Labour Riot in Trinindad and Tobago Essay

Though sparked by the Rodney King verdict, there were many other causes of the riots that erupted on the streets of Los Angeles on April 29, 1992. The Los Angeles riots in 1992 were devastating. The obvious issue portrayed through the media was black versus white. If you did not live in Los Angeles or California chances are you did not hear full coverage of the story, you heard a simple cut and dry portrayal of the events in South Central. If you heard one thing about the riots, it was that there was a man named Rodney King and he was a black male beaten with excessive force by four white Los Angeles police officers on Los Angeles concrete. The media portrayed the riots as black rage on the streets due to the

Although many say that the bombing that caused the Haymarket Riot did not help the cause of the protestors, I claim that the bombing helped the eight hour work day movement by striking fear into the employers, which

In the first half of the 19th Century the working class in the newly industrializing American society suffered many forms of exploitation. The working class of the mid-nineteenth century, with constant oppression by the capitalist and by the division between class, race, and ethnicity, made it difficult to form solidarity. After years of oppression and exploitation by the ruling class, the working class struck back and briefly paralyzed American commerce. The strike, which only lasted a few weeks, was the spark needed to ignite a national revolt by the working class with the most violent labor upheavals of the century.

Revolution and radical change seem, to many, to be intrinsically linked to violence. But as proponents of pacifism such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez will tell you, nonviolence holds the true power. Revolution, in the opinion of both these civil rights leaders, should be peaceful. In Cesar Chavez’s article for a religious organization’s magazine, Chavez expresses these beliefs by arguing against the idea of a bloody, casualty-filled revolution. He masterfully develops his case against violent revolution by using the rhetorical devices of allusion, logical cause and effect, and powerful metaphor and language.

The Governor, Bruce King was well aware of the conditions and issues of the prison and warnings of a prison riot went disregarded.

The ensuing conflict, between labor vs. capital, during the late 1800s initiated a struggle of power in the workforce between the rich-industrialists (or corporate leaders) and the middle-class/lower-class workers. The Capitalists had intervened with the protests orchestrated by the workers, ensuring that the power remains with them. The strategies of the industrialists and the unique ways of protesting from the workers, contributes to spur a vigorous argument between the employers and their employees. The workers tried their best to ameliorate their working conditions by forming numerous unions, trying to fix currency (gold to paper) to economically help themselves, refusing to go to work, resorting to violence and non-violence, etc. However, the Corporate leaders kept an upper hand and dissolved the workers’ ambitions by hiring scabs, creating a strong relationship with the military (Pullman strike), controlling and fixing policies at work, hiring immigrants for cheap labor, etc. Throughout the late 1800s, the corporate leaders have been able to successfully prevent workers who had resorted to: forming unions, protests (ex. Pullman strike and Homestead strike), violence (ex. Haymarket Sq. Riot), etc., from achieving a radical solution to the workers issues with the management by using several different strategies including but not limited to: hiring scabs/immigrants in the Homestead strike, using government support in the Pullman strike and keeping the power on their side

The Working class that made up around 80% of society had little or no bargaining power with their employers resulting in the continuation of unfair working hours, bad wages, and unsanitary and hazardous working conditions. The workers could not even fight for their rights in the political system as only the rich were eligible to vote.

Through the past centuries many acts of rebellion have occurred. However not many have had such an impact compared to the L.A. riots of May of 1992. After the events that occurred on May of 1992 in Los Angeles, many things changed. The L.A. riots changed race relations between police and the people of Los Angeles for the coming years.

Anti-Semitism has been prevalent throughout the world since the establishment of the Jewish religion and unfortunately, traces of it can still be found to this day in the United States. What exactly is anti-Semitism? It is the intense dislike for and prejudice against the Jews; it can range anywhere from simple opposition to the Jews to vicious hatred displayed through physical torment. Some examples of the more publicized cases of violence against the Jews include the attack of Irish workers and police on the funeral procession of Rabbi Jacob Joseph in New York City in 1902, the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915, the assassination of Alan Berg in 1984, as well as the Crown Heights riots of 1991. I have

The Tolpuddle Martyrs are a significant case in showing the increased involvement of the public in speaking against the justice system. In 1834, members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers were transported under an outdated law that prohibited the taking of oaths, when they protested for a better wage. Perhaps what brought the most sympathy for the case was the fact that their protest was peaceful, despite the history of violent protest among workers with riots and groups such as the Luddites. The authorities were equally unsympathetic to this case as they were to the other, more violent movements. Even after public interest attracted an 800,000 signature petition, protesters were oppressed at a demonstration in Oldham. The public was aware of the struggles of the poor worker, but the government still dismissed it; refusing to recognise the desperate circumstance of workers and citing greed as the motive of the Martyrs. Clearly the case had little impact on government opinions, with the treatment of the Chartists and the Rebecca Rioters later in the same decade being the same. But an important contribution of the Tolpuddle Martyrs case was the impact it had on public opinion, and the increased popularity of worker’s unions. This case might suggest that reform is unrelated to the attitudes of society at

When we think about society there is often a stark contrast between the controversy projected in our media about the issues that our society faces and the mellow, safe view we have of our own smaller, more tangible ‘local’ society. This leads us to believe that our way of life is protected and our rights secured by that concept of society that has been fabricated and built upon during the course of our short lives. However, what if society were not what we perceive it to be, and the government chose to exercise its power in an oppressive manner? As a society we would like to think that we ourselves are above such cruelty, yet as The Lonely Crossing of Juan Cabrera recounts the state of Cuba in the 1990’s so must we remember that all societies and governments view the individual differently as opposed to the whole. Each group has unique expectations that are enforced upon the individual goes beyond those expectations. The individual can very quickly find their rose glasses view of their society cracking before their very eyes as the reality of taking such a rise comes into view.

In the aftermath of the riot there were three major outcomes. One, the McCone Commission was set up by the government to study the riots. The McCone Commission found that people rioted because of unemployment, bad schools and education, and prior instances of police brutality (www.southcentralhistory.com). A second outcome following was an independent commission, chaired by former Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner, that investigated the causes of the rioting. The Kerner Commission issued its landmark report in 1968, concluding: "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal" (www.cnn.com). Another major outcome was the creation of SWAT teams. They were created with the vision of three police officers: Officer Nelson, who originally came up with the concept of a specially equipped and highly trained unit, Inspector Gates, who spear headed the push to make it happen and Ed Davis had the foresight to approve the program. The term SWAT was coined by Gates and originally stood for

A 'riot' is commonly defined as a disorderly behaviour, which often involve violence and the destruction of property (Andrews, 2014, p. 292). Riots can be viewed from a Conservative point of view and from a Radical point of view. Conservatism and Radicalism are both political ideologies. Although ideologies are 'explanatory frameworks that help to make sense of society' (Andrews, 2014, p. 306), conservatism and radicalism contrast in many ways. Conservatism is associated with wisdom, limited politics, and natural hierarchy, legitimising the existing order. Radicalism is linked to progress, universal rights and popular sovereignty, suggesting alternative to the existing order (The Open University, 2016b).

Although unsuccessful, this type of forced riot exemplifies the Westerners having a vendetta against the migrators and trying to interfere with their life to force them out of their homeland. An additional example is the issue of weighing cotton for pay; owners fixed the scales to avoid paying workers the correct amount. At the end of the day, people need money to eat and provide for their families and those with the most money have the easiest time surviving. The message taken from this is that, in order to survive, these people had to fight and outsmart each other in human versus human type interactions; may the best man win.

Start of the twentieth century it seemed like El Salvador finally establishes a viable government and began building an economy (Background, 2012). Then, the economic crisis of the 1930s occurs and the international markets plummeted and so did El Salvador. Externally, El Salvador was not a huge contender in global markets, but internally the social, political and economic environment in El Salvador was becoming tense and in 1932 the peasant workers in the rural countryside raised up against the land elites (Benavides, 2008). The