14 April 1913: Belgium general strike On this day, 14 April 1913, workers across Belgium went on strike, after the failure of Parliament to introduce universal male suffrage, the strike, in which 700,000 workers participated, were not only able to bring many national industries to standstill but also force Parliament to immediately reconvene. Suffrage would be granted only after World War I, but the general strike of 1913 proved to be a significant victory for the socialist movement. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8018/belgian-general-strike

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13 April 1890: Ben Fletcher born On this day, 13 April 1890, Black dock worker and leading Industrial Workers of the World union activist, Ben Fletcher, was born in Philadelphia. Starting work on the docks in 1910, he joined the revolutionary IWW union three years later and became the lead organiser of its Local 8 on the Philadelphia docks. At a time when most unions were racially segregated, Fletcher helped build a powerful, multiracial workers' organisation which organised a strike in 1913 and won many improvements. In 1918, after the entry of the US into World War I, Fletcher was arrested and charged with dozens of other IWW members for supposedly hampering the war effort. Despite there being no witnesses to testify against Fletcher, he and all the others were convicted. Fletcher was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, after which he quipped to fellow defendant Big Bill Haywood: "The Judge has been using very ungrammatical language." When Hayward asked him "How is that, Ben?" Fletcher replied: ‘His sentences are much too long.’”  His sentence was commuted in 1922, and he immediately returned to Philadelphia to take part in a strike for a maximum 40 hour work week. Learn more about his life and activism in episodes 73-74 of our podcast: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e73-ben-fletcher/ And you can find out even more in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/ben-fletcher-the-life-and-times-of-a-black-wobbly-peter-cole

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12 April 1920: Ireland general strike On this day, 12 April 1920, workers in Ireland launched a general strike in support of pro-independence prisoners who were on hunger strike in Mountjoy prison, Dublin. The postal service, public transport, shops, pubs and public toilets were all shut. After two days, the British government caved and released all the prisoners. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8363/ireland-general-strike

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11 April 1960: April revolution On this day, 11 April 1960, the body of a young activist, Kim Ju-yul, was found on the beach in Masan, South Korea. The young high school student had disappeared during a protest the previous month against electoral corruption under the US-backed Rhee dictatorship. Authorities declared that his autopsy showed he had died by drowning, but protesters forced their way into the hospital where his body was being held and discovered that Kim's skull had been split by a teargas grenade which had penetrated from his eyes to the back of his head. Anger at the murder exploded across the country the following week in what became known as the April revolution which overthrew the regime.  Learn more about South Korean history at this time in our podcast episode 51: https://workingclasshistory.com/2021/03/24/e51-jeon-tae-il-and-lee-so-sun/ 

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10 April 1911: Lima general strike On this day, 10 April 1911, a general strike erupted in Lima, Peru bringing business and transport to a standstill. The stoppage broke out in support of a walkout of 500 workers at a US-owned cotton mill the previous month who were demanding better pay, the abolition of the night shift and a reduction of the working day from 13 to 10 hours. Faced with a general strike, the president intervened and forced the mill to agree to the workers' demands.  More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8164/general-strike-in-lima

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9 April 1946: Palestine general strike On this day, 9 April 1946, Palestinian Arab and Jewish workers at the Tel Aviv post office walked out on strike. The next day, they were joined by postal workers across all of Palestine in what would soon develop into a general strike of blue and white-collar public sector workers. In response to the postal workers' strike, employers quickly made far-reaching concessions, which the Histadrut (the Jewish union federation) recommended employees accept. However, rank-and-file postal workers voted to reject the offer and continue their strike. On 14 April, Arab and Jewish railway workers joined the strike, paralysing the country's rail system. Middle and lower-level white collar government employees also joined the strike so that, by 15 April, 23,000 workers were on strike across the country. It also seemed that oil workers would join the strike, but this was opposed by the Histadrut on the basis that it would harm the broader Zionist project. Despite this, by the end of April workers had won a number of concessions: a increase in wages and cost-of-living adjustments, and improvements to the pension system. Palestinian Arab and Jewish communists declared the strike "a blow against the 'divide and rule' policy of imperialism, a slap in the face of those who hold chauvinist ideologies and propagate national division." However, the strike would prove to be a one-off as worker solidarity gave way to ethnic cleansing and the Nakba. Learn more in episodes 86-87 of our podcast, about class struggle in Palestine: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e86-87-class-struggle-in-palestine/

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8 April 2019: Gabon student protests On 8 April 2019 protests began in Gabon against government proposals to reduce access to student grants. Many university students were entitled to grants of around 83,000 CFA francs per month, and 65% of its recipients were aged 20 or over. The government planned to set 19 as the maximum age, as well as require high marks in examinations to be eligible. High school and university students in the capital Libreville and elsewhere walked out of class and took to the streets, and there were some scuffles with police. One participant, Samantha, told a journalist that she found the "reform particularly unfair to the working classes". In response, the government shut down all schools in the country. Protests continued for three days until the government backtracked and agreed not to implement the changes. Gabon had accepted a loan from the International Monetary Fund in 2017, a condition of which was that the government had to reduce public spending. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7987/gabon-student-protests

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7 April 2010: Carlsberg beer strike On this day, 7 April 2010, 800 Carlsberg factory workers in Copenhagen, Denmark, walked out on strike in protest at new management policies to restrict beer drinking at work. The company's truck drivers joined the strike in sympathy. The previous week, Carlsberg removed beer coolers from the factory floor, which contained free beer for workers to drink throughout the day. Instead they declared that workers would only be allowed to drink beer in the canteen at lunch hour. The strike lasted for five days but ended in defeat. However the following month workers walked out again for a pay increase. This is an article about the strike from the time: https://libcom.org/news/carlsberg-workers-walk-job-retain-right-drink-beer-work-09042010 The workers may have been unknowingly continuing a tradition from a century before in the US when many workers prepared to strike against prohibition, declaring "no beer, no work", with design we have reproduced to help fund our work: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/no-beer-no-work

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6 April 1712: New York enslaved uprising On this day, 6 April 1712, a major rebellion of enslaved people in North America took place in New York City. The enslaved people set fire to a building on Maiden Lane, near Broadway and, as the colonists tried to put out the blaze, the rebels attacked them with guns, hatchets and swords, killing nine and injuring six. They then made their escape to the north, which was as yet undeveloped.  Militia and armed colonists then went on the hunt for the rebels. Six rebels died by suicide to avoid capture, and 40 put on trial. 18 were acquitted and others pardoned, but the remainder were brutally executed. Some were crushed to death, others were burned alive, some were hanged and others starved to death. In the wake of the revolt, stricter laws were established to try to discourage future rebellions, including restrictions on direct communication between enslaved people, a ban on their possessing firearms, and harsher punishments. Learn more about slavery and rebellions against it in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/products/a-history-of-pan-african-revolt-c-l-r-james

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5 April 1977: 504 sit-ins On this day, 5 April 1977, US disability rights activists and organisers stormed and occupied the offices of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, and Seattle, demanding the enactment of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This was a crucial piece of disability civil rights legislation that had been passed 4 years earlier, which mandated that no federally funded programs could exclude persons with disabilities. Despite the Act’s passage, the federal government, under the leadership of HEW director Joseph Califano, had been delaying their directive to create regulations which would operationalise the legislation. During that time regulations had been weakened in favour of business interests, under the guidance of an HEW task force which included no persons with disabilities. In response disability rights activists across the US formed the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities (ACCD), who began organising the sit-ins. Most notably, in San Francisco, disabled rights activists Judith Heumann, Kitty Cone, and Mary Jane Owen successfully organised approximately 150 disabled activists, and their supporters, in a 25 day occupation of the US Federal Building. This action was supported through a solidarity network which included the Black Panthers providing meals, allied politicians sending mattresses and bedding, and the International Association of Machinists, who helped to transport protestors, wheelchairs. and other equipment, and facilitated the transport for a delegation to Washington. The regulations for section 504 were signed into law on 28 April, 1977. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/12535/504-sit-in

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4 April 1886: Pastor condemns strikes in New Haven On 4 April 1886 Rev Newman Smith, pastor of the Centre Congregational Church in New Haven, Connecticut, delivered a lecture at the Labor Lyceum in the city where he condemned strikes. According to the New York Times, New Haven at the time had "picked up the reputation lately of having more strikes than any other city of its size in the country". Business owners, and the media, were uniting to fight against the Knights of Labor and other organisations of workers trying to achieve better pay and safer working conditions. Rev Smith, while he said he supported the right to strike, claimed that strikes "killed the goose that lays the golden eggs." He also argued that strikers should not try to prevent scab replacement workers from working, arguing that "if 70 men in any community say they won't work in a certain way and the seventy-first man shan't work at all if not with them, the public will stand by the seventy-first man every time."         More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7950/pastor-condemns-strikes

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3 April 1967: Barbican workers strike On this day, 3 April 1967 construction firm Myton, assisted by the police and the construction workers' union National Federation of Building Trades Operatives, attempted to bring in a scab workforce to replace unofficial strikers who were demanding reinstatement of victimised worker activists on the Barbican site in London. The strikers had been out for 6 months, and were threatened with expulsion from their union (which would also cost them jobs in closed shop sites). A union official who tried to support the workers was sacked by the union. Still the workers held out for over 7 more months against the employers, the unions and the police but were eventually forced to give in.  More information and sources: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10152/myton-buses-in-barbican-scabs

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2 April 1863: Richmond food riot On this day, 2 April 1863, a group of women, having been refused an audience with the governor John Letcher, took to the streets of Richmond, Virginia to protest food shortages, hoarding, and the spiralling inflation in the Confederate capital. The march soon turned into a riot with government warehouses, grocery stores, and commercial establishments attacked and raided. Chants of “bread or blood” and “we celebrate our right to live — we are starving!” were reported by various eyewitnesses. Troops, deployed by the authorities, then threatened to fire upon the protestors, causing them to disperse, and over sixty women and men were arrested and tried for their participation in the riot. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9152/richmond-bread-riot

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1 April 1949: NYC Brewery strike On this day, 1 April 1949, 6,000 workers in 11 breweries in New York City walked out on strike for a pay increase, better staffing and a 35 hour working week instead of 40. The strike lasted 2 1/2 months, and massively slashed beer production in New York, previously the capital of the production in the country, causing Wisconsin to overtake it. The drought of local brew meant that beers from the Midwestern United States managed to penetrate the market for the first time, with Blatz becoming briefly popular. They eventually won most of their demands, and a reduced working week of 37 1/2 hours. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8037/new-york-brewery-strike

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