition of their unions as
well as better hours and wages. Upon the latter agreement could be
reached within the customary bounds of benevolent, paternal
management with its unilateral power; but for the former —
union recognition, and its twin, the closed shop—there was no
historic precedent.
"On
Tuesday, November 8, The Long Threatened General Strike Went Into
Effect"
What
led directly to the final struggle was the strike of the so-called
Triple Alliance, made up of three recently organized A. F. of L.
unions, the Teamsters, Scalesmen, and Packers.
A
minority of these workers were negroes, whose economic interests
united them with whites. The peculiar strength of their
combination in The Triple Alliance lay in the fact that they
performed the manual labor essential to moving the internal commerce
of New Orleans.
When
business was at a peak, on October 24, 1892, between two and three
thousand men left their jobs, because the Board of Trade refused to
grant them a ten hour day, overtime pay, and — chief bone of
contention as with the car-drivers — a preferential closed
shop.
Both
parties to the controversy were well prepared to fight it out.
The
merchants had enlisted many allies: the four railway systems entering
New Orleans, the cotton, sugar, and rice exchanges, the clearing
house, and mechanics’ and dealers’ exchange. A
defense fund of several thousands of dollars was on hand.
Conduct of the strike was entrusted to a committee of five merchants
from the Board of Trade.
Their
strategy was to appeal to the Governor and courts for whatever legal
and military action might be necessary to curb the unions and
preserve the property rights of management.
To
meet this formidable opposition, which promised to be political as
well as economic, the Triple Alliance relied upon the support of the
Workingmen’s Amalgamated Council. If necessary, every
craft would assist them, declared President Leonard, because the
strength of unionism and perhaps its survival depended on the
extension of the closed shop.
Direction
of the strike was placed in the hands of five men, not one of whom
represented the Triple Alliance.
Conservative
leaders of the oldest unions, the screwmen, printers, and
longshoremen, including a negro, controlled the Labor Committee.
For
a week the Board of Trade refused to recognize the existence of a
Triple Alliance and played out the farce of hearing complaints from
individual employees.
Then
the Labor Committee, moved to action by the indignation of the rank
and file, called a general strike.
The
Board of Trade was at once persuaded by other employers to meet the
union leaders, and an agreement was reached to resume work pending a
final settlement.
The
Labor Committee recalled its general strike order with evident
relief.
But
in a few hours the situation was worse than ever, because many
laborers failed to return, some employers refused to restore them to
jobs already filled by others, and mutual accusations of bad faith
made both sides bitter and suspicious.
The
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