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Zwartberg | |
|---|---|
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| Coordinates: 51°00′00″N5°30′00″E / 51.00000°N 5.50000°E Coordinates: 51°00′00″N5°30′00″E / 51.00000°N 5.50000°E | |
| Country |  Belgium |
| Province | Limburg |
| City | Genk |
| Population | |
| • Total | 3,785 |
| Time zone | UTC0 (WET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+1 (WEST) |
Zwartberg (Black mountain) is a parish, founded on 3 December 1926 in a district of Genk in the Belgian province Limburg.
Zwartberg was the seat of the nearby coal mine of the same name, until it closed in 1966.
On Monday, January 31, 1966, a group of miners from Zwartberg went to the mines at Waterschei to rally their colleagues for a strike against the closing of the mine of Zwartberg. A small group of members of the Rijkswacht (national police) was waiting for them when they arrived at the entrance to the Waterschei mine, which was quickly surrounded by the miners. They also stopped a truck, loaded with wood for the mines, and forced the driver to leave his cargo behind.
Armed with blocks of wood and other debris, the miners threw projectiles at the Rijkswacht, who at first responded by firing into the air as a warning. When the rioters refused to back down, the commanding officer ordered his men to open fire on the group, which resulted in the death of Jan Latos by several bullets in his back. Later that day, Valère Sclep died after being hit by a teargas grenade. [1]
News of the tragedy spread rapidly and the government decided to retreat the Rijkswacht officers and replace them with the Para-commandos. The riots lasted another three days, until an agreement was signed by the management and the unions on 3 February.
Genk is a town and municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg near Hasselt. The municipality only comprises the town of Genk itself. It is one of the most important industrial towns in Flanders, located on the Albert Canal, between Antwerp and Liège.
The Columbine Mine massacre, sometimes called the first Columbine massacre, occurred in 1927, in the town of Serene, Colorado. A fight broke out between Colorado state militia and a group of striking coal miners, during which the unarmed miners were attacked with firearms. The miners testified that machine guns were fired at them, which the state police disputed. Six strikers were killed, and dozens were injured.
The Miners Strike of 1910-11 was an attempt by miners and their families to improve wages and living conditions in severely deprived parts of South Wales, where wages had been kept deliberately low for many years by a cartel of mine owners.
A riot shield is a lightweight protection device, typically deployed by police and some military organizations, though also utilized by protestors. Riot shields are typically long enough to cover an average-sized person from the top of the head to the knees, though smaller one-handed models may also be used. They are generally intended to be used in riot control, to protect the user from melee attacks with blunt or edged weapons and also thrown projectiles, or non-lethal weapons such as rubber bullets and water cannons. They can also be used as short-ranged melee weapons to push back the opposing force. Most riot shields do not offer ballistic protection; ballistic shields are instead used in situations where heavily armed resistance is expected.
The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was established after a meeting of local mining trade unions in Newport, Wales in 1888. The federation was formed to represent and co-ordinate the affairs of local and regional miners' unions in England, Scotland and Wales whose associations remained largely autonomous. At its peak, the federation represented nearly one million workers. It was reorganised into the National Union of Mineworkers in 1945.
The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor uprising in United States history and the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War. The conflict occurred in Logan County, West Virginia, as part of the Coal Wars, a series of early-20th-century labor disputes in Appalachia. Up to 100 people were killed, and many more arrested. The United Mine Workers saw major declines in membership, but the long-term publicity led to some improvements in working conditions.
The Gendarmerie (French) or Rijkswacht (Dutch) was the former paramilitary police force of Belgium. It became a civilian police organisation in 1992, a status it retained until 1 January 2001, when it was, together with the other existing police forces in Belgium, abolished and replaced by the Federal Police and the Local Police.
On 16 December 1929, New South Wales Police drew their revolvers and shot into a crowd of locked-out miners in the New South Wales town of Rothbury in Australia, killing a 29-year-old miner, Norman Brown, and injuring approximately forty-five miners. The incident became known as the Rothbury affair or the Rothbury riot, and is described as the "bloodiest event in national industrial history."
The Rock Springs massacre, also known as the Rock Springs Riot, occurred on September 2, 1885, in the present-day United States city of Rock Springs in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. The riot, and resulting massacre of immigrant Chinese miners by white immigrant miners, was the result of racial prejudice toward the Chinese miners, who were perceived to be taking jobs from the white miners. The Union Pacific Coal Department found it economically beneficial to give preference in hiring to Chinese miners, who were willing to work for lower wages than their white counterparts, angering the white miners. When the rioting ended, at least 28 Chinese miners were dead and 15 were injured. Rioters burned 78 Chinese homes, resulting in approximately US$150,000 in property damage.
The Hartford coal mine riot occurred on July 12, 1914, at Hartford, Arkansas. In a productive region of a state with 100% of its coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers, one mine owner attempted to open a non-union shop. In the resulting conflict, mines were flooded by sabotage, and on July 17 a crowd of union miners and sympathizers destroyed the surface plant of the Prairie Creek coal mine #3 and murdered two non-union miners.
The Colorado labor wars were a series of labor strikes in 1903 and 1904 in the U.S. state of Colorado, by gold and silver miners and mill workers represented by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM). Opposing the WFM were associations of mine owners and businessmen at each location, supported by the Colorado state government. The strikes were notable and controversial for the accompanying violence, and the imposition of martial law by the Colorado National Guard in order to put down the strikes.
The Estevan riot, also known as the Black Tuesday Riot, was a confrontation between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and striking coal miners from nearby Bienfait, Saskatchewan which took place in Estevan, Saskatchewan on September 29, 1931. The miners had been on strike since September 7, 1931 hoping to improve their wages and working conditions.
The 1877 Shamokin uprising occurred in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, in July 1877, as one of the several cities in the state where strikes occurred as part of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. The Great Strike was the first in the United States in which workers across the country united in an action against major companies. In many cities, the railroad workers were joined by other industrial workers in general strikes.
The Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, labor riot of 1899 was the second of two major labor-management confrontations in the Coeur d'Alene mining district of northern Idaho in the 1890s. Like the first incident seven years earlier, the 1899 confrontation was an attempt by union miners, led by the Western Federation of Miners to unionize non-union mines, and have them pay the higher union wage scale. As with the 1892 strike, the 1899 incident culminated in a dynamite attack that destroyed a non-union mining facility, the burning of multiple homes and outbuildings and two murders, followed by military occupation of the district.
The Bisbee Riot, or the Battle of Brewery Gulch, occurred during the Red Summer on July 3, 1919, between the black Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry and members of local police forces in Bisbee, Arizona. Following an incident between a military policeman and some of the Buffalo Soldiers, the situation escalated into a street battle in Bisbee's historic Brewery Gulch. At least eight people were seriously injured, and fifty soldiers were arrested, although the consequences of this skirmish were relatively minor compared to others during the summer of 1919.
The Butte, Montana labor riots of 1914 were a series of violent clashes between copper miners at Butte, Montana. The opposing factions were the miners dissatisfied with the Western Federation of Miners local at Butte, on the one hand, and those loyal to the union local on the other. The dissident miners formed a new union, and demanded that all miners must join the new union, or be subject to beatings or forced expulsion from the area. Sources disagree whether the dissidents were a majority of the miners, or a militant minority. The leadership of the new union contained many who were members of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), or agreed with the I.W.W.'s methods and objectives. The result of the dispute between rival unions was that the copper mines of Butte, which had long been a union stronghold for the WFM, became open shop employers, and recognized no union from 1914 until 1934.
Jef Ulburghs was a Belgian priest and politician. He actively engaged in protests for the rights of miners, steelworkers, migrants, political refugees, deserted neighbourhoods and the Third World. He enjoyed international appreciation as a peace activist. Ulburghs worked in the tradition of nineteenth-century priests who committed their religious commitment to the social struggle of the poor and lower social classes. Ulburghs worked in social work in the seventies.
The Spring Valley race riot of 1895 was a violent racial conflict between Eastern and Southern European immigrants and African American coal workers in the mining town of Spring Valley, Illinois. The conflict was in response to the robbery and shooting of Italian miner Barney Rollo, who reported that his assailants were five black men. The assault provoked the town's long-standing social and racial unrest, and many white immigrant workers united against the African American miners. During the investigation into the shooting several black miners were temporarily taken into custody for questioning and many white townspeople began to form a mob, demanding that all blacks be fired and removed from Spring Valley. The mine manager refused, which prompted the white miners to violently riot against both the black miners and their families, forcing them to flee to the nearby town of Princeton.
Events in the year 1966 in Belgium.
The Carterville Mine Riot was part of the turn-of-the-century Illinois coal wars in the United States. The national United Mine Workers of America coal strike of 1897 was officially settled for Illinois District 12 in January 1898, with the vast majority of operators accepting the union terms: thirty-six to forty cents per ton, an 8-hour day, and union recognition. However, several mine owners in Carterville, Virden, and Pana, refused or abrogated. They attempted to run with African-American strikebreakers from Alabama and Tennessee. At the same time, lynching and racial exclusion were increasingly practiced by local white mining communities. Racial segregation was enforced within and among UMWA-organized coal mines.