Part I. Workers Of The World Unite
Part II. Why Organize
A. Workplace Hazards

B. Child Labor
C. Sweatshops
D. Emerging Issues
Part III. Strikes and Boycotts
Part IV. Heroes and Martyrs
Part V. International May Day

Part I. Workers Of The World Unite

Proletarier Aller Länder Vereinigt Euch!
[Workers of the World Unite!]
Walter Crane
Offset, n.d.
Germany
11696
Contemporary reproduction of an 1895 German cover for "Mein Vaterland Ist International" Workers of the World Unite. Banners, translated, read: freedom, equality, brotherhood, Africa, Asia, America, Australia, Europe, Workers of All Countries, Unite!

2.The Wobblies
Artist unknown
Offset, 1984 reprint of early 20th century original
Columbia, South Carolina
12476 [or 10094]
The Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW, was formed in Chicago in 1905 by radical unionists, including "Mother" Mary Jones, Lucy Parsons, "Big Bill" Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, Bill Trautman of the Brewery Workers, and Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs. This union, whose members became known as the Wobblies, aimed to organize all workers in any industry, undivided by race, gender, or skills. Because the Wobblies were so effective, many cities passed laws to outlaw their organizing. They led thousands in strikes and broke the anti-speech laws, town by town. Today, the "One Big Union" of the IWW continues to organize.

3.Chicago Women's Labor History
Artist unknown
Silkscreen, 1976
Chicago, Illinois
2276

Give 'em Both Barrels
Jean Carlu
Offset, 1941
Washington, D.C
10138
An example of the many posters produced during WWII to illustrate the importance of civilian industry to the war effort. Though federal laws and union pledges suppressed labor activity during the war, by 1946 a wave of postwar organizing ushered in a new era of strikes--and gains--by labor.

For All These Rights We've Just Begun to Fight
Ben Shahn
Lithograph, ca 1940's
New York, New York
8069

March for Peace April 24
National Peace Action Coalition
Offset, 1971
San Francisco, California
374
During the Viet Nam War, struggles between "hawks" and "doves" extended to U.S. Labor. This poster attempts to convince workers to join the growing anti-war movement.

They Plan for Profits
International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement
Workers of America
Silkscreen, n.d.
United States
11278

If I Were A Worker
AFL-CIO; Santa Cruz County Central Labor Council; Community Printers
Offset, 1982
Santa Cruz, California
4507

Class Consciousness
Press Gang Publishers
Offset, ca. 1978
Vancouver, British Columbia
11275 [or 6220]

Health and Safety
Artist unknown
Offset, n.d.
United States
11699

Part II. Why Organize

A. Workplace Hazards

Utnyttja Dina Rättigheter Till En Bra Arbetsmiljö
[Use Your Rights to a Good Working Environment]
Birgit Ståhl-Nyberg
Offset, 1976
Sweden
11663

Travail Precaire
[Dangerous Work Modern Slavery]
FÈdÈration Anarchiste
Offset, 1990-2000
Paris, France
12406 [is image missing?]

Adding Injury to Insult
Northland Poster Collective
Offset, 1988
Minneapolis, Minnesota
11703

More Than A Paycheck
Doug Minkler
Silkscreen, 1987
Berkeley, California
10012

La Fatigue Tue!
[Fatigue Kills! Cut working hours]
International Transport Workers' Federation
Offset, ca. 1998
England
11613

Your Job Is Killing You
Red Pepper Posters
Offset, 1976
San Francisco, California
11281

America's Workers Are Dying to Build Your Car
Lenora Davis
Offset, ca. 1980s-90s
Chicago, Illinois
9437

Cotton Dust Kills
Photo by Earl Dotter
Offset, ca. 1980
United States
5149 [or ?]
"She worked herself into an early grave." More than a saying, this fate is increasingly understood as a series of diseases and chronic ailments aggravated by hours of strained postures or exposure to chemicals required by work. The understanding that many of these health problems are avoidable gave rise to the workplace health and safety movement, now written into federal and state laws. This poster highlights one of a series of work-related respiratory diseases. Coal miners were known to suffer from "black lung disease" caused by inhaling coal dust, and "white lung disease" was suffered by those working with silica dust.

Pictured here is Louis Harrell, a J.P. Stevens Mill worker who died of "brown lung" disease in 1978, after years of inhaling dust generated in the manufacture of textiles. This photograph appeared on the cover of an OSHA manual, but was never distributed due to intense pressure from the textile industry.

The chemical exposures inherent in manufacturing are as varied as the components of the product. Automobile manufacture poses dozens of dangers. Toxic exposures are most often linked with cancer, but increasingly, damage to the neurological, immune, and reproductive systems may be unforeseen consequences to inhaling vapors or industrial chemicals, or absorbing them through the skin.

In Memoriam
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
Offset, 1993
Washington, D.C.
7303

B. Child Labor

Eliminating child labor is a recent concept. Child labor campaigns during the 19th and early 20th centuries involved reform, such as the Pennsylvania Child Labor Law of 1848, which set twelve as the minimum age for child workers. Boys and girls were commonly diverted from school and made to work in mining, agriculture, laundries, and in factories, often working with dangerous machinery and always for the least pay. Children are especially vulnerable to workplace exposure of chemicals that can impair their developing bodies and brains.

Effectively denied legal standing, they were difficult to organize. But not impossible. In 1899, the New York City newsboys went on strike. Young laborers found surrogate families in unions, bringing further attention to child labor. By 1916, Congress passed the Federal Child Labor Law, which was later declared unconstitutional. Child workers waited another 22 years until the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set a minimum age of fourteen for work, barred children from 17 hazardous occupations, and mandated protection for education.

Despite legal protections, child labor remains an ongoing problem, and is a focus of growing concern and organizing in Asia, the Caribbean, and the Americas.

Stop Child Labor
El Taller Grafico, United Farm Workers Union
Offset, 1976
Keene, California
1973
After the appearance of this poster, the grower whose field is photographed sued the United Farm Workers, claiming that this was not their field. The United Farm Workers won the suit.

Who Made Your Shoes?
Alejandro Lopez; Chant… Hardy; Tyi Green
Offset, 1999
New York, New York
10676

Zoned for Slavery
National Labor Committee
Offset, 1995
New York, New York
5007

End Child Labor and Sweat Shop Abuses
National Labor Committee
Offset, ca. 1990s
New York, New York
11337

Stop Child Labour
International Labour Organization
Offset, late 1990s
Geneva, Switzerland
10238

C. Sweatshops

Though any squalid and slavish working environment qualifies as a "sweatshops," the term is most commonly linked with the mass production of garments by women. As early as 1825, the United Tailoresses of New York formed, and nine years later, the Mill Women's Strike rocked Lowell, Massachusetts. But lasting reform was not triggered until 1911, when a fire killed 146 workers locked into the upper-story sewing room of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City.

After a period of exporting sweatshop work, such working conditions are resurging throughout the U.S. including in Los Angeles. The most notorious example involved 75 Thai women held behind a razor wire-gated sweatshop in El Monte, California in 1995. The "sweatshop slavery" case became the subject of a federal prosecution as well as an exhibit by the Smithsonian Institute.

While sweatshop conditions are worst overseas, they persist in the United States. The State Department recently estimated that 50,000 women and children are annually brought into the U.S. to work in bonded sweatshops, domestic servitude, and prostitution.

Nobody Should Be a Slave to Fashion
Common Threads Artist Group
Offset, 1996
Los Angeles, California
9419 [or 9371]

Disney's 101 Sweatshops
National Labor Committee; Mike Konopacki
Offset, ca. 1996
New York, New York
11718

Our Times
Simon Ng
Offset, ca. 1985
Toronto, Canada
11783 [or 10106]

Guess Who Pockets the Difference?
Common Threads Artist Group
Offset, 1995
Los Angeles, California
5662 [or 5661]

[Workers in garment sweat shop]
Artist unknown
Offset, n.d.
South Korea
421

Solidaridad con las Costureras de Guatemala
[Solidarity with the Seamstresses of Guatemala]
Marilyn Anderson
Offset, ca. 1992
Rochester, New York
6637 [or 1133]

Stop Gap Sweatshops
Global Exchange
Offset, 2000
Berkeley, California
11420

D. Emerging Issues

"As technology makes things easier, the bosses find ways to make things harder!" That anonymous labor axiom is gaining ground in the evolving workplace with its mutating laws of time and space. Leading the way in new labor issues are the myriad results of globalization--the process of multi-national firms exploiting cheap transportation costs and shopping for the cheapest possible labor. This practice often destroys industries around which entire cities have grown. In establishing factory jobs in rural Third World localities, balanced economic infrastructures are also often destroyed. Both of these scenarios have been a constant complaint about the North American Free Trade Agreement--NAFTA.

A subsequent flashpoint for labor organizing has been the World Trade Organization (WTO), which critics say transfers policy control from local communities to business interests in such areas as genetic engineering, allowable levels of pesticides and other toxins, and labor conditions.

N.A.F.T.A.
Louis Rothschild
Silkscreen, 1993
Los Angeles, California
9524

After 30 Years of Teaching Is This Her Reward?
Jos Sances; Deble
Offset, 1990
Berkeley, California
4911

Don't Buy My Harvest Cheap
Methodist World Development Action Campaign
Offset, n.d.
Wimbledon, England
11677

Plant Closures
Doug Minkler
Silkscreen, 1987
California, Oakland
12416 [or 7765]

35 Stunden Sind Genug!
[35 hours is enough! Alternative List for democracy, environmental protection
and a shortened work week.]
Germany
Alternative Liste
Offset, n.d.
11688

Oh, So That Explains the Difference in Our Salaries!
Northern Sun Merchandising
Offset, 1988
Minneapolis, Minnesota
11375 [or 9772]

Part III. Strikes and Boycotts

"The workers of the world.. have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists." This 1905 statement by IWW organizer Joseph Ettor expressed the power of an organized work stoppage, or strike. This power had already been honed in the prior century through strikes by shoemakers, bookbinders, mill workers, coal miners, ship carpenters cowboys and cigar makers. Strikes cost business owners money; they responded with lockouts, refusal to hire unionists, attempts to outlaw both strikes and unions, and, all too frequently, with violence.

The first nationwide strike, held in 1877 by railroad workers, was crushed by federal and state troops. Private guards, also brought into to quell strikes, commonly beat picketers and strikers. Far worse, outright massacres of labor activists became a grisly U.S. tradition. Union organizers or strikers were murdered across the nation, including in Ludlow, Colorado; Matewan, West Virginia; Lattimer, Pennsylvania; and Everett, Washington. Still, strikes continued to secure steady gains for workers.

Another effective tool became the boycott. This action targets the profits of a company considered unfair by alerting the public to stop purchasing its products as an act of solidarity. In recent years, notable boycotts include the United Farm Workers' boycott of California table grapes and lettuce, and the boycotts of Nestlé, Coors beer, Nike and Guess.

And the Workers, They Claim, Are Content
San Francisco Poster Brigade
Offset, 1981
San Francisco, California
11911

Agitate Educate Organize
Artist unknown
Laser copy, 1998
Venice, California
12378
Not only does this graphic inject a playful note of romance into labor, it borrows from the high-art world of artist Roy Lichtenstein, who in turn borrowed from comics to redirect message and commentary at the height of the Pop Art era.

But I Will
California State Employees' Association;
Service Employees International Union, Local 1000
Offset, n.d.
California
11397

Are You for Real?
Laborers' International Union of North America
Offset, n.d.
California
5696

Proud Of Our Past
Carlos Cortez
Offset, 1998
Chicago, Illinois
20126

Celebrate International Women's Day
Artist unknown
Silkscreen, ca. 1970s
Massachusetts
3717

Lawrence Strike of 1912

On January 12, 1912, ten thousand woolen textile workers from almost forty different nationalities went on strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The strike started when the Massachusetts state legislature reduced the maximum factory working hours of women and children from fifty-six to fifty-four hours per week. The American Woolen Company reduced the workers' pay without any notification. When paychecks were received at the end of the week, the workers began a spontaneous strike. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) represented the skilled workers of Lawrence, but wanted nothing to do with women workers. The International Workers of the World (IWW), however, quickly sent two organizers to Lawrence, Joseph J. Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti. Although the workers were primarily immigrants, divided by language and culture, they came together during the strike.

In an attempt by the Lawrence police to break the strike, Ettor and Giovannitti were arrested and charged with the murder of a young girl during a demonstration, although they were not even present at the time and the bullet was proven to be that of a policeman's gun. With the strike leaders in jail, the IWW sent William D. Haywood to Lawrence to take their place. To ease the burden of strike relief and publicize the strike, Haywood and the other IWW leaders sent some children of strikers to live with working-class supporters in to New York City, Jersey City, and Philadelphia. Fearing the negative publicity, Lawrence police and militia assembled at the train station and forcibly prevented parents from sending their children away. Newspaper stories and photos of the police beating women and children with clubs helped to turn the tide of public opinion toward the strikers. By April, the mill owners agreed to all the major demands of the strikers.

Lawrence 1912: The Bread and Roses Strike
Ralph Fasanella
Offset, 1980
New York
11487 [or ? 11487]

On Strike - Mississippi Freedom Labor Union
Artist unknown
Lithograph, ca. 1965
Mississippi
138
The Mississippi Freedom Labor Union attempted to organize African American sharecroppers in Mississippi. The MFLU was organized by the Delta Ministry of the National Council of Churches, the Freedom Democratic Party, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and many others from the civil rights movement. During 1965-1966, sharecroppers organized a strike on some plantations. As a result of the strike they were evicted, losing both their homes and their jobs, and were forced to set up a tent city. It was a valiant effort to organize sharecroppers, but the union did not survive the evictions and a growing trend towards mechanization in agriculture. This poster was one of a pair by the same artist; the companion graphic features a woman sharecropper.

Farmworkers Strike to Save Their Union
Andrew (Andy) Terumo
Offset, 1971
San Francisco, California
12383

No Scab Airline!
S. Joseph
Offset, 1989
New York, New York
6017

One Union, One Industry, One Contract
Service Employees International Union Local 399
Offset, 1995
Los Angeles, California
2937

L.A. Should Work for Everyone
Sylvaín; Justice for Janitors
Offset, 1989
Los Angeles, California
12440 [or 2313]

Justice For Janitors
Service Employees International Union, Local 1877
Offset, 2000
Los Angeles, California
12428 [what is this?]

Justice for Janitors

Janitors began fighting against sub-poverty wages, exploitation in their workplace and in their communities when the Justice for Janitors campaign, housed in SEIU local 399, was launched in 1987 in Los Angeles. Through aggressive organizing with colorful in-the-street demonstrations using familiar slogans from the United Farm Workers, such as "Si Se Puede" (we can do it!), the campaign organized thousands of janitors in Southern California. These janitors are currently in a fight for their lives as they struggle to equalize the wages and benefits for janitors throughout the county to bring Los Angeles under one union, one contract, and one industry.

In 1990, the Los Angeles Police Department went on the attack against a group of janitors and community supporters who were engaged in a peaceful demonstration for fair wages for the janitors who cleaned the luxurious high rises in Century City. Sixty-five people were hospitalized as a result of police brutality, and it became clear that the people with power in Los Angeles would go to any extreme to hold down the struggle of working people for fair wages, dignity and respect.

Nationwide union membership has dropped from its 1945 high of 35.5% of the labor force to 13.5% in 2000, but the Service Employees International UnionÌs (SEIU) janitorial membership has soared since the union launched its nationwide Justice for Janitors campaign. Now, about one in five of the nationÌs 1 million janitors are SEIU union members. Los Angeles is SEIUÌs biggest success story, where janitorial union ranks swell from 30% to 90% of those who clean the high-rises from Downtown to Century City. As of 2001, over 200,000 members belong to the union nationwide, including window washers, security officers, locksmiths and other maintenance service workers.

Standing Strong in Detroit
Susan Kramer
Offset, 1996
Detroit, Michigan
12379

Support the Copper Strikers
Peter Garcia
Silkscreen, 1980s
United States
492

Support the Striking Miners in Stearns, Kentucky
San Francisco Poster Brigade
Offset, ca. 1978
San Francisco, California
12335

Support Economic Sanctions against South Africa
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
Offset, ca. 1980s
London, England
11621

Stop Union Busting
Lincoln Cushing; NASSCO Workers Defense Committee
Silkscreen, 1980
San Diego, California
4508

Metro Bus: No Somos Sardinas
Robbie Conal
Offset, 1997
Los Angeles, California
10426
Overcrowding, insufficient pick-ups and a deteriorating fleet have long been complaints of LA's vast bus-dependent population. When they began to organize and fight back as the Bus Riders Union, the Metropolitan Transit Authority began to take notice. MTA workers also rebelled in the ongoing strike of Fall, 2000.

End Mickeymouse Bargaining
Michael Gurka; Andrea Long
Offset, 1980
Los Angeles, California
10576
On August 21, 1980, 5,000 people picketed Disney Studios, many carrying this sign and singing an anti-Disney song based on the Mickey Mouse Club anthem.

As the entertainment industry consolidates, so do its fortunes--though usually not into the pockets of rank-and-file actors. This fact has encouraged a series of strikes by the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Theater and Radio Artists. Before their unions were formed, actors often suffered miserable working conditions that clashed with their outwardly glamorous profession.

In May 2000, SAG and AFTRA launched a strike against the advertising industry over a dispute regarding residual payments earned by performers for radio and television. Actors including Susan Sarandon and Rob Schneider pointed out that the average earnings of actors who appear in commercials are $5,000 per year. As the strike continues, an AFL-CIO endorsed boycott of Proctor & Gamble products has been added to the protest because that firm uses non-union actors to make commercials. Lasting almost six months, the SAG/AFTRA strike was the longest work stoppage in Hollywood history.

Semana de Protesta
[Week of Protest]
Artist unknown
Offset, ca. 1990
California
10751

Part IV. Heroes and Martyrs

Remember!
Artist unknown
Photocopy, ca. 1919
United States
12475

The Five Chicago Anarchists
J. J. Kanberg
Offset, 1968
Chicago, Illinois
12474 [or 10054]
Haymarket Martyrs: The story of the Haymarket Martyrs begins at a convention of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1884. The Federation (the predecessor to the American Federation of Labor) called for a great movement to win the 8-hour workday, which would climax on May 1, 1886. The plan was to spend two years urging all American employers to adopt a standard 8-hour day. After May 1 of 1886, all workers not yet on an 8-hour schedule, were to cease work in a nation-wide strike until their employer would meet the demand. Great demonstrations took place on May 1 all across the country. Chicago's was the biggest with an estimated 80,000 marching on Michigan Avenue, much to the alarm of Chicago's business leaders and newspapers who saw it as foreshadowing "revolution," and demanded a police crackdown. A mass meeting was called for the night of May 4, 1886 in the city haymarket at Randolph St. and DesPlaines Ave. Its purpose was to protest a police action from the previous day in which strikers and their supporters had been killed and injured by police. As the last speaker was concluding, a large force of 200 police arrived with a demand that the meeting disperse. Someone, unknown to this day, then threw a bomb at the massed police. The police began firing their weapons in the dark, killing at least four in the crowd and wounding many more. Several police were killed (only one by the bomb), the rest probably by police fire.

In the aftermath of the event, unions were raided all across the country. Albert Parsons (husband of Lucy Parsons) and seven others associated with radical organizations were prosecuted in a show trial. None were linked to the unknown bomb thrower, and some were not even present at the time. They were held to be responsible for the bomb thrower's act, because their public criticism of corporate America, the political structure, and the use of police power against the working people, was alleged to have inspired the bomber. They were found guilty in a trial, which Governor John Peter Altgeld subsequently held to be grossly unfair. On June 26, 1894, Altgeld pardoned Oscar Neebe, Samuel Fieldon, and Michael Schwab, who were still alive and in prison; but Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel had been hanged, and Louis Lingg was an apparent suicide.

LucÌa Gonz·lez de Parsons
Carlos Cortez
Linocut, 1986
Chicago, Illinois
11729 [or 2277]
Lucy Parsons (1853-1942) was a black working class woman who was a recognized leader of the predominantly white male labor movement in Chicago. She spent her life struggling for the rights of the poor, unemployed, homeless, women, children, and minority groups. Interested in the emancipation of workers from wage slavery, Parsons joined the anarchistic International Working People's Association in 1883. This was the time when the U.S. government was working to eliminate the growing labor movement. On May 1, 1886, Lucy Parsons and her husband Albert led 80,000 workers and their supporters on a march to mobilize for a general strike for the eight-hour day. When a fatal bombing occurred three days later at a labor rally at the Haymarket, police blamed radical activists. When eight defendants including Albert were found guilty, Lucy began organizing the Haymarket Defense. After Albert's execution in 1887, she was active in the radical labor movement for another 55 years. She published newspapers, pamphlets and books, and led many demonstrations. She was a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World. Her struggle with the Chicago police for free speech lasted for decades. Police frequently broke up meetings simply because the speaker was Lucy Parsons.

Joe Hill
Carlos Cortez
Silkscreen, 1979
Chicago, Illinois
4531
Joe Hill was a Swedish seaman who arrived in the U.S.A. about 1901, and joined the Industrial Workers of the World ("Wobblies") in 1910. He organized in California and Mexico, becoming best known for his protest songs, especially "The Preacher and the Slave," which introduced the phrase "pie in the sky"; these were collected in The Little Red Song Book. Arrested for double murder in Salt Lake City he was convicted on dubious evidence. He was executed by a firing squad on November 19, 1915, despite a protest campaign which enlisted the support of the American Federation of Labor, the Swedish government, and President Woodrow Wilson. His last words to a fellow Laborite were, "Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize."

Leonora O'Reilly
Maria Hollenbach
Offset, 1986
Brooklyn, New York
1344
In filthy, dangerous sweatshops and factories a century ago, women toiled 60 to 70 hours per week for a few dollars, often only one-third the pay men received for similar work. The National Women's Trade Union League organized women for a better deal. One of its leaders, Leonora O'Reilly, seated at right, organized the historic shirtwaist workers' strike, January 1910.

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones
Rupert García
Offset, 1989
Berkeley, California
11665
In 1902, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones appeared in the federal court at Parkersburg, West Virginia, charged with ignoring an injunction banning meetings by striking miners. District Attorney Reese Blizzard pointed to her and announced, "There sits the most dangerous woman in America. She comes into a state where peace and prosperity reign. She crooks her finger--twenty thousand contented men lay down their tools and walk out." Mother Jones died on November 30, 1930, having devoted the last half of her long and eventful life to struggles for justice. An advocate for miners and against child labor, she was famous for saying, "I'm no lady, I'm a hell raiser."

Save This Right Hand
Rockwell Kent
Offset, 1949
San Francisco, California
4931 [or ?]
As labor fought to repair the ravages of the Great Depression, its most effective leaders were considered radicals. Foremost among them was Australian ÈmigrÈ Harry Bridges, president of the San Francisco-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) from 1937 to 1977. Repeatedly, the federal government fought to deport Bridges. Political campaigns were also waged against Bob Robertson, who led ILWU organizing drives throughout the country, and Henry Schmidt, also active in the San Francisco ILWU and a member of the Albion Hall group of longshoremen and active Communist Party members.

Keep Bessie in Harlan
Miners Art Group
Offset, ca. 1973
Belle, West Virginia
12380
The Brookside Strike began in July, 1973. Miners at the Eastover Mining Company in Brookside, Kentucky, went out on strike when the company, a subsidiary of Duke Power, refused to negotiate with the United Mine Workers. After 13 months, and a court decision in favor of the workers, the company agreed to the strikers' demands. The strike was documented by filmmaker Barbara Kopple in the documentary film, "Harlan County USA."

Worker Power (Moses Mayekiso)
Shelley Sacks
Offset, 1988
South Africa
11666
Moses Mayekiso was general-secretary of the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa and leader of the Civic Association of Transvaal. With his calls for the nationalization of key industries, he was regarded as the enemy of big business. In South Africa, his name was as synonymous with the politics of the 1980s as Mandela's was with the politics of the 1960s. Although released from prison in 1989, the focus of this poster, he was later arrested on charges of kidnapping a security policeman and illegal weapon possession. Despite his earlier revolutionary zeal for nationalization, Mayekiso is now CEO of Sanco Investment Holdings, an investment company which aims to help communities access resources and make capital available for development.

Free Nigeria's Union Leaders
United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America;
American Center for International Labor Solidarity
Offset, ca. 1998
Nigeria
12418
Frank Kokori, General Secretary of the Nigerian oil and gas workers' union NUPENG, had been detained without trial by the regime of General Sani Abacha since 1994. In that year, a strike by Nigerian oil workers and others was put down by the military regime and a wave of repression against the oil unions and their leaders was unleashed. Upon his release in June 1998, he immediately called for an overhaul of Nigerian politics - and of the Nigerian unions.

Milton Dabibi, General Secretary of Nigerian oil and gas workers' union PENGASSAN had been held without trial since January 1996. Dabibi's conditions of detention were particularly harsh, and he needed medical care upon his release in June 1998.

Both unions are affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions, which led a sustained worldwide campaign for Dabibi's and Kokori's release. When Abacha died in June 1998, and his regime fell, the ICEM, its affiliates and other union internationals immediately asked his successor as Head of State, Major-General Abdulsalam Abubakar, to order Dabibi's and Kokori's release. They were among the first detainees to be freed of about a hundred political prisoners held in Nigerian jails under Abacha.

°Viva La Causa!
El Taller Grafico, United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO
Photo: Cathy Murphy
Offset, ca. 1976
Keene, California
12515

César Ch·vez (1927--1993)
When the National Farm Workers Association was founded by CÈsar Ch·vez and others, they accomplished what was thought to be impossible, the organizing of poor and uneducated farm laborers. Born on March 31, 1927, near Yuma, Arizona, Ch·vez was no stranger to the struggle of farm labor. His family lost their small farm during the depression and moved to San Jose, California, where they worked as migrant laborers. In 1952, Ch·vez became an organizer for the barrio-based Community Service Organization (CSO), and learned grass roots strategies. Though he eventually rose to national director of the CSO, his proposal to organize a labor union for farm workers was rejected by the CSO; Ch·vez resigned from the organization in 1962. He moved to Delano, where he and other activists including Dolores Huerta, founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later became the UFW, and ultimately affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

In 1965, the NFWA joined with striking Filipino agricultural workers and the years-long strike-boycott against California growers of wine and table grapes was launched. By 1975, an estimated 17 million Americans honored the grape boycott. Ch·vez's adherence to Ghandian principles included long fasts, and the insistence on a pledge of non-violence by all UFW members. By the early 1980's farm workers numbered in the tens of thousands were working under UFW contracts enjoyed higher pay, family health coverage, pension benefits and other contract protections.

Ch·vez remained the head of the UFW until his death in 1993. 40,000 attended his funeral in Delano. He was awarded the Aguila Azteca (Aztec Eagle), Mexico's highest award to people of Mexican ancestry, and was the second Mexican-American to earn the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A charismatic and controversial leader, critics felt that his anti-communism and inability to delegate authority weakened the union, though all acknowledged that his dedication and vision strengthened it. Ch·vez gave people La Causa (The Cause) to fight for the rights and dignity of all people.

Ben Fletcher
Carlos Cortez
Linocut, 1987
Chicago, Illinois
4486 [1354?]
In the early part of this century Ben Fletcher, an African-American union organizer, was one of the most effective spokesmen for the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World). Fletcher organized thousands of longshoremen of all races, though mostly Black, into the I.W.W. Although Fletcher was the major leader in Philadelphia, he was considered a national IWW leader as well. He died on July 10, 1949.

Part V. International May Day

The celebration of May Day as a labor holiday marked by parades and red flags began on May 1, 1886. Behind the campaign was the universal adoption of the 8-hour working day, an improvement on the recent fight for a ten-hour day. In Chicago, the center of the movement, workers had been agitating for an 8-hour day for months, and on the eve of May 1, 50,000 were already on strike. 30,000 more swelled their ranks the next day, bringing most of Chicago manufacturing to a standstill. In a notorious riot that followed (the Haymarket massacre) the 8-hour movement failed, but the Chicago events figured prominently in the founding congress of the Second International (Paris, 1889) to make May 1, 1890 a demonstration of the solidarity and power of the international working class movement. Ever since, May Day has been celebrated globally as the international workers' holiday.

Primero de Mayo de 1947
[May Day 1947 Only a conscious, united, and honest labor movement can successfully defend the interests of the workers, and help Mexico prosper.]
Pablo O'Higgins; Alberto Beltr·n; Taller de Gr·fica Popular
Linocut, 1947
Mexico City, Mexico
12477 [or 2273]

May 1st
Artist unknown
Offset, ca. 1980s
United States
11686

1 Maio
[The 1st of May has always been and will continue to be a manifestation of the struggle of the working classes and of their international character.]
Mozambique MinistÈrio da Informa¡Ño
Offset, ca. 1980-81
Mozambique
11689

International Workers Day
San Francisco Poster Brigade
Offset, ca. 1980s
San Francisco, California
11897

SÛlo los Obreros y Campesinos
[Only the workers and peasants will go the distance]
Coordinadora Sindical de Nicaragua
Offset, ca. 1981
Nicaragua
12415