Jan. 4, 1970: 52 years ago, Jan 4 1969, 60,000 workers organized by the Oil, Chemical [...]

52 years ago, Jan 4 1969, 60,000 workers organized by the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) went on strike, including 3700 Bay Area workers at oil refineries in Richmond, Martinez, Avon, and Oleum, a chemical plant in Pittsburg, and Shell facilities in Emeryville

Local authorities cracked down hard (Martinez’s mayor was married to an oil executive). Workers, who were joined on picket lines by their wives and children, were shocked at the level of police violence they encountered. One woman remarked: “I have no more respect for the law”

The strike was marked by an unusually strong alliance between oil workers and students in nearby San Francisco & Berkeley. The Bay Area Revolutionary Union, a Berkeley-based Maoist group, had already been organizing oil workers into its Richmond Workers Committee since 1968

OCAW strikers voted 3:1 to form a “mutual aid pact” with the Third Word Liberation Front student strikers at SF State. Oil workers sent delegations to the picket lines in San Francisco, and student groups sent members to picket lines in Richmond
https://t.co/c0YUhSpTQi

On Jan 5, a security guard allowed a scab to run over militant trade unionist Dick Jones with a tank truck. Jones would later die from the injuries. Outrage over his death led to a national Standard Oil boycott, supported nationally by Students for a Democratic Society

After a bitter struggle, the strike ended in Spring. Workers in El Segundo accepted an inferior contract, and international union leadership pressured workers in other plants to return to work rather than risk their jobs. None managed to win improved contracts or conditions

You can watch a film, produced by radical collective Newsreel, about the strike here:
https://t.co/pYV0Pgxk6H