"Jam Session" is an album compiled from a 1952 jam session which brought together three of history's greatest alto saxophonists; Parker, Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter, as well as Ben Webster and Flip Phillips on tenor sax.
Track listing
00:00 - 01. Jam Blues (Norman Shrdlu)
<
48:02 - 04. Funky Blues (Johnny Hodges)
Personnel
Alto Saxophone - Benny Carter, Charlie Parker,
Johnny Hodges
Bass - Ray Brown
Drums - J.C. Heard
Guitar - Barney Kessel
Piano - Oscar Peterson
Tenor Saxophone - Ben Webster, Flip Phillips Trumpet - Charlie Shavers
If you want you can support the channel and help me upload more awesome jazz albums more often :) https://fr.tipeee.com/..
<
https://youtu.be/KXP84ijiLbg?si=em_Z_5ITLc6jwIzA
Friday, September 18, 2026
It’s Abdul El-Sayed. This was my first coffee of the day ☝๐ผ
Coffee is more than just a hobby for me – it’s a love affair. I roast my beans at home, grind them fresh, and pull the shot myself. I froth, I pour, and every once in a while, I make some half-decent latte art (see above).
Why so much effort? Because when something’s worth doing, ๐ถ๐’๐ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐๐ต ๐ฑ๐ผ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ถ๐ ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐.
The same goes for this campaign: ๐๐ฐ ๐ด๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ต๐ค๐ถ๐ต๐ด. ๐๐ฐ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ ๐๐๐ ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐บ. Just hard work and the guts to fight against corporate greed and oligarchs.
Billionaires are ready to spend big to prop up their far-right puppet, Mike Rogers. That’s why I have to ask:
Can you chip in $6 – about the price of a cup of coffee – to help power our campaign? abdul4sen.org/l/OVrmgq
Thank you. Together, we’ll win this race.
Text STOP to quit
Thursday, September 17, 2026
We are the 99% Coalition ! The Anti-Monopoly Capital -1% Coalition
We are the 99% Coalition ! The Anti-Monopoly Capital -1% Coalition
<
THE 99% COALITION; WE ARE IT.THAT'S WHAT'S UP
http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/08/we-are-99-coalition.html
Building the Anti-Monopoly or anti-WALL STREET or anti-1% Coalition We are the 99% Coalition ! (Nationalization of Wall Street (see For the People Owning the Too-Big-To-Fail Corporations)
http://www.cpusa.org/party-program/#5a
from Communist PartyUSA Program, The Road to Socialism USA:Unity for Peace, Democracy, Jobs and Equality, with modifications
by Charles Brown
U.S. capitalism is presently in the monopoly capitalist, imperialist stage of development, and in the transnational monopoly phase of that stage, with finance capital or WALL STREET at the head. Once the most reactionary ultra-right transnationals, so-called globalized free marketeers, and monopolies, such as the Walmart and the Koch Brothers, who dominated political life for much of the last 30 years with the advent of Reaganism, receive a decisive defeat, it will be both necessary and possible to take on the transnationals as a whole; it will be possible to move on to the anti-monopoly, anti-Wall Street stage of struggle. Building an anti-monopoly , anti-1% coalition is the next key step in the road to socialism in the U.S.
The stage of radically curbing the power of monopoly as a whole will be more advanced than the current stage of struggle against the ultra-right, the fascistic sections of the Republican Party.. In the anti-monopoly coalition period, the peoples democratic forces will take on the transnational monopolies, WALL STREET, as a whole, not only their most reactionary sector. In that future period, the strategic aim will be to radically curb the power of the transnational monopolies as a whole over the political, economic and ideological life of our country. To advance a serious effort to curb that power to a substantial extent will require a broad coalition of all class, including small business owners, and social forces whose actual interests conflict with those of the monopolies. It will need to embrace all the social movements and political tendencies who oppose these transnationals on some or many issues.
THE 99% COALITION; WE ARE IT.THAT'S WHAT'S UP
Such a coalition will build on the alliances and organizational forms developed in the current struggle to defeat the ultra right, the tea Republicans. Because the anti-monopoly coalition seeks to curb the power of all sections of the transnationals it will no longer include the more flexible section of the transnationals and their political representatives. But that shift need not mean a narrowing of the anti-monopoly coalition. It must involve a great mass upsurge of millions. The coalition can broaden and deepen as sections of the objectively anti-monopoly strata shed illusions through the experience of struggle and the successful achievement of a major defeat of the ultra-right. The core of this coalition must include our multi-national, male-female working class and its organized sector the labor movement, the African American people as a whole as well as Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, other Latino peoples, Native Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and all other nationally and racially specially oppressed peoples, as well as women and youth. It is also possible to win other social forces whose interests clash with those of the monopolies, including people such as seniors, members of the LGBT community, the disabled, small business owners, family farmers, and self-employed professionals, as well as multi-class social movements such as peace, environmental, health care, education, housing, and others. All share with the working class the common enemy of monopoly power. All have a stake in radically curbing the power of monopolies and in seeking to win an anti-monopoly government.
An Anti-Monopoly Program
At a future stage of struggle when the anti-monopoly peoples coalition is growing and strong, that coalition will put forward a program of public policies and government practices. Struggles on many of these issues have already begun, and some may have won important victories in an earlier stage of struggle, which a developed anti-monopoly program will build on. As part of that coalition, the Communist Party will propose radical democratic demands aimed at curbing the political, economic, and ideological power of the monopolies. Our suggestions will include (unless they are already won at an earlier stage): The building of a mass peoples party capable of contending for governmental power, a party free of domination by any monopoly interests;
Removal from the electoral system of the financial contributions of monopolies, to be replaced by public funding and guarantees of honest elections where each vote counts and all votes are counted; Replacing the foreign policy of preemptive strikes and dictating to the world in the interests of U.S.-based transnationals with a policy of international cooperation to solve problems of war and aggression, poverty, education, environment, health, and development;
Full restoration and expansion of the Bill of Rights and all democratic rights; the complete separation of church and state; Full legal protection from hate crimes and racial profiling, and the outlawing of oral and written racist propaganda; Implementation of affirmative action and compensatory programs to achieve actual equality for the racially and nationally oppressed and women;
Prevention of the freedom of monopolies to move assets in ways that harm workers and communities without full compensation; the guaranteed right to a job at living wages or full income through public works and public service jobs; the growth of public ownership of industries; Elimination of management prerogatives coupled with the expansion of workers and union rights to prevent socially harmful management decisions;
Full funding for education, affordable housing programs, day care, Social Security, a universal health care program, youth job training and recreation programs, and cultural programs;
Creation of a social fund starting at $200 billion to make up for past and continuing wrongs and to help achieve equality in facilities and infrastructure for communities of the racially and nationally oppressed; No taxes for workers and low and middle income people; progressive taxation of the wealthy and private corporations; Military budget slashed to a fraction of current spending; and, All media to be free of monopoly ownership. Nationalization of Wall Street (see For the People Owning the Too-Big-To-Fail Corporations)
http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/05/for-people-owning-too-big-to-fail.html)
THE 99% COALITION; WE ARE IT.THAT'S WHAT'S UP
http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/08/we-are-99-coalition.html
Building the Anti-Monopoly or anti-WALL STREET or anti-1% Coalition We are the 99% Coalition ! (Nationalization of Wall Street (see For the People Owning the Too-Big-To-Fail Corporations)
http://www.cpusa.org/party-program/#5a
from Communist PartyUSA Program, The Road to Socialism USA:Unity for Peace, Democracy, Jobs and Equality, with modifications
by Charles Brown
U.S. capitalism is presently in the monopoly capitalist, imperialist stage of development, and in the transnational monopoly phase of that stage, with finance capital or WALL STREET at the head. Once the most reactionary ultra-right transnationals, so-called globalized free marketeers, and monopolies, such as the Walmart and the Koch Brothers, who dominated political life for much of the last 30 years with the advent of Reaganism, receive a decisive defeat, it will be both necessary and possible to take on the transnationals as a whole; it will be possible to move on to the anti-monopoly, anti-Wall Street stage of struggle. Building an anti-monopoly , anti-1% coalition is the next key step in the road to socialism in the U.S.
The stage of radically curbing the power of monopoly as a whole will be more advanced than the current stage of struggle against the ultra-right, the fascistic sections of the Republican Party.. In the anti-monopoly coalition period, the peoples democratic forces will take on the transnational monopolies, WALL STREET, as a whole, not only their most reactionary sector. In that future period, the strategic aim will be to radically curb the power of the transnational monopolies as a whole over the political, economic and ideological life of our country. To advance a serious effort to curb that power to a substantial extent will require a broad coalition of all class, including small business owners, and social forces whose actual interests conflict with those of the monopolies. It will need to embrace all the social movements and political tendencies who oppose these transnationals on some or many issues.
THE 99% COALITION; WE ARE IT.THAT'S WHAT'S UP
Such a coalition will build on the alliances and organizational forms developed in the current struggle to defeat the ultra right, the tea Republicans. Because the anti-monopoly coalition seeks to curb the power of all sections of the transnationals it will no longer include the more flexible section of the transnationals and their political representatives. But that shift need not mean a narrowing of the anti-monopoly coalition. It must involve a great mass upsurge of millions. The coalition can broaden and deepen as sections of the objectively anti-monopoly strata shed illusions through the experience of struggle and the successful achievement of a major defeat of the ultra-right. The core of this coalition must include our multi-national, male-female working class and its organized sector the labor movement, the African American people as a whole as well as Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, other Latino peoples, Native Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and all other nationally and racially specially oppressed peoples, as well as women and youth. It is also possible to win other social forces whose interests clash with those of the monopolies, including people such as seniors, members of the LGBT community, the disabled, small business owners, family farmers, and self-employed professionals, as well as multi-class social movements such as peace, environmental, health care, education, housing, and others. All share with the working class the common enemy of monopoly power. All have a stake in radically curbing the power of monopolies and in seeking to win an anti-monopoly government.
An Anti-Monopoly Program
At a future stage of struggle when the anti-monopoly peoples coalition is growing and strong, that coalition will put forward a program of public policies and government practices. Struggles on many of these issues have already begun, and some may have won important victories in an earlier stage of struggle, which a developed anti-monopoly program will build on. As part of that coalition, the Communist Party will propose radical democratic demands aimed at curbing the political, economic, and ideological power of the monopolies. Our suggestions will include (unless they are already won at an earlier stage): The building of a mass peoples party capable of contending for governmental power, a party free of domination by any monopoly interests;
Removal from the electoral system of the financial contributions of monopolies, to be replaced by public funding and guarantees of honest elections where each vote counts and all votes are counted; Replacing the foreign policy of preemptive strikes and dictating to the world in the interests of U.S.-based transnationals with a policy of international cooperation to solve problems of war and aggression, poverty, education, environment, health, and development;
Full restoration and expansion of the Bill of Rights and all democratic rights; the complete separation of church and state; Full legal protection from hate crimes and racial profiling, and the outlawing of oral and written racist propaganda; Implementation of affirmative action and compensatory programs to achieve actual equality for the racially and nationally oppressed and women;
Prevention of the freedom of monopolies to move assets in ways that harm workers and communities without full compensation; the guaranteed right to a job at living wages or full income through public works and public service jobs; the growth of public ownership of industries; Elimination of management prerogatives coupled with the expansion of workers and union rights to prevent socially harmful management decisions;
Full funding for education, affordable housing programs, day care, Social Security, a universal health care program, youth job training and recreation programs, and cultural programs;
Creation of a social fund starting at $200 billion to make up for past and continuing wrongs and to help achieve equality in facilities and infrastructure for communities of the racially and nationally oppressed; No taxes for workers and low and middle income people; progressive taxation of the wealthy and private corporations; Military budget slashed to a fraction of current spending; and, All media to be free of monopoly ownership. Nationalization of Wall Street (see For the People Owning the Too-Big-To-Fail Corporations)
http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/05/for-people-owning-too-big-to-fail.html)
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
<
The term "middle class " implies that there is a lower class. It divides the working class, the 99%, against itself. The term "middle class " implies that there is a lower class. It divides the working class, the 99%, against itself. The poor_are_ working class! The Lower class, which the middle class have been impliedly dogging out all these years by distinguishing themselves as middle class_above_ the lower class. The "middle" class income is a thousand times closer to lower class income than upper class income ( 1%) . It's not really in the middle as in half way in between. It's much, much closer to the bottom than the top . Middle and Lower are both part of 99% of the population; upper is 1% population. Lower and Middle, unite ! Defeat the Upper class 99% vs 1%, We r the 99% ! We r the 99%, the Working Class !, wage-laborers, the People. If We become conscious of that We can win every election • Problem is half of us are braindead / class UNconscious/ class traitors - the 73 million Republican voters are class brain dead. The poor are working class just as much as the middle class Black people are working class just as much as Midwest industrial workers . Middle Class and Lower Class unite and vote out the Upper Class's
The term "middle class " implies that there is a lower class. It divides the working class, the 99%, against itself. The term "middle class " implies that there is a lower class. It divides the working class, the 99%, against itself. The poor_are_ working class! The Lower class, which the middle class have been impliedly dogging out all these years by distinguishing themselves as middle class_above_ the lower class. The "middle" class income is a thousand times closer to lower class income than upper class income ( 1%) . It's not really in the middle as in half way in between. It's much, much closer to the bottom than the top . Middle and Lower are both part of 99% of the population; upper is 1% population. Lower and Middle, unite ! Defeat the Upper class 99% vs 1%, We r the 99% ! We r the 99%, the Working Class !, wage-laborers, the People. If We become conscious of that We can win every election • Problem is half of us are braindead / class UNconscious/ class traitors - the 73 million Republican voters are class brain dead. The poor are working class just as much as the middle class Black people are working class just as much as Midwest industrial workers . Middle Class and Lower Class unite and vote out the Upper Class's
What is the Connection Between Labor Day and May Day Or International Workers Day?<
By Professor Bruce Ewen <
WCCCD <
Mayday, or International Workera Dav. is colebrated ae an affaial Amazingn da cweat atatarie corn. heane and sauash, holiday in 66 countries and unoffcially celebrated in many more. but rarely is it recoonized in this country, where it began. Much of the information presented here comes from William Adelman's research,<
"The Haymarket Affair" published by the Illinois Labor History Society, and the PBS video, with Adelman serving as the narrator. And from my own knowledge of labor and industrial history.
"Haymarket Riot," Most people living in the United States know little about the events in Chicago, at Haymarket Square, in May of 1886 that led to the establishment of the 8 hour day; those who are aware of the Haymarket Affair are led to believe by most textbooks that this mass demonstration that resulted in a dynamite bomb being thrown into the crowd was led by violent anarchists holding an illegal demonstration.
^ To understand the background of the Haymarket Affair, it is important to understand the working conditions in factories, mines, slaughterhouses and mills in the U.S. during the industrial revolution of the 19th Century; especially after the end of the Civil War, which saw the rapid development of monopolies in almost every industry, with control centered more and more in the financial sector of the economy, where J.P. Morgan reigned supreme. It was the era of brutal exploitation of workers throughout the economy - child labor, below subsistence level wages for all, especially for women and children, 12-16 hour workdays, 6-7 days a week, dangerous working conditions, the absence of health and safety regulations - an era spoken to by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Jack London's The Iron Heel and Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais' Labor's Untold Story, among others.
It was the era of the Robber Barons, as spoken to in Matthew Josephson's popular book of the same title. Of Rockefeller and Standard Oil, of the American Tobacco Trust, of the Steel Trust under Carnegie and Morgan, the Railroad Trust, etc. Of the rape of the Appalachian Mountains biodiversity by lumber and coal monopolies. Of the paying of coal miners in scrip that was only accepted in the Company Store that raised prices 20 percent on payday. "I owe my soul to the company Store."
Without government support for the right to unionize or strike for higher wages and safe working conditions, workers organized strikes, demonstrations, petitioned government for protection, and realized that public support was absolutely necessary to improve the brutal working conditions that existed.
Out of this set of conditions came the organizing behind the 8-hour day movement. And the organizing was met with violent reactions by the police, ordered by elected officials under the influence of the Robber Barons to attack peaceful demonstrations and strikes.
In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labor), called for May 1, 1886 to be the beginning of a nationwide movement for the 8-hour day. This was not a very radical idea, because both Illinois workers and Federal employees were supposed to have been covered by the 8-hour day since 1867, but the federal government failed to enforce this law, and in Illinois, employers forced workers to sign waivers as a condition of employment. Two years of planning and organizing, including the attempt to get employer agreement, led up to the Haymarket Affair. Two of the organizers of these demonstrations, questionnaires, petitions, etc. were Lucy and Albert Parsons. Lucy had been born a slave in Texas in 1853. Her heritage was African American, Native American and Mexican. She worked for the Freedman's Bureau after the Civil War. She organized women sewing workers in Chicago and wrote labor pamphlets. Her husband Albert was a printer, a member of the Knights of Labor, and one of the founders of the Chicago Trades and Labor Assembly.
Labor rallies were happening all over the nation around the 8 - hour demands. Things turned from peaceful to violent on May 3, 1886 when the Chicago police attacked and killed picketing workers at the McCormick Reaper Plant. This provoked a protest meeting planned for Haymarket Square on the evening of May 4.
The pro-labor Mayor of Chicago, Carter Harrison, gave permission for the meeting. When this peaceful and legal meeting was almost over and the number of workers had dwindled down to about 200 people, 176 police officers carrying Winchester repeater rifles attacked the crowd. Then someone, unknown to this day (probably an agent-provocateur - common in U.S. history), threw the first dynamite some of their own as well as injuring and killing workers.<
bomb ever used in the peacetime history of the U.S. The police panicked, and opened fire into the crowd, killing the world used the incident to crush local union movements.
The next day, martial law was declared in Chicago and throughout the nation. Anti-labor governments around "ir Labor leaders were rounded up, houses entered without search warrants and union newspapers were closed down. Eight men, some who could prove they were not there when the bomb was thrown, were arrested and put on trial, including Albert Parsons and Samuel Fielden, a pro-labor clergyman. Seven of the eight were found guilty by an all-businessmen jury (the Chicago Tribune offered to pay money to the jury if it found the eight men guilty) and sentenced to hang. Four - Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Albert Parsons and August Spies were hung. Louis Lingg reportedly committed suicide in his cell, under mysterious circumstances. In 1893 Governor John Altgeld pardoned the 3 men still alive and condemned the entire judicial system that allowed this injustice.
This reminds me of the "Molly Macguires" - Irish coal miners convicted and hung after the prosecutor accused them of being Irish terrorists, but had little or no proof of their involvement in destroying coal property that was actually done by agents provocateurs who later became part of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the forerunner of the FBI.
The real issues of the Haymarket Affair were freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to free assembly, the right to a fair trial by a jury of peers and the right to organize and fight for things like the 8-hour day.
The reason that we do not celebrate Mayday as International Workers Day in the U.S. is that the government, under the leadership President Eisenhower, proclaimed that May ist was Law and Order Day, and moved Labor Day to the first Monday of September to obscure the history of these martyrs and what they were fighting for.
They were protesting the wage slavery of the time. Employers supported what they called the "Tron Law of Wages." That meant supply and demand, not value added, determined the wages offered to workers. The higher the level of unemployment, with no safety net for workers, the greater the number of workers forced to accept below subsistence wages - In 1890, the average annual wages for a family of 4 was $380.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the subsistence income for a family of 4 was $530. Women and children working to supplement their household income became absolutely necessary, and there were no public schools for children.
They were protesting alienation at the workplace - the elimination of skilled craft jobs, replaced by mass production through automation, speeding up the line for the de-skilled single tasks that removed workers from not only the satisfaction of exercising their skills to produce a whole product, but also from the rest and leisure required to exercise their "human essence" - spend time with their family and community.
Mass production also eliminated far more jobs than it created, throwing increasing numbers of workers into the "reserve army of unemployed," taking away the dignity of work and the ability to work. At the same time, pitting the unemployed against those at work to keep wages down.
The attempt to organize unions, pass laws that protect worker dignity, the right to a job, health and satety on the job, and a living wage is at the foundation of ethical and moral interpretations of the Creator's Fatwahs by Imams and other Islamic scholars, the writings of the Talmud, referred to by the Jewish Labor Committee, and statements by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, all sound very similar in their support of the dignity of work and workers, fair and timely compensation, the responsibility of employers to provide jobs, a safe working environment, to make sure that workers have time for themselves and their families; the prohibition against the use of child labor, the provision of maternity benefits for women in their employment, the right to form labor unions, and the right to strike over unjust conditions.
For example:
(1) "All workers should be paid a just and living wage." -- Matthew 20:1-16. (2) "Those who become rich by abusing their workers have sinned against God." - James 5:1-6
But not just religions have stressed the moral and ethical imperative to treat workers with dignity and justice. Adam Smith, the so-called "father" of Economics and apologist for the capitalist industrial system, stated in The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776 - Book 1, Chapter 8: "Those who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged."
"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. President Franklin Roosevelt, in his speech about the Economic Bill of Rights, stated that no business that is unwilling to pay its workers a living wage has a right to exist in America, and discussed the connection between growing unemployment and poverty as one root cause of the rise of fascism - what Karl Marx referred to as the growing reserve army of unemployed, pitted against workers by employers.
So, friends and neighbors, we should celebrate these martyrs who stood for justice, who were met with violence when they organized peacefully and legally. We should celebrate the need for economic justice - meaningful work, living wages for all, regulation protecting health and safety conditions at work, limiting the length of the working day, the right to rest and leisure, equal pay for equal work, and a production process that protects rather than destroys the environment.
Professor Bruce Ewen, WCCCD, Economics and Diversity and Inclusion Program Participant
By Professor Bruce Ewen <
WCCCD <
Mayday, or International Workera Dav. is colebrated ae an affaial Amazingn da cweat atatarie corn. heane and sauash, holiday in 66 countries and unoffcially celebrated in many more. but rarely is it recoonized in this country, where it began. Much of the information presented here comes from William Adelman's research,<
"The Haymarket Affair" published by the Illinois Labor History Society, and the PBS video, with Adelman serving as the narrator. And from my own knowledge of labor and industrial history.
"Haymarket Riot," Most people living in the United States know little about the events in Chicago, at Haymarket Square, in May of 1886 that led to the establishment of the 8 hour day; those who are aware of the Haymarket Affair are led to believe by most textbooks that this mass demonstration that resulted in a dynamite bomb being thrown into the crowd was led by violent anarchists holding an illegal demonstration.
^ To understand the background of the Haymarket Affair, it is important to understand the working conditions in factories, mines, slaughterhouses and mills in the U.S. during the industrial revolution of the 19th Century; especially after the end of the Civil War, which saw the rapid development of monopolies in almost every industry, with control centered more and more in the financial sector of the economy, where J.P. Morgan reigned supreme. It was the era of brutal exploitation of workers throughout the economy - child labor, below subsistence level wages for all, especially for women and children, 12-16 hour workdays, 6-7 days a week, dangerous working conditions, the absence of health and safety regulations - an era spoken to by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Jack London's The Iron Heel and Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais' Labor's Untold Story, among others.
It was the era of the Robber Barons, as spoken to in Matthew Josephson's popular book of the same title. Of Rockefeller and Standard Oil, of the American Tobacco Trust, of the Steel Trust under Carnegie and Morgan, the Railroad Trust, etc. Of the rape of the Appalachian Mountains biodiversity by lumber and coal monopolies. Of the paying of coal miners in scrip that was only accepted in the Company Store that raised prices 20 percent on payday. "I owe my soul to the company Store."
Without government support for the right to unionize or strike for higher wages and safe working conditions, workers organized strikes, demonstrations, petitioned government for protection, and realized that public support was absolutely necessary to improve the brutal working conditions that existed.
Out of this set of conditions came the organizing behind the 8-hour day movement. And the organizing was met with violent reactions by the police, ordered by elected officials under the influence of the Robber Barons to attack peaceful demonstrations and strikes.
In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labor), called for May 1, 1886 to be the beginning of a nationwide movement for the 8-hour day. This was not a very radical idea, because both Illinois workers and Federal employees were supposed to have been covered by the 8-hour day since 1867, but the federal government failed to enforce this law, and in Illinois, employers forced workers to sign waivers as a condition of employment. Two years of planning and organizing, including the attempt to get employer agreement, led up to the Haymarket Affair. Two of the organizers of these demonstrations, questionnaires, petitions, etc. were Lucy and Albert Parsons. Lucy had been born a slave in Texas in 1853. Her heritage was African American, Native American and Mexican. She worked for the Freedman's Bureau after the Civil War. She organized women sewing workers in Chicago and wrote labor pamphlets. Her husband Albert was a printer, a member of the Knights of Labor, and one of the founders of the Chicago Trades and Labor Assembly.
Labor rallies were happening all over the nation around the 8 - hour demands. Things turned from peaceful to violent on May 3, 1886 when the Chicago police attacked and killed picketing workers at the McCormick Reaper Plant. This provoked a protest meeting planned for Haymarket Square on the evening of May 4.
The pro-labor Mayor of Chicago, Carter Harrison, gave permission for the meeting. When this peaceful and legal meeting was almost over and the number of workers had dwindled down to about 200 people, 176 police officers carrying Winchester repeater rifles attacked the crowd. Then someone, unknown to this day (probably an agent-provocateur - common in U.S. history), threw the first dynamite some of their own as well as injuring and killing workers.<
bomb ever used in the peacetime history of the U.S. The police panicked, and opened fire into the crowd, killing the world used the incident to crush local union movements.
The next day, martial law was declared in Chicago and throughout the nation. Anti-labor governments around "ir Labor leaders were rounded up, houses entered without search warrants and union newspapers were closed down. Eight men, some who could prove they were not there when the bomb was thrown, were arrested and put on trial, including Albert Parsons and Samuel Fielden, a pro-labor clergyman. Seven of the eight were found guilty by an all-businessmen jury (the Chicago Tribune offered to pay money to the jury if it found the eight men guilty) and sentenced to hang. Four - Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Albert Parsons and August Spies were hung. Louis Lingg reportedly committed suicide in his cell, under mysterious circumstances. In 1893 Governor John Altgeld pardoned the 3 men still alive and condemned the entire judicial system that allowed this injustice.
This reminds me of the "Molly Macguires" - Irish coal miners convicted and hung after the prosecutor accused them of being Irish terrorists, but had little or no proof of their involvement in destroying coal property that was actually done by agents provocateurs who later became part of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the forerunner of the FBI.
The real issues of the Haymarket Affair were freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to free assembly, the right to a fair trial by a jury of peers and the right to organize and fight for things like the 8-hour day.
The reason that we do not celebrate Mayday as International Workers Day in the U.S. is that the government, under the leadership President Eisenhower, proclaimed that May ist was Law and Order Day, and moved Labor Day to the first Monday of September to obscure the history of these martyrs and what they were fighting for.
They were protesting the wage slavery of the time. Employers supported what they called the "Tron Law of Wages." That meant supply and demand, not value added, determined the wages offered to workers. The higher the level of unemployment, with no safety net for workers, the greater the number of workers forced to accept below subsistence wages - In 1890, the average annual wages for a family of 4 was $380.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the subsistence income for a family of 4 was $530. Women and children working to supplement their household income became absolutely necessary, and there were no public schools for children.
They were protesting alienation at the workplace - the elimination of skilled craft jobs, replaced by mass production through automation, speeding up the line for the de-skilled single tasks that removed workers from not only the satisfaction of exercising their skills to produce a whole product, but also from the rest and leisure required to exercise their "human essence" - spend time with their family and community.
Mass production also eliminated far more jobs than it created, throwing increasing numbers of workers into the "reserve army of unemployed," taking away the dignity of work and the ability to work. At the same time, pitting the unemployed against those at work to keep wages down.
The attempt to organize unions, pass laws that protect worker dignity, the right to a job, health and satety on the job, and a living wage is at the foundation of ethical and moral interpretations of the Creator's Fatwahs by Imams and other Islamic scholars, the writings of the Talmud, referred to by the Jewish Labor Committee, and statements by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, all sound very similar in their support of the dignity of work and workers, fair and timely compensation, the responsibility of employers to provide jobs, a safe working environment, to make sure that workers have time for themselves and their families; the prohibition against the use of child labor, the provision of maternity benefits for women in their employment, the right to form labor unions, and the right to strike over unjust conditions.
For example:
(1) "All workers should be paid a just and living wage." -- Matthew 20:1-16. (2) "Those who become rich by abusing their workers have sinned against God." - James 5:1-6
But not just religions have stressed the moral and ethical imperative to treat workers with dignity and justice. Adam Smith, the so-called "father" of Economics and apologist for the capitalist industrial system, stated in The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776 - Book 1, Chapter 8: "Those who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged."
"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. President Franklin Roosevelt, in his speech about the Economic Bill of Rights, stated that no business that is unwilling to pay its workers a living wage has a right to exist in America, and discussed the connection between growing unemployment and poverty as one root cause of the rise of fascism - what Karl Marx referred to as the growing reserve army of unemployed, pitted against workers by employers.
So, friends and neighbors, we should celebrate these martyrs who stood for justice, who were met with violence when they organized peacefully and legally. We should celebrate the need for economic justice - meaningful work, living wages for all, regulation protecting health and safety conditions at work, limiting the length of the working day, the right to rest and leisure, equal pay for equal work, and a production process that protects rather than destroys the environment.
Professor Bruce Ewen, WCCCD, Economics and Diversity and Inclusion Program Participant