Alex Aspden

Rising from a period of centre-left coalition that had been marked by a constant failure to bring promised reforms to Italian society, the struggles of the 1960s acted as a pressure gauge for many sections of the Italian working class, one which was to reach its climax during the mass strikes of 1968-1970.

April of 1998 saw a series of talks between private sector unions and employers in Denmark. Initiated by the unions in response to a general economic upturn in the country, the talks represented for many Danish workers the chance for improvements to their working conditions.

Beginning on the morning of March 18, the strike had been precipitated by months of stalling by union leaders and government officials. With no rights to collective bargaining, and having not seen wages increase between 1967 and 1969, anger amongst postal workers had been simmering for years.

The strike movement of Liverpool occurred during the great period of industrial unrest that was to grip Britain between 1910 and the outbreak of the First World War. Beginning with a walk-out of seamen, the strike soon snowballed and went on to reach epic proportions, involving up to 70,000 people.

The 1933 elections in Spain had seen a massive victory delivered to the right, represented by the Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA), a coalition of largely Catholic conservative groups and Monarchists. Led by José María Gil-Robles, the CEDA soon allied itself with the close runner up of the elections, the Radical Republican Party, led by Alejandro Lerroux.

The story of the Battle of Ballantyne Pier can be traced back to 1912 when the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), began organising amongst waterfront workers in Canada, and alongside the Lumber Handlers’ Union in Vancouver.

Situated in the dense forest of south-east Siberia, the massive goldfields that lined the river Lena were, at the turn of the century, amongst the most profitable enterprises in the Russian Empire. The Lena Gold Mining Joint Stock Company (Lenzoloto), the principal owner of the majority of goldfields in the region, was running at profits of 7,000,000 roubles a year.

See also our biography of Gaetano Bresci

See also 1900: The assassination of King Umberto I of Italy

During November and December of 1995 France was gripped by the largest strike movement the country had seen in recent years. After three weeks of strikes workers forced a government climbdown over the issue of changes to pensions of public sector workers.

The government attempted to supress all memory of the strike, and although the strikers won partial concessions, the cuts were still imposed and many sailors were punished for taking part.

The strike of newspaper workers that began on January 24, 1986, marked the beginning of a bitter year long dispute between the print workers of Wapping, a borough of East London, and their employers, the publishing company News International.

The factors that provoked the widespread stoppage of work by thousands of British workers in the winter of 1978-79 began with the Labour government of James Callaghan's attempt to enforce limits on pay rises to curb inflation. Inflation had reached a height of nearly 26.9% in August 1975.

Notes on the strike of UK mine workers against closures and to save their union, the NUM. The article contains interesting information about the strike, its background, the aftermath and its importance to all workers in Britain.

The strike marked one of the few occasions in British history that troops have been deployed against striking workers.

Agricultural labour in the hop fields of California was amongst the most strenuous, badly paid and time consuming labour that a worker could undertake in early 20th century America. The situation of the hop pickers who worked at the Durst Ranch, the single largest employer of agricultural workers in the state, near the Northern California town of Wheatland in 1913, was no different.

Minneapolis at the turn of 1934 was one of the major hauling centres of the United States, and the major distribution centre in the Upper Midwest with thousands of truck drivers employed in the city's trucking industry.

For the fifty years prior to 1927, the struggles in the Colorado mines had been a flashpoint for labour relations throughout the mining industry and had been marked by many strikes, aborted uprisings and confrontations between miners and mine owners, and the state militia.

Throughout the 1930s workers of the flourishing entertainment industry of Hollywood had been organising themselves into unions. Stagehands, actors, directors, editors and writers had all successfully, albeit slowly, formed their own organisations through this massive drive for union recognition.