Imagining Resistance: Organizing the Puerto Rican Southern Agricultural Strike of 1905

Abstract

In the months of March, April, and May of 1905, agricultural workers in the Southern district of Puerto Rico organized a strike that counted with the participation of more than 20,000 individuals that demanded the abolition of child labor, a raise in salaries, and a nine-hour workday. Instead of analyzing the events that took place during the strike, I pay attention to the projects and individuals that created its condition. It was after months of grassroots organizing by anonymous workers and labor unions that the leadership of the Federación Libre de Trabajadores (FLT), the most important labor organization in Puerto Rico, decided to take part in the strike effort. My research looks at the role played by night schools and mítines (public meetings) in the process of imagining and organizing the strike. This is done through the lens of the Unión Obrera Federada Local 9874 (UOF), a labor organization never previously tapped by historians. By tracing their activities documented in the labor press I demonstrate how the strike was neither spontaneous nor linear, and how the FLT was not a monolithic institution as it depended on the work of local unions and affiliated members.