Episodes

  • 1 June 1981: Schlitz workers strike

    1 June 1981: Schlitz workers strike
    Jun 1 2026
    On this day, 1 June 1981, just over 700 production workers at the Schlitz Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, walked out on strike after contract negotiations broke down, when workers were offered far inferior settlements to Miller workers in the same town. Schlitz had been struggling financially since the late 1970s, partly due to a change to the recipe which was made to save money but was deeply unpopular. The workers kept up their walkout until the end of September until bosses retaliated by closing the plant, sacking all employees. The company was then sold.
    More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8098/schlitz-workers-strike

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    1 min
  • 31 May 1989: CLR James dies

    31 May 1989: CLR James dies
    May 31 2026
    On this day, 31 May 1989, CLR James, Trinidadian Marxist and author of The Black Jacobins, the definitive history of the Haitian Revolution, as well as other texts on class, colonialism and cricket, died aged 88 in Brixton, London.
    As a young man he joined the movement against British colonialism, and later moved to England and became cricket correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, forerunner to the Guardian newspaper.
    He lived in the US for a time, where alongside Raya Dunayevskaya and Grace Lee Boggs (pictured L-R), he formed the influential Johnson-Forest Tendency. Returning to Britain, he continued to write fiction and non-fiction, including a history of the Ghanaian revolution, until his death at home.
    We have some of his works available here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/c-l-r-james

    Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.
    • See all of our anniversaries each day, alongside sources and maps on the On This Day section of our Stories app: stories.workingclasshistory.com/date/today
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    1 min
  • 30 May 1968: Senegal general strike

    30 May 1968: Senegal general strike
    May 30 2026
    On this day, 30 May 1968 in Senegal at 6 PM, unions announced plans for an indefinite general strike to begin at midnight in protest at police brutality against a school and university student uprising. Despite police repression, workers held firm until 12 June when the government caved in and offered a 15% increase in wages.
    More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10319/senegal-general-strike

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    1 min
  • 29 May 1941: Disney animators strike

    29 May 1941: Disney animators strike
    May 29 2026
    On this day, 29 May 1941, animators for Disney in Los Angeles walked out on strike when 16 union cartoonists were fired for demanding union recognition, including Goofy creator Art Babbitt.
    Disney workers held a mass meeting the previous day where an assistant to Babbitt put forward a motion to strike, which was approved. On May 29, hundreds of men and women set up picket lines outside Disney studios and set up a protest camp in a field across the road. The majority of cartoonists, including non-union members, respected the strike. Warner Bros cartoonists also marched over to Disney at one point dressed as French revolutionaries from 1789. Union chefs from nearby restaurants also showed solidarity with the strike by cooking for pickets before and after work. One day rumours circulated that hired thugs were going to attack the strikers, so mechanics from Burbank airport armed themselves with wrenches and went to guard the strikers' camp.
    Walt Disney drove across the picket line every day, and on one occasion got out of his car to try to attack Babbitt. Eventually, after five weeks, the strike was settled by mediators who ruled in favour of the union on every issue, and the workers received pay increases of nearly 50% in many cases. Babbitt also won his job back following a lawsuit.
    Walt Disney was bitter about his defeat until he died (lol).
    More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10122/disney-animators'-strike

    Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.
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    2 mins
  • 28 May 1936: Popular Front strike wave

    28 May 1936: Popular Front strike wave
    May 29 2026
    On this day, 28 May 1936, 32,000 workers occupied the Renault plant in Paris. 100,000 more workers soon occupied every major engineering factory around the city. Over the following month a strike wave swept the whole country from the factories to non-unionised shops, involving 2 million workers in 12,000 strikes and occupations. To stop the upheaval, employers and the government had to agree wage increases of 7-15%, a 40 hour working week, paid holidays and collective bargaining rights.
    More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10039/french-popular-front-strike-wave

    Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.
    • See all of our anniversaries each day, alongside sources and maps on the On This Day section of our Stories app: stories.workingclasshistory.com/date/today
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    1 min
  • 27 May 1935: Ballantyne lockout begins

    27 May 1935: Ballantyne lockout begins
    May 27 2026
    On this day, 27 May 1935 in Canada, employers at Ballantyne Pier locked out members of the Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association in an attempt to break workers' organisation on the docks. After breaking a previous union, employers had set up the VDWWA as a tame company union, but the attempt to pacify the workers was unsuccessful. Workers responded by going on strike for months, but by December they were defeated. However it did not take long for workers to organise themselves once again and form a new union.
    More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9941/ballantyne-lockout-begins

    Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.
    • See all of our anniversaries each day, alongside sources and maps on the On This Day section of our Stories app: stories.workingclasshistory.com/date/today
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    1 min
  • 26 May 1824: Pawtucket Mill strike

    26 May 1824: Pawtucket Mill strike
    May 26 2026
    On this day, 26 May 1824, the first recorded factory strike in US history took place when 102 women and girls working at the Slater Mill in Pawtucket picketed their factory.
    Two days prior, the mill owners in the town had decided to increase working hours by one hour a day for everyone with no additional pay, and cut the pay of power-loom weavers by 25%. The weavers affected were all women and girls aged 15 to 30, whom were previously being paid "extravagant wages for young women," according to the employers.
    What the owners did not expect, something which had not happened before in the infant textile industry, or indeed any factory in the country: the women organised themselves and went on strike. They were joined by other workers and members of the local community, who blockaded the mills, protested and hurled rocks at the mansions of the owners. One prominent local politician, George F. Jenkes wrote in his journal during the dispute: “I have just returned from one of the moste gloomy assemblage of people I have ever witnessed, from the street from the Pawtucket Bank across the bridge to Josiah Mill’s shop is literally filled with Men Women and Children — making a mob of very daring aspect, insulting the managers of cotton mills in every shape — pulling and hauling — screaming and shouting thro the streets.”
    On the final day of the week-long strike, one of the mills was set ablaze. The day after the fire, the mill owners moved to negotiate with the workers, and they reached a compromise.
    In the wake of the dispute, other groups of workers began organising themselves, and other strikes would break out across the New England textile industry in the coming years.
    Learn more about this dispute in our podcast episode 32: https://workingclasshistory.com/2019/08/12/e28-the-pawtucket-mill-strike/



    Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.
    • See all of our anniversaries each day, alongside sources and maps on the On This Day section of our Stories app: stories.workingclasshistory.com/date/today
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    2 mins
  • 25 May 1901: FORA founded

    25 May 1901: FORA founded
    May 25 2026
    On this day, 25 May 1901, 27 unions around Argentina gathered and together formed the the revolutionary anarchist union the Federacion Obrera Argentina (later renamed the FORA).
    It was committed to the methods of workers’ organisation and direct action as principal weapons in the struggle against the state.
    In October, the FOA organised its first general strike, a 24-hour strike in solidarity with striking sugar refinery workers in Rosario, one of whom was killed by police.
    In 1902, the union organised a general strike of bakery workers to demand the release of two bakery union members who had been arrested by police. The police raided the FOA headquarters, and large numbers of union members were arrested and tortured, eventually breaking the strike. FOA stevedores walked out on strike shortly thereafter.
    In an attempt to halt a wave of strikes, the government passed the Anti-Alien Act, enabling them to quickly deport “undesirable” migrants - namely, anarchists and union activists. A state of siege was then declared, and most union offices and radical publications were shut down.
    In spite of the repression, the union continued to grow, and in 1904 it was renamed Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA). The FORA organised multiple other general strikes, and survived repeated raids and attacks by police and right-wing mobs.
    In the 1920s, faced with mass unemployment, the union launched a campaign for a maximum six-hour working day.
    A wave of strikes broke out once more in 1929. But shortly thereafter, in 1930, a right wing coup by a general José Félix Uriburu took place. Uriburu's regime declared martial law, and initiated a wave of terror against the anarchist and working-class movements, including the systematic use of torture, and secret executions. This broke both the FORA and the anarchist movement more generally.
    More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9770/fora-anarchist-union-founded

    Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory.
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    3 mins