On February 1, 1912 the Industrial Workers of the World (AKA the Wobblies or IWW) started the San Diego Free Speech Fight in response to a city ordinance preventing public speaking in and around the Stingaree neighborhood (now known as the Gaslamp Quarter). The authorities were trying to squelch labor and radical organizing in the […]
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December 25, 1910: A bomb destroyed a portion of the Llewellyn Ironworks in Los Angeles. On October 1st, a bomb had destroyed the Los Angeles Times building, killing 21 employees and injuring over 100. The Iron Workers had been fighting a brutal and protracted battle with U.S. Steel and the American Bridge Company, which were busting
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Long before Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers there was a long and radical history of IWW Farm Worker Organizing in the U.S. In 1903, the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA) tried to organize in the sugar beet fields of Oxnard, California. It was the first agricultural union in California to unite workers across different
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Larry Itliong and the Filipino Roots of the United Farm Workers Movement go back to 1906-1934. This was during the first wave of Filipino immigration to the U.S. Modesto “Larry” Itliong was born in the Philippines in 1913, when it was a territory of the U.S. He immigrated to the U.S. mainland in 1929 at
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Origins of the Knights of Labor Uriah Stephens founded the Knights of Labor (KOL) on December 28, 1869. The KOL leadership often denounced socialists and anarchists. Yet the union attracted and spawned many radicals. Daniel DeLeon was one of them. He would go on to cofound the IWW and become a leader of the Socialist
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