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KCTS 9 – History Making: General Strike

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv1TOtm3CGE?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=250&h=141]

In 1919, workers in Seattle staged the first general strike in the United States. Sixty thousand union men and women walked off their jobs in shipyards, bakeries, restaurants, and lumber mills. This five day citywide shutdown was an important first step in establishing the power of the worker, and it has helped to define the way that Seattle and the nation value equitable wages and living conditions for its hardest working citizens.

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Anna Louise Strong story

Anna Louise Strong story

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Parsons, Lucy Gonzales

Parsons, Lucy Gonzales

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Sabotage – by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn | Industrial Workers of the World

Sabotage – by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn | Industrial Workers of the World

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Flynn Biography

Flynn Biography

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Notes on the 1946 General Strike

[vimeo 43192608 w=250 h=141]

When people found out that we were making work about Oakland, we were asked one question time and again: “What do you know about the general strike?” The answer was, not much. We’d never heard of it before moving to the city. For us, this video was a way to learn about the strike—it took place in 1946, and was the last of many general strikes that broke out in America in the first half of the 20th century—and relate it to our present-day experience of Oakland. The Taft-Hartley Act, which passed—overriding a presidential veto—in 1947, was a direct response to the six General Strikes that broke out in 1946. Still in effect today, Taft-Hartley puts severe limits on labor’s abilities to call strikes.

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Oakland General Strike 1946

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfUmIeCTJTA?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=250&h=187]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-yFDzKzLfE?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=540&h=405]