Labor History

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 […]

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

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

Victor Serge was born on this date in Brussels. Serge was a novelist, poet, historian, & militant activist most well-known for his novel, “The Birth of Our Power.” In 1909 he moved to Paris, where he collaborated with Raymond Callemin on the newspaper L’anarchie. Callemin was executed in 1913 for his role in the Bonnot gang

A Panel Discussion And Readings With: Fascists, authoritarians, and capitalists exploit existing prejudices and bigotries within marginalized communities to divide them and get them fighting among each other. They exploit these bigotries to disrupt their movements and their solidarity, and to reduce their effectiveness. In this workshop, several working-class writers will read excerpts from their